"Wettest since records began"

It's official. Since the British began keeping detailed meteorological records nearly a quarter of a millennium ago, there has not been such a wet summer. It's thoroughly miserable. We were about to go out for a late-afternoon stroll, all equipped in wet-weather gear, when the heavens opened and we had to turn back. I am reminded of the words of a white Rhodesian farmer at Heathrow, fleeing Mugabe's regime: "Miserable grey little island - I cannot live without sun or servants".