It’s going to be a scorcher in Britain today, with temperatures forecast to hit 29c. Naturally, lots of people will be throwing open their doors to bask in the warmth and sunshine, loving every moment of this summery spell. Lots of people, but not all people. Some of us don’t enjoy hot weather, so we won’t be celebrating this early onslaught of sizzling conditions. This isn’t a hot take: the truth is that I hate a lot about summer, so I’m not wild about this week’s heat.
Some of us don’t enjoy hot weather, so we won’t be celebrating this early onslaught of sizzling conditions
For most of the summer, it’s humid during the day and hard to sleep at night. The sun rises far too early, to wake us up from the slumber we’d only just managed to settle into. Bees and wasps plague our days, and mosquitos haunt our nights.
Hot weather also means that people have a terrible tendency to organise barbecues and picnics: two of the most overrated social gatherings humanity has ever had the conceitedness to invent. Then there’s the weddings.
The sporting scene is poor. The football season has the good sense to get the hell out of town before summer arrives, leaving behind international tournaments – football for people who don’t really like football. Or we’re forced to choose between napping in front of silly sports like cricket and tennis, or snarling at crooked ones like cycling.
Summer menswear is a war crime against the eyes. There might be some men who can look good in short-sleeved shirts, shorts and sandals but I’ve never met them – certainly not when I’m looking in the mirror. Whatever people are wearing, everyone’s sweaty and regrettable smells start to hang in the air.
Summer fans count down to the season’s arrival and the moment the sunshine appears they insist frantically that we must “go out and do something”. The trouble is that too many sweaty people have also decided to go out and do something. Beaches, parks and pub gardens all become packed with sweaty people doing something. These trips out are rarely what we imagined them to be, but people have to pretend things went well.
In fact, I increasingly suspect that a lot of people who say they love summer are either kidding themselves, or actively pretending, about the whole thing.
They spend so much time saying how much they’re looking forward to summer, you’d think they’d be sweetness and light when it finally arrives. Instead, the heat seems to put most people in a bad mood, and they stomp around with red, sweaty faces.
Hot temperatures can make people more aggressive and the fact that more of us are outdoors and interacting with one another means that there are more opportunities for conflict. Road rage and street violence seem more common during the summer; behind closed doors, no doubt, domestic violence is also an issue in the hotter months.
Summer has so much to answer for. But it’s a season so hyped by the media and advertisers that we feel we have to pretend it’s better than it is. You can criticise any other season of the year, but say a word against summer and people will react as if you’re stir-frying babies.
Let’s be real: the ideal summer’s day – warm but not too warm, bright but not blindingly so – is a very rare occurrence. It’s usually too hot and far too humid, so even self-declared summer fans start feverishly checking their weather apps, hoping for a sign that the hot spell is about to end.
I can’t wait for the hot weather to be over. Any sensible person prefers the comfortable moderates – spring and autumn – to the problematic hardliners of summer and winter. So enjoy the hot weather if it’s (really) your thing. I’m already looking forward to the clocks going back and it’s still only May.
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