The first thing that Jonathan Nicholls, Hanson's finance director, mentions is the weather. Not, however, in the context of Hanson's profit warning in November, which the bricks-and-aggregates group blamed partly on the appalling storms of the last few months, but of his thwarted mountain biking plans for the Christmas holiday.

In fact, Nicholls downplays Hanson's weather excuse. 'We don't like to talk about the weather and we don't quantify its effect, but wet weather does affect us at the margin,' he says.