DO you want the good news or the bad news first?

Okay, then. This summer is mainly going to be a stinker, according to independent long-term forecast experts Positive Weather Solutions.

June will have heavy rain, thunder storms and flash flooding and rain will continue through July in the North of England. Mind you, August might have some hot days if you haven’t been washed away by then.

The Meteorological Office, meanwhile, refuses to give a long term forecast because they have been wrong before. Remember the promise of a barbecue summer? They say it is too difficult to predict what will happen in three months time, never mind four or five months.

Which brings us to the good news.

It doesn’t really matter what the weather men say, because the end of the world is due to begin on May 21. If we are to believe Harold Egbert Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, the Second Coming of the Lord will happen on that day.

At 6pm (Pacific Standard Time), which will be two o’clock in the morning here, he estimates that two percent of the world’s population will be “raptured” into Heaven.

Everybody else may go to hell. Or have to stick around for a rotten summer until God finally snuffs out the world’s existence on October 21.