It’s summer! Apparently, anyway. Definitions tend to vary, but the most commonly-agreed ones appear to be “when it gets a bit hot”, “when we have more than two days of sunshine in a row” and “when music festivals start happening”. Actually, that last one is only subscribed to by Radio 1, who are absolutely convinced that their festival of dogshit, aka One Big Weekend, marks the beginning of the summer. But then, this is a radio station which repeatedly screams “IT’S THE WEEKEND! IT’S THE WEEKEND! IT’S THE WEEKEND!” regularly after 5pm on a Friday, so it’s fairly clear that they have delusions of grandeur regarding who is in charge of declaring when summer and/or the weekend starts.
What was I saying? Summer. Yes. It’s been hot for a couple of days. Blue skies, lots of sunshine. What is commonly referred to as “nice weather”, to use some classic English understatement. It’s the sort of weather that, when you look outside your window, makes you think “I should be out in that”. Whether or not you do actually get out in “that” is a matter of your own personal laziness.
I have mixed feelings about the summer weather. On the one hand, there’s no denying that bright sunshine and clear blue skies are a distinctly cheerful sight. At least they are in a country that is traditionally as grey and miserable as England. If you’re out in the desert without any water, then bright sunshine and clear blue skies are probably somewhat less comforting, but that’s beside the point.
On the other hand, there’s the s-word. No, not that one. Sweat. As someone who seems to be able to sweat profusely at the slightest prospect of doing anything, particularly something that makes me uncomfortable, summer isn’t a great time to be hit by direct, toasty-hot sunlight if I have anything productive or active to do. I realise this is a somewhat unpleasant image of me that you’re building in your head right now, but I just want to put summer in context for those of us who aren’t blessed with the ability to always smell of wild lavender blossom and ylang ylang. Or perhaps that’s why chavs always wear an almost-visible cloud of aftershave all year round – so when they do sweat no-one notices because they’ve been knocked out by the scent of fake Tommy Hilfiger stinkystuff.
On another hand (that’s three now), sitting out in the sun is nice. If there’s a large open natural space to lie down in, it’s hugely relaxing to just lie back in the sunshine and doze. I’ve never falling asleep doing this, largely because falling asleep in an open space in Southampton is pretty much an open invitation to allow people to ensure that you wake up naked, cold and devoid of all your possessions, but it’s nice to just chill out. In the heat. Yes, “chill out” is perhaps a stupid phrase to use there.
On the other hand to that (what sort of many-handed monstrosity am I creating here?) there’s the whole “sunburn” thing. While it’s nice to be hit with radiation from the sun (more than, say, a nuclear explosion, anyway) and be nice and warm while you’re out in it, coming in and feeling like someone has set fire to you a little bit isn’t so nice, particularly when nothing cold you put on it makes it actually cool down. The more practical among you would probably advise putting on sunscreen. Not a bad idea, except sometimes when you go outside you spend much more time in the sun than you expected you would, so you had neglected to bring any sunscreen with you. Not to mention the fact that you get all goopy and messy. Ugh. Still… goopy and messy… radiation burns and potential cancer… hmm, tough decision. Why, Sun, do you have to be such a cruel mistress? That’s like a really hot girl having sex with you and then injecting you with AIDS. Or indeed just giving you AIDS, there doesn’t actually need to be any injecting involved, thinking about it. And the sun isn’t actually being malicious about it, so it’s a poor comparison anyway. Plus I mentioned AIDS, which I remember being pretty taboo to talk about during the late 80s and early 90s because the media thought only gay people and Africans got it, but then we all realised that wasn’t true at all and now it’s okay to talk about it and everyone quotes that really funny bit in Brass Eye where he asks the person if he’s got “good AIDS” or “bad AIDS” and it’s really funny and acceptable if politically incorrect. What? Shut up. The sun is both bad and good.
On the final hand (which is probably sticking out of its arse by this point) there’s the way people dress in summer. Pretty girls in tiny shorts or summer dresses = awesome. Overweight skinhead men in vest tops = less awesome. Skinny chavs with an alarming lack of body hair that makes them look like a Ken doll wandering around with open shirts or no shirts at all = way less awesome. And then there’s me, who dresses exactly the same as I do all year round, albeit sometimes without a coat on super-hardcore days.
So in summery (eh, eh, see what I did there? If you hate that pun, you hate fun. Yeah, I went there.), summer’s here. I estimate it will last roughly five days, then piss it down with rain, and then it might be back in October, going on past experience. Still, it’ll be nice to have at least a few warm, attractive days, as good weather often lightens everyone’s moods. And God knows a lot of us need our moods lightening right now!