AFTER five days of disciplined self-control Britain finally gave in last night and blamed the Met Office for volcanoes.
Across the country vaguely annoyed people found themselves rolling their eyes at the very mention of the Met Office before launching into a hellish 20 minute monologue about why it has always been rubbish when it comes to magma.
Meanwhile a Facebook campaign has been launched demanding an inquiry into why it took so long to blame the national weather forecaster as Twitter users exchanged ideas on the best way to kill and cook Philip Avery.
Roy Hobbs, a television viewer from Peterborough, said: "If something is happening in the space above my head then surely that's the responsibility of the Met Office. And if not then I honestly don't know what the Met Office is for. I really don't."
He added: "Last summer my neighbour put a small amount of petrol on his barbecue causing some black smoke to drift across into my garden. I immediately phoned the Met Office and asked them what the hell they were playing at, but after spending an hour and 45 minutes trying to explain to me in a calm and reasonable manner that barbecue smoke was not within their remit, they eventually told me to just fuck off. That's the sort of people we're dealing with."
A Met Office spokesman said last night: "I genuinely hope that you all die."
But NATS, the air traffic control service, defended the the Met Office and released a film of a fully laden passenger jet plummeting from the sky and crashing into the ground in a massive fireball.
NATS deputy director, Tom Logan, said: "It's really a question of how many of these you're willing to put up with. If it's 40 or 50, then that's fine. We'll crack on."
Meanwhile council workers in Kent are still scraping off tourists who slammed into the White Cliffs yesterday after being fired across the channel from Calais.
The coastguard confirmed the search had been called off for most of the human cannonballs, though one family from Hastings complained there was a barely-conscious fat man stuck half way through their kitchen window clutching an amazingly cheap bottle of wine.
But one tourist had an unlucky end to his cross-channel flight. Bill McKay was coming into land at the Sainsbury's car park in Folkestone when two delivery men crossed his path carrying a trampoline.
Mr McKay ricocheted off the device in the direction of Portsmouth where a second pair of trampoline delivery men sent him hurtling towards Swindon where he then landed in the yard of an air bed factory before bouncing over a fence and into the path of the 12.45 from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads.
His friend Julian Cook said: "Bill lived in Wantage, so he was actually getting closer with each bounce. What a shame."
