Comfydown Cottage

Address withheld

Carryduff

Belfast

Met Office

FitzRoy Road

Exeter

Devon

EX1 3PB

26/5/06

Dear Met Office,

I was speaking to my neighbour’s friend ‘Walter Peek’ about your 5-day weather forecast the other day.  To be more specific we were discussing your forecast accuracy.  Walter was most rude about it but I was able to recall a day that it was correct (yes, even after all these years).  Walter, however, stated that he never trusted the Met Office.  He swears you pick the weather out of a bag the way the FA cup draw is made e.g.  ‘Tomorrow will be (feel around in bag) cold and (feel around in bag again) windy and the temperature will be (switch on bingo caller’s machine) 15’.  He also states you are far too fond of the term ‘scattered showers’.  He says that’s about as vague as you can get.  I’m sure you have to bite your lip when using that one.  I mean as long as it rains anywhere you are right, yes?

Anyhow, Walter said that whenever he really needed an accurate forecast he always contacted an old elderly lady high in the Mourne Mountains.  She apparently can give him a highly accurate forecast just by observing her sleeping cat.  She even predicted the 1987 hurricane that your Michael Fish couldn’t.  Well, here’s the whole point of me writing to you.  This old hag’s cat will be having kittens shortly and I thought you might be interested in buying one of them?  Please let me know.  I can get one for £15.  That might seem a bit steep but I’m sure you spend more than that on your weather stations and satellites etc which you can now dispense of.

On another subject- my wife Gloria (I’m her husband) is always whingeing about your rain symbols.  She says it’s so hard to guess where the drop is going to land.

Would it be possible to mention our house in one of your forecasts just to shut her up?

Yours Faithfully,

John J Marley

MET OFFICE REPLY