ByTheSea.SBy the Sea. (This one is for the folks at the Met Office and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.) I have a dream. I’m sitting by the sea, listening to the shipping forecast, musing dark musings and watching time trolling past, when a colossal and kindly sea serpent called Teresina, like my maternal grandmother, pops out of the primeval depths and makes me an offer I can’t refuse. PS. The two little apprentices accompanying the sea serpent are a strange tribute of sorts to the tactical PR nous of those bible bashers that materialize on my doorstep occasionally. Invariably, they have in tow a couple of impossibly cute small children that, also invariably, stop me from telling the godbothering adults exactly what I think of their highly refusable offers to save my black soul. I just tell them I’m a Buddhist or a Post-Lapsarian Anabaptist or, my favourite, a certified agent of the local Jesuit chapter. They don’t like that one one tiny little bit, they don’t, and they bugger off double quick.