I put down the phone and gazed at the teeming skies. I considered my options. Maybe it was time for prayer. Perhaps we could stage a pagan ritual at Stonehenge, involving either the sacrifice of maidens (if there are any these days), or a goat, or a rabbit, or maybe just a worm — whatever the RSPCA would allow.

Maybe it was time to call upon the sun god Ra, or Phoebus Apollo, or Sol Victrix, or whatever name he now goes by, and lift our hands in chanting entreaty. Come on, O thou fiery spirit that animates the world. Come on out from wherever you are hiding. Shine the light of your countenance upon us, you miserable blighter. Extend thy beams, so reverend and strong, and dry the water from our upturned cheeks. Flatter the mountain tops with your sovereign eye, vaporise the thunderheads, and give us all a break.

Give us poor Britons some kind of a summer – before the entire country dissolves like a sugar cube and sinks into the sea. If you think July has been wet so far, you should hear the forecast I have just been given. In fact, I am about to pass on the news, but before I do so I want you to know (a) that I flatly refuse to believe it and (b) that even if it turns out to be true, then I know that it will make not a bean of difference to our collective morale or to the global festival of sport that we are about to lay on in London.