Leading article: Rainy days

It takes the Tate Modern, and a French artist, to remind us, just as the markets crash and the recession takes hold, that it's all going to get much worse over the next 50 years. The gallery's latest installation in the much-applauded Turbine Hall of the former power station is a work of the French-born artist, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Not for her the giant slides, the glorious colours or the intriguing contraptions that have previously graced the hall. instead we have a collection of bunk beds scattered and accompanied by the sound of the steady drip of rainwater.

Maybe that is the vision of the future. Perhaps in half a century from now, the Turbine Hall will become, as Ms Gonzalez-Foerster says, a "shelter for people, and a shelter for art that has become enormous because of the endless rain". Certainly after the summer we've had, the British are ready to believe anything but good of their weather. But the bit that the artist doesn't seem to quite understand – as perhaps no one from the Continent does – is that the British rather like their rain and complaining about it. it's their way of conversation.

And another slight misapprehension: to the French, with their lits bateaux and their vast iron bedsteads, the bunk bed may be the symbol of a new barbarianism. To the British, they're generally regarded as good fun, with the memories of high jinks in the children's room, the dormitory and the hostel. The perfect place, in fact, to snuggle down while the rain beats down overhead.