THE weather – source of endless fascination, conversation, irritation and (just recently) excess irrigation. I’m endlessly fascinated with the weather, and will confess to making sure I catch the BBC’s national updates whenever possible.

Delivered by actual Met Office personnel, their job entails a tricky mix of waving your hands about a bit, explaining about warm fronts without smirking, and trying not to look too pleased whilst mentioning gales force winds and torrential rain.

Or stand in front of Cornwall.

Each has their own presenting style, but there is one who intrigues me above all the others.

Step forward, Tomasz Schafernaker, the 37-year-old man from the Met who breezed on to our screens in 2001, as the youngest male ever to point out that it was going to rain tomorrow to the BBC’s viewers, who were probably hoping for sun so they could cut the grass.

What’s fascinating about The Schaf is that, at the start of every forecast, he seems to be in a state of perpetual motion.

What’s he been up to? Look him up on YouTube – every time the camera cuts to him, he appears to be finishing up a bout of on-the-spot jogging, or possibly a game of ping pong.

Maybe they’ve made him hang around a lot and his leg has gone to sleep, and he’s just trying to get the circulation going.

Nervous tension, perhaps? No-one likes to be the one to say the cricket at Lords will get rained off.

Particularly hot floor in the studio? Underpants too tight?

Some kind of medical condition unique to meteorologists that causes random movements? Maybe he’s allergic to maps?

I like to imagine that, just prior to whichever news presenter with perfectly arranged hair passes over to him, he’s throwing down some incredible dance moves, stopping only when the words “Here’s Tomasz with the weather” echo through his earpiece.

The after effects of getting on down show up on the screen, in the same way that you can’t just stop running instantly – inertia, and funky moves, linger.

Whatever the cause, the effect is amusement. Which is more than can be said about the weather.

Like many of you, I was saddened to hear on Monday that David Bowie had passed away.

As I was blundering into my teenage years, music was a source of huge excitement and pleasure for me, and I can still remember being gobsmacked by the video for Ashes To Ashes on Top Of The Pops .

As I became more knowledgeable, I realised what an incredible body of work his music was, and continued to enjoy his ever-changing musical, and personal, styles.

The man may be gone, but those songs will live, and shine, on.

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.