"God is an Englishman"

It's funny experiencing British Summer Time abroad. Whenever I deep my toe in, I realize how out of it I am. An Indian friend of mine tells me that England won The Ashes:
"It's no big deal - Bangladesh beat the Ozzies too."
Or take this weekend. I phone my parents:
"We'll call you back - the Brit's about to be out of Wimbledon"
"Who? Tim Henman?"
"No!!! Andrew Murray!"
"Who?!!"
"Look, it's 5/1 - I'll call you back."
Head to Guardian Artsblog to check consistency of mud at Glastonbury.
Am called back. Discuss biblical-scale destruction of camp sites.
Mum: "You see - God hates Glastonbury."
My email afterthought: "Does that mean God hates Wimbledon too?"
Later, from Dad: "'God is an Englishman' (RF Delderfield) therefore hates Wimbledon because we never win there! Also check photo on bbc.co.uk - we think it's Tim!"
It's true! Here: middle distance shot of The Boy loping across sodden festival field.
And now today the news that Richard Whitely has died. Feel a nostalgic longing to see Countdown again - as much a British institution as any of the above fixtures. Folk in Leeds used to refer to the Yorkshire Television studios as Richard Whitely's Caravan - perhaps such a thing ought to be set up at future Glasto's in memory a la The John Peel Stage. Seriously though, there are just some people you assume will go on forever, wearing ridiculous suit/tie combo's and cracking gently terrible jokes. In all honesty, I worry about the legions of lonely grannies sitting bereft on weekday afternoons, notebooks and pens still in hands but with no Countdown to orient their days around. And lest we forget the legions of students clustered cultishly and - they claimed - ironically infront of TV sets across the land. I say "claimed" because I have a particular memory of Ali flying into a rage over what he percieved to be a totally unfair Conundrum question. Ahh, RIP.
All this makes me feel that maybe I'm just some kind of traditionalist after all. Considering looking for some Pimms.