If the British weather can be compared to an opera, we've just had the two main themes for winter. It was a bit rainy for a while, but now it's gone a bit cold. For light relief it will be a bit snowy, and everyone will carry on like it was the Ride of the Valkyries. After a while spring will come, and it will be tepid, with occasional freshness. Summers can be a bit hot sometimes, in the middle of the day, and there may be bees. That's the weather forecast for the year, and it's always right.

Aren't you glad I abandoned the Wagnerian metaphor? It seemed only fair. You'd already had the Ride of the Valkyries, and it would have been cruel to make you sit through the rest.

In the States, meanwhile, they have an actual climate. I hadn't realised, but their seasons are like Russia's. October and November are the rainy season, and the Monday night American football game came live from a swamp for a few weeks. Now the permafrost has settled, and the Internet is full of pictures of Yanks in the snow and ice.

It doesn't faze them. The Russian mud stopped the Wehrmacht in their panzer tracks, but the Pittsburgh mud had no discernible effect on the Steelers, who just ran right through it. Now the snow is settling from Seattle to Nantucket, as it's settled from Smolensk to Vladivostok, and they all carry on as if it was perfectly normal. It's about time it snowed, say all the blogs, before returning to the business at hand.

We, on the other hand, regard any climatic interference in the even tenor of our lives as a personal affront. I know I do. If it starts raining when I'm nearly home, I will very regularly raise my eyes to the heavens and cry You couldn't wait another five minutes, could you? as if the elements were conspiring against me personally. My opinions are secular humanist, but my whole being is suffused with animism. I am ashamed of my atavistic magical habits, yet after all these years of trying but failing to banish it from my mind I have become resigned. What ya gonna do? Insh'allah, or something.