Here Comes Summer!

It's been far too long since my fingers danced across the keyboard (well, when I say danced, I must admit that the Mavis Beacon Typing Course has been on the backburner lately so I am still stuck with typing salad dallas flak etc if I want to go into 'proper' mode).

It's been a tad busy lately with both sprogs celebrating birthdays this week. Young Zoe reached adulthood on Monday and is now eligible to drink, vote, get married, get a tattoo and kill people. As a good and caring Father, I have recommended only the first!

My little boy (6'3" now!), James, was 22 on Wednesday so, once more, Happy Birthday kids. You've made me a proud Dad.

Right, what else is new? Warm weather, trees bursting with their new growth, colourful gardens and people wearing clothing which is totally unsuitable.

Why do a few degrees of heat bring out a total fashion kamikaze mentality? Older men suddenly wander around in shorts: spindly white legs (complete with socks and sandals - god forbid!), varicose veins glinting ............. and why on earth do older men's legs lose all their hair? Pale and shiny is NOT a good look. Younger men strut around, wearing their football shirts, Adidas shorts and surrounded by a cloud of testosterone-scented Lynx, posing madly for all the girls whilst deciding whether to wear their baseball cap, forwards, backwards or sideways.

And as for Hawaiian shirts..............................

Women are just as bad. In order to help me understand, perhaps just a few questions:

Why do young girls vie to wear as little clothing as possible as soon as the temperature rises above freezing? One sees them wandering down the road in March wearing tee-shirt, mini skirt and blue tights dancing around frantically. It's only on closer inspection that they're bare-legged and just very cold and the dancing is actually terminal shivering presaging the onset of terminal hypothermia.

Why do so many twenty and thirty something women wear clothes 2 sizes too small during the Summer? Is it a wistful desire to relive their lissome days or just a determined effort to put me off my strawberry Mivvi? If I wanted to feast my eyes on 2 large bags of potatoes shoved down the back of a pair of leggings I'd go to Primark via Somerfield and do the job myself. Vests and tops which are so tight that the body underneath creates more folds than an Origami Convention are not a good look, ladies.

And that's another thing: If you're going to wear a crop top, please remember that they're designed for flat stomachs and not Johnny Vegas body doubles! I'm seriously thinking of starting a new trend in navel piercings by recycling a few anchors lying around the harbour. There's a fair chance they might be seen among the ripples of fat.

White trousers! Don't wear cheap white trousers which are see through. Seeing a dark thong is bad enough but 2 enormous pink cheeks, reminiscent of the Elephant March in The Jungle Book is enough to drive me to a new life in Antarctica.


Just one other thing on the fashion front. Why do old ladies always wear either a cardigan or an M & S quilted anorak - even when it's in the 90s? I don't know if it's some physiological metamorphosis but their perspiration always seems to have the fragrance of lavender as well.

Summer is my favourite time. I love the sun, the world seems a happier place and life is good - except in Brighton. We love Brighton, the 'buzz', the shops, the people; but Summer tends to ruin the whole ambience. The reason is very simple - foreign students! Vast hordes of jabbering brats, wearing stupid, bloody rucksacks, blocking every pavement and competing to see who can set the new shoplifting record. Why oh why do they have to shout? All the time! Does the seaside climate act as some aural dampener that necessitates a babble of unintelligible garbage? Presumably, they're asking each other where the Hearing Aid shop is? The NHS has a lot to answer for.

Mind you, getting to Brighton is bad enough in the Summer. 20 million German coaches parked all over the place whilst their drivers pore over their satnavs planning the next invasion. Ah, perhaps, it's already started? Das KinderKorps, a regiment of dwarves from the Waffen SS are embarking on a devious plan of infiltration, dressed as students and preparing us for the main assault.

Then comes that fateful day when they all bugger off back to their respective countries (or, in the Germans' case, Poland). Time to relax? Oh no, then we get all of our own kids on their school holidays!

Roll on October!