Weather talk: Is there a way to make it interesting?

The rain-lashed Jubilee weekend provoked a torrent of weather talk. But how can this most British of conversations be made interesting?

There's only one thing more British than talking about the weather. Apologising for doing it.

Samuel Johnson, the poet and lexicographer, said in 1758: "When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather." And 250 years later surveys suggest it is still regarded as the most British of traits.

The UK is often said to be blessed with "a lot of weather" unlike places with a fixed climate or predictable seasons. In 1858, The Water-Babies author Charles Kingsley wrote: "Tis the hard grey weather breeds hard English men."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18296086