ONCE upon a time, the ultimate image of British grit in the face of one of our awful summers was the mackintosh-clad family staggering along a rain-lashed seafront.

These days, I tend to think that the best and worst of our national psyche manifests itself during a barbecue, invariably an exercise in hopelessness conducted by the useless. The problem is men. Women have been brainwashed into thinking that they’re no good at getting fires going and so leave well alone. However, men immediately slip into hunter-gatherer mode and start strutting about in shorts clutching a can while pouring litres of fuel on to smouldering ashes.

The resulting inferno then produces cremated sausages, black on the outside and raw to salmonella proportions on the inside. Any mackerel in the vicinity will be marinaded in a barbecue sauce called petrol.

My advice is this. Get the barbecue lit well before the guests arrive. The food will be great, and when the temperature drops, everyone will keep cosy by the red-hot embers.