Dancing in the street

Summer's arrived!  Well, it is June.  Finally, but finally the sun is generating some heat.  Today it's 27 degrees in the capital, and you can smell the optimism in the streets.  Everyone has a spring in his or her step, and feels emboldened.  "Work can fcuk itself for a few days" seems to be the prevailing philosophy.

This does have a dark side though.  The English are wont to drink like teenagers in a suburban bus shelter when the sun is high, wide and handsome like this.  Then they get dizzy and aggressive.  Not nice.  Luckily, the missus and I are off to the north this evening, where it's cooler, both meteologically and figuratively.  There'll be no crapulent sunstroke in Yorkshire tonight, thank Christ.

As per I've spent a king's ransom on nibbles for the journey, and I'm not done yet, by God.  The plan is to get some refreshing white wine at Euston, so it's nice and cold for the start of the journey.

Hurrah for the summer.  Hurrah for the north.  And hurrah for a couple of cheeky days off.

Gathering winter fyoo-oo-ell

Summer in the city (London) is turning out to be a shit quibb this year (I think that's the expression I'm after).  This lamentable assessment extends to both the sporting British summer and the prevailing meterological conditions.  The weather in London yesterday was okay(ish) for a Wednesday in March.  And to top it all, Chris Froome abandoned the Tour after crashing about seventy times in the space of two-hundred yards.  Even his legendary phlegm ran dry at the atrocious conditions, and he looked heartily pissed-on-and-off as he leapt headfirst into the back of the womb-like Sky Jag.

The low cloud base last evening led to the inevitable gloomy speculation about the approach of winter in the nothern hemisphere.  It's coming, isn't it, the absolute bastard?  The evenings are definitely drawing in.  The actualité of winter is nothing compared with the anticipation of its arrival, as with most experiences in life.  We know this, but the brow can't help but furrow when the summer has been as underwhelming as this one.  Even bog-trotters like myself need sunlight.  I'm a surface-dwelling mammal after all.

Mrs O and I had decided initially to head to Israel later in the year as it stays hot and sunny there until at least Boxing Day, but the internecine brouhaha there means that that is not now going to happen.  I could go, but would have to do so sporting a beak and features.  I'm not scared, you understand, just concerned about being shot to ribbons in my prime.

Perhaps I should pop to Oz on me holidays, and get some courage.

Summer lovin'

Another bank holiday here in dot-coe-dot-you-kay yesterday, and another hosing-down from the gods.  We're in that difficult transition period between "it's been a shit spring" to "it's being a shit summer".  No-one's quite sure where the cusp lies.  It's like Easter; only the Vatican seems on top of that sheight.  All we do know is that it's close.

The point of this equinox of course is that one must abandon hope if it can be shown we've passed it.  Summers in this country and short and brutal, like a spell in a young offenders' institute.  If we've missed even a week of the summer season to poor weather, then statistically-speaking it cannot be saved.

As Bill Shankly or Buddha would no doubt have averred: it's the hope that kills you.

This spell of appalling weather has come at the end of a very trying weekend too.  On Sunday my beloved Orient were beaten in the League One play-off final at Wembley.   I've seen Orient lose more play-offs than I can shake a stick at, but this one hurt particularly  

I was stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the same cohort of people I was in the 80s when Orient went up against Wrexham, and we've been there for every major game since.  The difference this time is that if we needed 13 years to reach another Wembley final (the gap since our last play-off final), would the club even exist?  It was this thought that played on my mind on the interminable tube journey home.

If West Ham get Olympic Stadium, I fear we're screwed.  The children of Walthamstow, Leyton, Leytonstone etc. will grow up to be Hammers.  You can't blame them; I would have done the same.  The idea of Orient not outliving me is hugely troubling.  I've got football existential angst.  I wonder if my GP will sign me off work?  He is an Os fan after all.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany

The weather in London at the mo is splendid - warm, sunny and basically a joy. It's that period of the year when you sense the sap rising, which makes it difficult to concentrate on the usual emetic impedimenta that life habitually hurls at one. Collective thoughts turn to boozy picnics in parks and walks along the river with physically attractive companions.

Experience suggests we should savour these spring days as the actual summer in this country (England) tends toward the underwhelming. It's all chewing-gum grey skies and tepid humidity in these parts come June. It does go to show, however, that happiness is all about managing expectations, which is why my default position is to assume that absolutely everything will be shite. Due to this, I am rarely disappointed, and just occasionally delighted by the fates. I'll settle for that.

Gene Slacker

It's been a splendid weekend in London. The sun shone and the sap was high. The wife and I spent the time constructively. We went to a barbie on Saturday evening. And Sunday we spent crabbing. Everyone was in rare form down at the coast yesterday. Even the crabs seemed to be enjoying the process. We then popped the tin hat on this world-beating weekend by charging around to our local for a brace of sharpeners last thing Sunday evening.

Sadly the pub was empty. That's the way to plays here in the UK on those rare occasions when the sun's cracking the stones. Our average denizen can't resist pouring drink down himself like a man whose lungs are on fire as soon as the temperature crawls above twenty Celsius. By the time we pitched up then, the rest of the vulgar mob had shot off home to assume the recovery position. I suppose it's for the best. I don't want to be harangued after a trying day crabbing.