Rains dash UK's hopes that their Isles would become California

Rain has proved to be a dampener for many countries in recent weeks but nowhere more so than the UK.

For the past few years, many Britons had been secretly rejoicing over the idea that imminent global warming would turn their grey and wet isles into something akin to salubrious Florida, complete with poolside barbecues.

The near-washout of the Champions Trophy, however, brought a very disquieting notion to the fore: that summer is more likely to be drizzling rather than sizzling, at least for the next decade.

While diehards may rejoice that the reign of umbrellas and wellingtons will prevail, the prospect of Caledonia eventually becoming California is receding.

As vineyards had already come up in southern England, olive groves were eagerly anticipated. So was the idea of getting sunburned in Brighton instead of taking crowded cheap flights to the less-known spots along the Adriatic.

Foreign sun-seekers giving Britain's ailing resort towns a fillip, tomatoes on the vine and lemon trees in backyards were also tempting prospective benefits of the greenhouse effect, never mind if malaria and dengue also thrived alongside, as has happened in Greece and Croatia already.

Even if summer cannot get hotter, winter could get colder, so Britain could always aim to be Switzerland instead.