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So, look: we all know the weather’s foul here, and hell, don’t we all wish
it weren’t. But do me a favour, would you? Next time you see the sun
come out, just assume I’ve noticed too, and keep your excitement to
yourself.
Dominic Hilton writes:
Anyone who has ever shared a bed with me will tell you that my morning
routine is set in stone.
First, I open my eyes (this is very important). Second, I feel around for
something to wear. Third, I stare at the curtains. This last part lasts for
at least half-an-hour.
Ever since I was a boy I have been terrified of curtains. Well, not
curtains, as such. More what lies behind those curtains. I am scared to
draw my curtains because I am deeply afraid of the weather.
There’s probably a scientific name for this affliction, but I can’t be
bothered to google it. In the interests of medicine, let’s call it drizzleitis.
I’ve suffered from drizzleitis all my life. That’s what comes of being
English.
As a boy, I would wake up each and every morning with only two things
on my mind. Once I’d taken care of the first thing, I’d turn all my
attention to the prospects for play that day. Behind my Arsenal curtains
lay joy or despair, sport or tedium, six-pack or saddle back.
I was not a boy – and I am not an adult – who cared to spend his days
indoors, huddled over some puny joystick. I would stare at my curtains
because I just knew that it was bloody pissing it down outside and that
meant the pitch would be waterlogged, the court would be unplayable,
and the field would be out-of-bounds. I just knew my friend Jones would
be round any minute to stare out at the rain with me and declare,
“Match abandoned.”
I really hated growing up in England. My favourite phrase as a teenager
was “This fucking country!” Even now, I blame England for my failure to
be a top tennis professional, for my failure to play test cricket at Lord’s,
for my failure to earn £150,000 per week and date a WAG.
I'm starting to wonder if those of us who live north of Madrid have a
moral duty to support dangerous climate change. Global warming is the
only way we’ll ever again see a British winner at Wimbledon. Plus, by not
having to book flights to the Greek islands, we’ll each be doing our bit to
help save the environment.
Marc Sidwell writes:
I haven’t seen weather in days. Someone should have told me that
being a writer was just a badly-paid office job with no lunch hour. I
don’t even remember what colour daylight is.
My only comfort is that I am not alone.
Of course, I am in fact alone. Alone, with no water cooler chat, no Vicky
in Accounting to occupy my fitful daydreams and no boss to moan
about. (I am my boss.)
My solitary comfort is that you lucky, convivial, cubicle-owning financial
services executives are also stuck in an airless hellhole, dreaming of
being out in the wind and rain, just like me.
Which makes we wonder, have we in fact got things horribly wrong?
The whole plan with air-conditioning was to create buildings that could
maintain a constant, perfect temperature. Whatever the weather was
doing, on the 32nd floor, Telemarketing Futures would remain
undistracted, able to devote themselves to arguing about Girls Aloud and
fencing with rolled-up copies of the annual sales report while enjoying an
endless, balmy 18.5 degrees.
But people don’t cope well with the same old thing, day after day. We
long for change. It’s not me, we say, it’s you: I’m bored of you and I’m
moving to Droitwich with an optometrist called Julie.
Who ever thought constant weather was a good idea, anyway,
especially since we never get to see the other kind any more?
Hence my new plan: bring the outdoors indoors. We need someone to
invent anti-air-conditioning. Instead of a continuous wiffle of air from a
ventilation grille, the day would be filled with delightful uncertainty as
you worried about what weather you could expect next. Would it be a
sirocco whisking off the contents of your intray, or such a scorcher that
Vicky from Accounting turns up for work in a string bikini?
I think you will agree that Weather-Indoors (Patent Pending) is a real
winner.
Of course, I may just need some fresh air.
it weren’t. But do me a favour, would you? Next time you see the sun
come out, just assume I’ve noticed too, and keep your excitement to
yourself.
Dominic Hilton writes:
Anyone who has ever shared a bed with me will tell you that my morning
routine is set in stone.
First, I open my eyes (this is very important). Second, I feel around for
something to wear. Third, I stare at the curtains. This last part lasts for
at least half-an-hour.
Ever since I was a boy I have been terrified of curtains. Well, not
curtains, as such. More what lies behind those curtains. I am scared to
draw my curtains because I am deeply afraid of the weather.
There’s probably a scientific name for this affliction, but I can’t be
bothered to google it. In the interests of medicine, let’s call it drizzleitis.
I’ve suffered from drizzleitis all my life. That’s what comes of being
English.
As a boy, I would wake up each and every morning with only two things
on my mind. Once I’d taken care of the first thing, I’d turn all my
attention to the prospects for play that day. Behind my Arsenal curtains
lay joy or despair, sport or tedium, six-pack or saddle back.
I was not a boy – and I am not an adult – who cared to spend his days
indoors, huddled over some puny joystick. I would stare at my curtains
because I just knew that it was bloody pissing it down outside and that
meant the pitch would be waterlogged, the court would be unplayable,
and the field would be out-of-bounds. I just knew my friend Jones would
be round any minute to stare out at the rain with me and declare,
“Match abandoned.”
I really hated growing up in England. My favourite phrase as a teenager
was “This fucking country!” Even now, I blame England for my failure to
be a top tennis professional, for my failure to play test cricket at Lord’s,
for my failure to earn £150,000 per week and date a WAG.
I'm starting to wonder if those of us who live north of Madrid have a
moral duty to support dangerous climate change. Global warming is the
only way we’ll ever again see a British winner at Wimbledon. Plus, by not
having to book flights to the Greek islands, we’ll each be doing our bit to
help save the environment.
