What on earth is going on with the weather? For some time now all the so-called “experts” have been wittering on about global warming, the melting of the Polar icecaps and the risk of us all suffering from skin cancer due to all the cancerous rays from the sun reaching us through the holes in the ozone layer.

And what have we actually experienced in the weather? Well, in Britain we’ve had two summers which have been cold and wet. Exceptionally wet when one considers the summer that we never had this year. It was as cold and damp as our usual autumn. Last winter (2007/8) wasn’t too bad, I suppose although I say this as someone who lives in East Anglia. Scotland and the North had a bad winter for weather, although it meant the resurgence of winter sports holidays in Scotland which became great popularity and lots of snow and skiing for the first time for some years.

And what has brought on my moans about the weather? This lunchtime’s weather forecast where we were told that today we are seeing the weather we normally don’t see here until the end of December/beginning of January – snow showers not only in Scotland but in many other areas in the North and the Midlands and freezing weather everywhere with temperatures only a few degrees above zero.

Global warming? Ha!

But seriously, are the “experts” who are predicting global warming talking the news media into a panic? Or are the news media currently trying to persuade us all that we are all doomed? I’ve been convinced for some time that the current “Credit Crunch” would not be half as bad if the TV and Newspapers haven’t told us for months now how the world is on the edge of a financial precipice and we are all doomed. No wonder so many have heeded what they have seen or read and given into panics on the price of shares and all the other mysterious financial things that make up the International money markets today.

Another example of believing in so-called “experts”. In today’s edition of The Times there is a half page article which starts by saying that the huge flocks of Beswick’s Swans which normally arrive at the Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust by 21st October have yet to arrive, preferring to stay on the Siberian tundra. The experts say that this is because the Arctic is so warm that the swans are happy to stay put and not attempt the journey to the Gloucestershire wetlands. The experts also say that there is a risk that the swans will lose their collective memory of their journey to the British wetland and may never return here again. But then, if you continue to read on past the first couple of paragraphs in the article you discover that past records of the swan’s arrival show that they do not necessarily arrive on 21st October: in 1969 they arrived on November 6th; and in 1981 and 1982 they arrived on November 3rd. So, my interpretation of the article is that someone –whether “experts” or the newspaper, I don’t know – is trying to whip us up into a frenzy of panic about global warming. I don’t think I am going to be immediately frightened though. I think I shall wait for another couple of weeks before deciding that some swans have decided not to join us here in Britain this year. And another couple of years thereafter to see whether the swans will come next year or the year after.

What I won’t do is to shout we are all doomed on the basis of supposition from so-called “experts”.