It’s a veritable smorgasbord. Sun. Rain. Thunder. Hail. Snow. Cold. Wind. Not worth going to work really.

This post is coming soon, yo. Soon, meaning “when I am not falling asleep on the keyboard.” It’s here now.

Last week, Newsnight decided to replace its nightly market reports with a weather bulletin. Not a hugely important change, you might think. Well, it appears that the viewers of Newsnight think otherwise.

In a text message poll, viewers voted resoundingly for “the ten seconds of ineffable tedium that is The Markets.”

If you watch Jeremy Paxman’s weather reports, I think you’ll agree that he isn’t particularly fond of this new part of his job. After all, a weather summary consisting of

Eastern parts will mainly avoid the rain except for those that don’t, and there’ll be bright or sunny intervals. Western areas will be cloudy with rain, except in those areas that don’t have rain. Temperatures will be near normal.

isn’t necessarily that helpful…

To be fair, he did warn that his forecast would be “shorn of the usual folksy nonsense about clouds bubbling up and advice about wearing wooly socks”. That it certainly is.

The second forecast easily topped the first:

Take an umbrella with you tomorrow.

Anyway, watch his weather forecasts (he only does three – Gavin Esler is rubbish on the last two) – and then ask yourself whether you would rather watch The Markets or The Weather.

As Mr P himself says,

… a weather summary seemed such an obvious thing with which to replace [The Markets]. Of course, anyone who has a pension or a mortgage is affected by the way the markets work. But on a day-to-day basis there’s damn all we can do about them. But we all need to know whether to take an umbrella or whether there’s a danger of being exposed to Boris Johnson’s legs.