When lost for something to talk about, bring up the weather

Met Office spokesman John Hammond said Oxfordshire had endured the worst summer on record.

There was 298.8mm of rainfall by the end of July and the nearest comparable figure to that was in 1960 when 266.3mm was recorded. Oxfordshire is normally one of the drier counties and this kind of rainfall only occurs every 200 years. Most of the rain fell in July, but the west of the county was considerably harder hit than the east with precipitation in Brize Norton recorded at 27.6mm on July 19 - but 100.2mm on July 20.

Yes, all too obvious to us in the rural north of the county - flooded house, trees falling down in the garden, and the money pit that is our swimming pool sliding towards primordial soup with disinterest.

The bit which made me laugh was the coda:

Mr Hammond said the forecast for September would be drier by comparison.

It would be so tempting to append to the quote "he added, matter-of-factly, or ...insipidly, drolly, or even acerbically... anything but ...dryly."