Weather report
Mrs. Werbenmanjensen pointed me to this passage in Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island," which documents Bryson's valedictory tour of Great Britain.
I like it so much that it's now in our masthead. "Dry and warm, but cooler with some rain."
I have a small, tattered clipping that I sometimes carry with me and pull out for purposes of private amusement. It's a weather forecast from the Western Daily Mail, and it says, in toto, "Outlook: Dry and warm, but cooler with some rain."
There you have in a single pithy sentence the English weather captured to perfection: dry but rainy with some warm/cool spells. The Western Daily Mail could run that forecast every day--for all I know, it may--and scarcely ever be wrong.
I like it so much that it's now in our masthead. "Dry and warm, but cooler with some rain."
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 12:18 PM
6 Comments:
And, it moves from dry and warm to cooler with some rain within seconds!
Good ol' Bill... My husband has been reading all his stuff, but we have yet to get that one. It will have to be next on the list!
Oh, I adore Bill Bryson. His book Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way is one of my all-time favorites. But I've enjoyed every single BB book I've read, and that's quite a few of them. He combines two of the loves of my life (English grammar and usage, and all things English), and his sense of humor would knock the paint off a barn.
Aussie Sarah, I assume you've read the one about Australia! Bryson's description of all of the highly poisonous animals in Australia made me leery of going there!
The BBC weather forecasts were a never-ending source of hilarity for my sister and me, the last time we were in London. "Well, it looks as if we'll have a bright morning in London today, except for some rainy periods..." See you there soon.
OK- yes, that was my first BB! I especially thought about them as I was in and around the great barrier reef!! I made sure not to touch anything!!
Post a Comment
<< Home