Sun? #

7 August 1998

It’s sunny and warm in England! Ah, isn’t it wonderful? About bloody time, too. And at the weekend - surely this is all some huge practical joke? No doubt tomorrow the motorway network will be full of Volvos towing wobbly caravans, filled with obnoxious brats screaming “Are we there yet, mum?”, while the TV pundits tell us to slap on the factor 23 and sunhats if we’re even thinking of leaving the house. Spokespeople for Yorkshire Water will appear on Look North and advise us that there is still a drought in place, and not to use hosepipes on the gardens. The TV news, grasping for a half-decent story, will show footage of tattooed pot-bellied “new lads” splashing around in city-centre fountains drinking duty-free cans of Stella Artois, interspersed with split-second shots of their girlfriends, sunning themselves in St. James’ Park.

Next week I’ll have to drive to and from work with my shirt sticking to the seat of my Fiesta, causing an irritating prickly sticky back for sixty miles, assuming that the sun doesn’t blind me and cause me to crash into an eighteen-wheeler. And when people ask what I’ve done at the weekend and I reply “coding Java applets” they’ll reply “What?! In this weather?”, and think me sadder than usual.

That’s it, I’ve had enough of the sun already. Blame it on being born in 1976, evidently it’s put me off for life. Never mind; it’ll be snowing by next week…

I’ve been away from my PC quite a bit this week, so have made the odd note for this journal to jog my memory. But one of them has left me confounded. It simply reads “Gordon Brown”. What on earth was I intending to say about our esteemed Chancellor? I have no idea. Sometimes I severely worry myself… A young guy came round selling stuff door-to-door this evening. He had a licence, and it was evidently his first day on the job. He was also incredibly polite, so I bought a car care kit. It wasn’t as much of an impulse buy as it might appear - I was planning to clean my car (Morky) tomorrow, so this’ll encourage me to do so. It felt good to buy something direct from a door-to-door guy for a change, instead of a big chain store in a shopping mall, or mail-order via the internet. Middle-class guilt?