No wonder she's a professor!

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

From the BBC.  In fairness to the lady, I suspect it's a reporter's mis-quote

Prof Hannah Cloke, an expert in hydrology at the University of Reading, said "really heavy rain can overwhelm" drainage systems in urban areas as it often "cannot run away quick enough".

"Water tends to find the lowest pathway - that is why it is so dangerous for cities," she said.

(My emphasis)

Jack

[Tudor Hughes]

I doubt if it's a misquote.  More likely to be a case of when an academic feels forced to make a statement to the media they are as capable as anybody else of coming up with the most wonderful banalities, rivalling those of football managers post-match.

Next up; ursine sylvan defaecation.  Tread carefully.

Tudor Hughes

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

I admit this with a certain embarrassment.

From an early age, I knew that rivers were in valleys – it was the obvious lowest point for rivers to be.  It wasn’t until my final year of ‘O’ level geography that I realised that in most cases, it was the rivers that had actually formed the valleys.  I suppose I can put some of the blame on poor teaching by ‘Pokey’ Whitehead (so named for an unpleasant personal habit).  Even so I got a decent pass at ‘O’ level.  Maybe had I understood hydrology rather better in 1954, I would now be the Emeritus Professor Jack Harrison.

[Len W]

Next up; ursine sylvan defaecation.  Tread carefully.

No need to. It will be washed away in the flood of banalities.

Len

[Tudor Hughes]

It certainly won't be washed away in a flood of rainwater.  There has actually been some rain here this morning, light stuff and a few mm at most, and some rather apologetic peals of thunder.  All gone now (3 p.m.).  I think we deserve better.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey