Do they still have ice cream vans in the U.S.? I don't remember seeing one since I was 10 years old. The ice cream van is collateral damage in the current age of mistrust.

Perhaps Britons have greater faith in one another. Perhaps they simply care less about their children, or perhaps they take solace in the fact that most of the crazies here are safely confined to the Tories (British joke). Whatever the reason, ice cream vans are still going strong on this side of the water.

Indeed, they are the chief provider of tasty frozen goods in these parts. To the best of my knowledge, Cardiff, the capital of Wales, the beacon of all that this tiny nation is and can be, has just three ice cream shops. That works out to be less than one shop per 110,000 residents. It is a woeful state of affairs, for which the English are almost certainly to blame.

Thankfully, when the weather turns nice, convoys of ice cream vans deploy to our neighborhoods and parks. I can't help but wonder where they go when the weather returns to its more typically British state. It's a bit like that thing in college when flocks of shockingly gorgeous women are found on campus -- until the leaves start to change. Then, suddenly your dating possibilities are limited to Dolores, the chain-smoking Morrissey fanatic with a moustache.

Wherever the ice cream vans go, they've been there for a long time this summer. Until recently, it had been raining without end since Gordon Brown became prime minister in mid-June. Then Brown met with President George W. Bush for the first time, and the rain stopped.

Draw your own conclusions on that one.

So it was only this week, up to two months after those of you playing along back home experienced it, that summer finally arrived in the land of hope and glory. As a result, the ice cream drivers have been doing their best to make up for lost time. They are prowling the streets through all available daylight, desperate to unload their stock of frozen goods before having to return to Ice Cream Van Island.

They appear to have marked out territory for themselves. I shudder to think of what would happen if a turf war broke out. The streets would run white with soft serve. Thankfully, the delicate balance of ice cream peace is maintained in Cardiff.

As a result, the same vehicle circles my neighborhood, playing the same song ALL. DAY. LONG. The song is Burt Bacharach's 1969 classic "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head."

Don't get me wrong, I'm as big a Bacharach fan as any man. I mean, that scene in "My Best Friend's Wedding" when Rupert Everett sings "I Say a Little Prayer For You" is one of the greatest moments in cinematic history -- right up there with the "Ben Hur" chariot race.

But "Raindrops" loses some of its magic when reduced to a single verse, blared in tinny music box form. And most frustratingly, the ice cream van never actually comes down my street.

In Britain it is more acceptable to kick an old lady in the shins than design straight roads that are easy to navigate. As such, I live on a dead-end street that cannot be accessed by most of the roads around it. Our tightly packed brick homes cause sound to bounce in weird ways, making it impossible for me to guess where the ice cream van actually is. So I just hear it. Circling the area. Drawing close, moving away, drawing close once again. But I never see it. I am taunted with unattainable ice cream deliciousness.

Perhaps it is a ghost ice cream van. Like the spirits of so many heartbroken lovers wandering the heath, it is doomed to roam my Cardiff suburb for eternity. If that's the case, it's a short step to our all being driven mad by the sound.

Now that I think of it, I can understand why so many ice cream vans have disappeared from U.S. streets. We probably couldn't stand the noise of the things.

But I have to admit that there is also something pleasant about them. The vans give summer a kind of storybook quality. While my sanity holds, at least, I am happy to have them around.