Oh yes it does, but for some reason various acquaintances of mine have been expressing both shock and displeasure at the fact that we, in sunny Malta, have experienced a few unseasonable downpours of late. A friend of my wife's actually took the trouble to telephone the Met Office to complain about: "The inconsistency of the recent weather." As though the Met Office could do anything to counteract the afore-mentioned precipitation.

And who said rain in August was impossible anyway? I can recall at least two other occasions in comparatively recent history when the sky darkened and the heavens opened during the month of the multiple Santa Maria feasts. Once I remember driving through Mosta, after an unscheduled downpour, to see all the festa decorations sopping wet and bedraggled.

Of course this latest soaking will be seen in some quarters as further evidence of global warming - and they may very well be right. But then I ask why the phenomenon isn't called global warming and wetting? It seems to me the logical thing to do.

In the wake of that recent deluge, comparisons are being, in my view, erroneously made with the great storm of 1979. Back then people actually lost their lives as a result of the torrential rain, when flooding on a grand scale was the order of the day. As I recall the downpour only lasted an hour or so, but I remember seeing fields disappear under the flood. At work we even had to move upstairs because the ground floor area was chest deep in water. 

Under normal circumstances we are actually very lucky with our weather; extremes of which are not normal. An old friend who lives in South West Wales in the UK emailed me the other day to inform me that the powers-that-be had unbelievably instituted a hosepipe ban, forbidding anyone from watering their gardens in his area from 19 August. He explained that this summer had been pretty par for the course in his neck of the woods: that is fairly persistent light rain interspersed with occasional heavier showers. And... the hosepipe ban was due to come in on a day when yet more rain was forecast.

He did admit that they had been experiencing very hot and dry weather conditions for the past three days, but these were scheduled to be washed away within 24 hours, so the hosepipe ban did seem somewhat superfluous.

During the winter of 1986-87 we did see some rather unusual weather, we actually saw snow. No, not hail... not sleet, but real flakes of snow. Admittedly not enough of the stuff fell to provide us with a winter wonderland scenario, but snow it was nonetheless. A small bank of the stuff even piled up in one corner of my garden, I photographed it to show to any doubters at a later date. And that was an unusual weather phenomenon... very unusual.

And now for something completely different:

I don't know about you but I was not really shocked to hear about the stabbing of the novelist Salman Rushdie last week. I'm glad the would-be assassin didn't succeed, but I well remember the chilling words of Ajatollah Khomeini, some 30 odd years ago, soon after he issued his fatwa against the British/Indian writer. Upon hearing that Rushdie had gone into hiding, Khomeini declared: "Let him, one thing however is certain. He won't die in his bed." I do so hope Sir Salman makes a full and complete recovery.