Summer Loving
Friday, May 9th, 2008
The British summer has arrived. I know this as I have just have enjoyed my first Cornetto ice cream of the year. Everyone’s wearing very little, bra straps peep out from vest tops, pale legs in diabolical shorts.
You may be surprised to know that my favourite season is actually Winter, but I’ll talk about that another time. Summer’s okay apart from the following phenomena:
Hay Fever: I used to get awful hay fever during my childhood, and it’s not as bad now but I don’t enjoy the cold-like symptoms, and nor do I enjoy feeling like Itchy and Scratchy are playing war games under my eyelids.
Smells: From the high frequency of stale body odour on the train to the pungent stench of rubbish on the pavement, every bad smell is intensified in this heat. There’s a street corner which I pass on my way home with a couple of newsagents and a few Caribbean and Chinese restaurants. Normally along with the various foody smells you might be able to detect the scent of weed on the breeze while passing, but this week there’s a distinctly acrid pong in the area.
Insects: Bees, wasps, those tiny flies which attach themselves to your clothing, green flies (I kept on having to flick them off my yellow t-shirt today), those even tinier flies who gather in clusters near trees…
Humidity: British Summers tend to be fairly humid, so you feel all sticky and icky. Eventually the mugginess gets so intense that you look forward to the inevitable thunderstorm which will give a temporary respite from the humidity. And those hot, humid nights are evil.
Slimming Down for Summer: The pressure to look perfect in your skimpy summer clothes.
But why am I whingeing? Summer is an intense time, a time for living and loving and partying. So here are my favourite summertime tunes:
Video 1: Summertime by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald
Video 2: Summertime by Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff
Video 3: In the Summertime by Shaggy (I love the original Mungo Jerry version too, btw)
9:50 am on 14-May-08
‘Summertime’ by FP & JJ is the definitive summer choon for me. It doesn’t happen so much now, but remember when people used to bump it in their cars, years after it came out? That’s when you’d know summer was here. And it’s a rarity – an early 90’s track that just hasn’t aged at all.
Aside from that, my new friend Hayfever sucks big balls. Never had it before last year, so every spring brings suffering. At least my blocked nose prevents me smelling other people’s B-to-the-O.
1:30 am on 15-May-08
‘Summertime’ will never grow old for me either. I never thought about hay fever like that, lol. Normally though, I just get a runny nose which doesn’t stop the smell at all.