It is cold. It is wet. Tim Henman has vanished for another year, and I cannot stop bloody sneezing. Yes, British summertime is here again. As the heat wave fails to appear and the rain keeps coming down, it is time to admit that we have to make our own fun indoors.

So, in a last ditch attempt to make the best of the weather, here are ten reasons to love the traditional British summer.

1. Cage

You are stuck in an office for more than eight hours a day. Would this experience really be more pleasurable if the outside world resembled the set of Baywatch?

2. Save

While it rains, you have no need to acquire a whole new wardrobe to show off just how pale your legs are.

3. Kerbs

Remember how annoying it is when you find yourself in the middle of Majorca's unexpected rainy season, only to discover that it is 35C in Britain and an entire pavement cafe culture has promptly sprung up in your absence?

4. Health

In the rain, you can catch a cold; in the sun, you can get skin cancer – your call.

5. Comfort

Just consider how unpleasant it will be when, in the stifling humidity, your head becomes jammed into a stranger's armpit for 45 minutes every time you use public transport.

6. Cook

You drive to work? Fantastic. Two hours a day stuck in a greenhouse slowly filling with carbon monoxide. You might as well commute by microwave.

7. Grass

So you have a garden where you can enjoy the sunshine. Terrific! A summer spent pulling up weeds and trying to extract the kids' Playmobil from the blades of the lawnmower. Whoopee.

8. Cubes

Cold weather means there is no need to order iced coffee, and suffer the pain of feeling like a pretentious prat every time you need a caffeine hit.

9. Farmers

Last year, we had a real summer: sweltering heat, glorious sunshine, Hyde Park festooned with semi-clad bodies. But, while Britain smugly congratulated itself on a new record temperature – 38.1C in sunny Gravesend on 10 August, should you have a time machine to hand – European agriculture lost an estimated $10bn in revenue.

What is worse, analysts believe more than 20,000 people across the continent died from the heat. Personally, I would rather have a few clouds.

10. Misery

Songs about good weather suck. Who would pick The Beatles' mindlessly cheery Good Day Sunshine over their psychedelic masterpiece Rain? Mungo Jerry's lyrically challenged In the Summertime – Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh – over Dylan's deeply poetic ode to nuclear holocaust A Hard Rain's A Gonna-Fall? Happy-clappy sun-kissed rubbish The Sun Has Got His Hat On over the operatic Phil-Daniels-driving-his-moped-over-a-cliff majesty of The Who's Love Reign O'er Me? Someone with no soul, that's who.

Now, where is my Morrissey album?