No 3661 Set by John Crick

Roy Hattersley wrote: "Rain was and is part of our life. Part of being British. To treat it like an enemy is to reject one of the great influences on history and character." We asked for patriotic tributes or historical texts on this formative influence.

Report by Ms de Meaner

This week, we have the annual Top 20, where you find out how closely your score approached that of the Great God Bellenger. All positions are in the computer, and some of you may be pleasantly surprised to find out that you were, say, 28th in 1998. (As a special treat, I've put in a footnote about numbers 23-25.) Well done everybody; especially well done, Bellenger, Adrian Fry (maybe next year?), D A Prince (back on form), John O'Byrne and Ian Birchall. Welcome to Andrew Wilcox, Keith Mason, J Seery, Sara Williams and Robert Ireland. Welcome back Peter Lyon, Geoff Thurman, Connie Yapp, R J Pickles and Keith Norman. This week, the winners can have £20. Hon menshes to Ian Birchall, John O'Byrne, Adrian Fry, Barbara Daniels and D A Prince. The vouchers go to David Silverman.

Roy "Mad" Hattersley and I clung desperately to the chimney stack of the Marshbog Labour Club, watching the flood waters lapping about the eaves and shouting encouragement to the club secretary, who stood tall and proud on his upturned desk as a strong current carried him toward downtown Rotherham. Hattersley's WEA talk 'A Paean to Peeing-it-down: is ante-diluvialism outmoded?' had been cruelly interrupted by the rising waters, but now that we were marooned on the roof, I was eager to hear the conclusion.

"Tell me more," I shouted, through the continuing deluge of bullet-sized raindrops. "It's like this," he yelled back. "We British were born under a cloud. 'Long to rain over us.' We are the nation of Macintosh and Wellington. Together we can create a more absorbent nation . . . "

Regrettably, the rest was lost as the roof gave way and Roy plummeted into the waters below.

"Wet rot," I concluded.

Peter Reeve

This dripping throne of Kings, this soaking isle,

This earth of deluges, this swampy pit,

This other flood trap, demi-saturate,

This privy built by nature for herself

Her own urinal, where to have a pee;

This sodden breed of men, this murky mire,

This gale-swept mud set in a heaving sea

Which serves it in the office of a bog

Where run the foul excretions of a house,

While rings the laughter of much sunnier lands;

This soggy plot, this sink, this rain, this England . . .

Michael Cregan

To those island-hopping through the English Dodecanese, it may come as a surprise that back in the 21st century, in the Early Rain Age, these beautiful island paradises were joined into one land. Archaeologists and anthropologists have dredged up artefacts and early writing confirming that the cultures in the Northern Islands and that of the more civilised South may have common antediluvian origins. There is evidence that spoken and even written language may have spread to the North - mostly in the form of short staccato utterances used primarily for oaths or the satisfaction of basic needs. It is unlikely that Southerners would have ventured across the seas in boats any further than, say, the Isles of Malvern or Cotswold. The Isle of Wolverhampton bears no sign of civilisation at any period in history - and yet, intriguingly, fragments of garments using the same red dye and bearing the inscription "Beckham" have been found as far apart as Manchester and Surrey. It is thought "Beckham" (literally "river home") may have been a 21st-century Rain God or Noah figure, whose wife Victoria was turned into a waterfall by the angry God Alex.

David Silverman

3664 Set by George Cowley

Inspired by Hywel Williams (25 December), we want definitions of "a gentleman". 150 words max by 25 January.

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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