On Weather

Dear All

As newly appointed Assistant Junior Minister for Climate Change (with particular responsibility for local weather) I would like to set out some of the initiatives we've been discussing down here at the ministry over hot milk and chocolate biscuits. Our mantra is 'Tough on climate, tough on the causes of climate.'

Having consigned global warming to the wicker receptacle marked 'excessive difficulty', a radical new approach is in the offing (or on the iffing if you will). The government will now focus on local weather, where it is felt change can be affected, if not effected. To this end, we will be introducing the following strategies in order to procure a positive outlook going forward with respect to the weather.

1. Those benefiting from warm to hot weather e.g. ice cream salespeople, vendors of visors bearing the names of local hardware stores and poikilotherms, will be required to pay a set charge for every degree over 25 degrees Celsius.

2. A royalty will be charged every time someone says,' Hot enough for you?', 'Geez, it's hot as hell today.', 'It's not the heat it's the humidity.' ,'Cor blimey, it's hot enough to cook a (insert name of foodstuff here) on the (insert name of flattish surface not normally employed in a culinary capacity)' or any similar invocation of the bleedingly obvious.

3. Anyone using a mobile phone during a film screening will be horsewhipped. This will have no effect on climate change, it just shits me off.

4. In midsummer, public servants will be paid to don Eskimo gear and walk down the street. They will walk up to members of the public and say, 'Brrr. Howdy stranger. Have you seen my husky?'

5. Weather systems not officially authorised to enter the country (including cold fronts, warm fronts, isobars and unseasonably freakish sleet) will be diverted to territories outside the Commonwealth of Australia where they will be processed in our own good time. We will decide what kind of weather comes to our country and under what circumstances. To this end, the Navy will patrol our northern waters armed with the latest in rather large thermonuclear umbrellas.

Should these strategies fail to have the desired effect, I will retreat to my igloo on the coast, turn up the air-con and re-read Dr Zhivago.

Thank you for your time.