NO DOUBT the hoteliers and restaurateurs in and around Newport have benefited from the weather-enforced extension of golf’s Ryder Cup into an unprecedented fourth day.

But the reputation of Wales as a tourism destination has suffered from another of the English media’s periodic bouts of Cymrophobia.

Had the tournament been awarded to any other part of mainland Britain, and been similarly afflicted by weather, the question asked would, quite reasonably, have been “Why was it played in October?”

But because it was played in that part of the island which, despite a millennium and a half of Anglo-Saxon domination, still has the temerity to retain its own language and cultural identity, the question was: “Why was it played in Wales in October?”

Those who seek to justify this on the grounds that Wales is known for its rain merely demonstrate that they have fallen for the stereotypical misrepresentation of its climate.

Yes, on average, Wales is wetter than England but then England has the advantage of including the eastern and southern areas which are, by a wide margin, the driest parts of Britain.

Of the 10 wettest places in Britain, six are in Scotland, three are in England (all in the Lake District ? there’s a clue in the name there) and just one in Wales.

The lesson to be learned is that October is too late in the year for the weather to be relied on in any part of Britain, including even the south-east. There were, after all, homes flooded in London over the weekend although you might not have thought so amid all the anti-Welsh sentiment.

n Staying with matters meteorological, did not the 10:10 climate change campaign group realise its promotional film, No Pressure, which has been pulled from its website, would cause such offence? Among the hilarious scenes depicted in the film are two school children being blown up by their teacher for not getting involved in environmental initiatives and a group of employees being dealt with in similar fashion by their boss for their reluctance to take part in emissions reduction work.

When supposedly rational campaign groups resort to such extreme tactics, it can only help the questionable cause of the climate change deniers.

Which is presumably not what 10:10 wants at all.