1361 was a record year for the poor weathermen

So when did records begin? At some point someone must have said: “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to write down when we had the wettest March or the hottest second Thursday in June.” Usually this date is given as 1659, when the Central England Temperature record was set up, but I’m sure it was earlier than that. After all, this country is fixated by records and addicted to superlatives. I actually believe the game of cricket was invented simply to appease statisticians who were threatening bloody revolution.

Detailed weather statistics were surely being compiled in the Middle Ages. Monks laboured over illuminated manuscripts recording rainfall and thickness of fog and level of stench. In the early days, centuries before Celsius and Fahrenheit, temperatures were given in units of steaming dunghills, baker’s ovens and torturers’ red hot pokers. A steaming dunghill was equivalent to about 30F, a baker’s oven was about 80F and a red-hot poker roughly 100F. There was huge controversy when Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales first appeared. The Prologue, you will remember, begins “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote.” Thousands of enraged medieval meteorologists rose up and pointed out that the latest Aprille had actually been the driest since records beganne. A weather forecaster in those days led a perilous life. If his bulletin said that showery rain in Devon would spread eastwards to Norwich, he would have to leap on a horse and gallop to Norwich to warn the people before the rain actually arrived. On his journey he would see bodies hanging from gi gibbets at crossroads and these were usually of forecasters who had made inaccurate predictions. We can actually tell that the weather in 1361 was particularly changeable because 632 weather forecasters were hanged in that year. Someone kept a record, of course.

Many of us will be dismayed at the downfall of the daily aspirin. For years this little pill has represented our 75 milligrams of virtue. While the rest of our lifestyle might make the Government’s chief medical officer wince, the aspirin showed we were doing our bit to keep the body ticking over and staving off heart attacks.

Now we are told that taking it every day can lead to internal bleeding of the stomach, particularly for those of us over 75. What are we to do? Where can we turn for our fleeting moment of worthiness every morning? A vitamin pill? Surely that will get its comeuppance soon. A cod liver oil capsule? Probably lethal. Do they still make that disgusting Radio Malt we used to take at primary school?

Perhaps a daily placebo would do the trick. I wonder if we can get them over the counter in Boots. It means that we will be asked that inevitable and infuriating question. Yes, of course we’re taking other medications. We wouldn’t be still standing here without the aid of a fistful of pills.

We will have to find other sources for our placebos, down the poky side streets of the internet or from someone who knows someone. Then it will be discovered that they have undesirable side-effects, such as moments of uncalled-for optimism.

At last! Some exciting news about robots. Researchers at the Pentagon plan to teach them some manners. The US Defense Department is funding a study to address concerns about their behaviour, social skills and ethics. So, as well as artificial intelligence, there will be artificial etiquette.

I like to think that soon, if a robot, moving a heavy load in a warehouse, happens to encounter the elder daughter of an earl it will know exactly how to address her. And it will make an ideal best man at a wedding, knowing all about toasting the bridesmaids, dancing with the maid of honour and being gallant to the bride’s mother.

This robot will be programmed with tact. It will discreetly draw you aside, take you for a drink in the pub round the corner and break the news to you that it is taking over your job. It will probably then arrange the whip-round for your leaving present.

Robots will also be unfailingly polite to each other, raising their circuit boards as they pass in the corridor. All very charming, but dangerous. A fatal impasse may occur when two polite robots, both on urgent business for British Airways, meet at some revolving doors. “After you,” says number one with a stately robot bow. “No, I absolutely insist,” says robot two.