Marc Sidwell writes:
I haven’t seen weather in days. Someone should have told me that
being a writer was just a badly-paid office job with no lunch hour. I
don’t even remember what colour daylight is.
My only comfort is that I am not alone.
Of course, I am in fact alone. Alone, with no water cooler chat, no Vicky
in Accounting to occupy my fitful daydreams and no boss to moan
about. (I am my boss.)
My solitary comfort is that you lucky, convivial, cubicle-owning financial
services executives are also stuck in an airless hellhole, dreaming of
being out in the wind and rain, just like me.
Which makes we wonder, have we in fact got things horribly wrong?
The whole plan with air-conditioning was to create buildings that could
maintain a constant, perfect temperature. Whatever the weather was
doing, on the 32nd floor, Telemarketing Futures would remain
undistracted, able to devote themselves to arguing about Girls Aloud and
fencing with rolled-up copies of the annual sales report while enjoying an
endless, balmy 18.5 degrees.
But people don’t cope well with the same old thing, day after day. We
long for change. It’s not me, we say, it’s you: I’m bored of you and I’m
moving to Droitwich with an optometrist called Julie.
Who ever thought constant weather was a good idea, anyway,
especially since we never get to see the other kind any more?
Hence my new plan: bring the outdoors indoors. We need someone to
invent anti-air-conditioning. Instead of a continuous wiffle of air from a
ventilation grille, the day would be filled with delightful uncertainty as
you worried about what weather you could expect next. Would it be a
sirocco whisking off the contents of your intray, or such a scorcher that
Vicky from Accounting turns up for work in a string bikini?
I think you will agree that Weather-Indoors (Patent Pending) is a real
winner.
Of course, I may just need some fresh air.
| CONTACT THE LIZARD |
| Updated at least 26½ times a day |
A Very British Weather Report
by Dominic Hilton, Marc Sidwell & A S H Smyth
Monday, February 11, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
“Hope you're enjoying the sunshine.”
A S H Smyth writes:
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Also see:
Also see:
My editor sent me an e-mail on Friday, complimenting me on yet another
brilliantly incisive book review I’d done for him, and congratulating me on
my own recent publication (oh, stop, stop!).
As you might well imagine, I was enjoying every word – and then,
suddenly:
brilliantly incisive book review I’d done for him, and congratulating me on
my own recent publication (oh, stop, stop!).
As you might well imagine, I was enjoying every word – and then,
suddenly:
My blood ran cold, I got the sweats, my Amazon Wimple slipped from my
trembling hands. I went to the loo.
That seemed to improve matters; but it took me a while to work out
why this throw-away remark had unsettled me so much.
I mean, I was enjoying the sunshine. The skies were that brilliant non-
shade of blue that makes you see crocuses and hear birdsong, even
when they are demonstrably not there (I was indoors).
Or, at least, I had been enjoying the sunshine, until my correspondent
pointed it out.
Britain must be the only country where everything is basically great
except the weather (as opposed to most tropical countries where
everything is totally shit except the weather: why is that?). It’s the
uniquely, famously, appallingly off-putting aspect about life on this
island. Bryan Habana recently refused to move here for this reason alone.
Certainly Britons are the only people who feel they need to remark upon
good weather, as though, in some kind of ‘I believe in fairies’ parallel, the
sun might go away if we didn’t appreciate it loudly enough.
No-one, though, seems to realise that the number of times we get to
appreciate it in any given year can be counted on one (severely
maimed) hand. And so every time I hear someone say ‘ooh, it’s a lovely
day outside’ (as opposed to where, precisely?!), the only thought going
through my mind is, inevitably, ‘I can’t remember the last time I heard
that.’
Maybe, in general, we Brits just discuss the weather – good or bad –
rather too much. Last night, in homage to Stellan Skarsgård, I re-
watched the utterly unmemorable King Arthur. Unmemorable, that is,
except for two lines:
trembling hands. I went to the loo.
That seemed to improve matters; but it took me a while to work out
why this throw-away remark had unsettled me so much.
I mean, I was enjoying the sunshine. The skies were that brilliant non-
shade of blue that makes you see crocuses and hear birdsong, even
when they are demonstrably not there (I was indoors).
Or, at least, I had been enjoying the sunshine, until my correspondent
pointed it out.
Britain must be the only country where everything is basically great
except the weather (as opposed to most tropical countries where
everything is totally shit except the weather: why is that?). It’s the
uniquely, famously, appallingly off-putting aspect about life on this
island. Bryan Habana recently refused to move here for this reason alone.
Certainly Britons are the only people who feel they need to remark upon
good weather, as though, in some kind of ‘I believe in fairies’ parallel, the
sun might go away if we didn’t appreciate it loudly enough.
No-one, though, seems to realise that the number of times we get to
appreciate it in any given year can be counted on one (severely
maimed) hand. And so every time I hear someone say ‘ooh, it’s a lovely
day outside’ (as opposed to where, precisely?!), the only thought going
through my mind is, inevitably, ‘I can’t remember the last time I heard
that.’
Maybe, in general, we Brits just discuss the weather – good or bad –
rather too much. Last night, in homage to Stellan Skarsgård, I re-
watched the utterly unmemorable King Arthur. Unmemorable, that is,
except for two lines:
Gawain: I can't wait to leave this island. If it's not raining, it's
snowing, and if it's not snowing, it's foggy.
Lancelot: And that's summer.
snowing, and if it's not snowing, it's foggy.
Lancelot: And that's summer.