Bring me sunshine
Paul Ableman
Last autumn. as I dragged myself through Manhattan on what was, to the natives. merely a pleasantly-mild day but seemed to me, as I feverishly licked salt from the back of my hand to ward off incipient heat prostration, an inferno, I vowed I would never again complain about the English weather. But who can sustain such a resolution in times like these? In fact, we must stop treating our dismal climatic repertoire as either a joke or, during its marginally less turbulent phases, a suitable subject for comfortingly impersonal, ritual conversation and recognise it for what it is: a national catastrophe.
When Morecambe and Wise dance out carolling 'Bring me sunshine' it is no wonder that ratings soar like larks. It has nothing to do with the comedians' comic qualities.
although these are substantial. but with the fact that they are uttering a fervent., and normally bashfully unvoiced, national prayer. The multi-million viewing audience is participating in a nationwide religious ceremony aimed at propitiating the oldest deity of all, the radiant diurnal sphere which is so sparing of its attentions to these isles.
Even on those rare occasions when the glowing disc reigns suspended in an unbroken arc of pearly blue I hesitate before indulging in one of my favourite occupations, taking a book out onto my small terrace and there settling down to bask in the fragrance of tubbed flowers and shrubs. Why? Because any bookie would be delighted to offer ten to one odds on the near-certainty that, within moments of such a quixotic expedition having been initiated, the sky will crack open with a peal of thunder and, issuing from clouds that have massed as if on command, huge pellets of hail will clatter down.
That seductive terrace creates far more stress for me than all the bank-managers, noise-polluters and editors in the world. It is a greater threat to my coronary arteries. than mountains of saturated fats, oceans of booze and armies of cigarettes. On it is a round, white fibre-glass table. Waiting indoors to be installed in and near the table. are a beach umbrella, several Capri chairs and an extension speaker. It is now the end of June and my wife and I have this year achieved the innocent, infinitely-agreeable recreation of spending the day on our terrace just twice. It is Tantalus's stream. It is the image of Eden from which admittedly our improbable forbears were unceremoniously driven but which nevertheless, upon much of the land surface of the earth, is at least intermittently recoverable.
Oh yes. I too used to rave about a fine day in the English countryside and expatiate upon how the delicate verdure, soft warmth, lazy buzz of amiable insects, sough of the zephyrs through the great trees conspired to produce a unique bliss, touching upon ecstasy. that was unknown to mere sun-drenched lands. But let us take our courage in our hands. proudly disdaining the charge of harbouring unpatriotic thoughts, and admit that it never actually happens. It is a mere compensatory myth. For this reason I have devised a simple and practicable scheme for salvation.
Its implementation will necessitate a preliminary period of (I dislike the term propaganda) intensive rectification of national misconceptions. These institutionalised fallacies concern the true nature of our weather. The key figures in this campaign will be those functionaries who, however innocently, are the chief culprits, our weather-forecasters. Now I yield to no one in my compassion for these pathetic creatures. It would bring tears from a Nero to watch their daily agony on the screen. There they stand, pointing tremulously at their arcane charts, mumbling pitiably or shrill with neurotic jocularity as they. almost visibly. brace themselves against the waves of pure loathing breaking over them from the nation's aspiring picknickers.
But, in the greater interest, their professional torment must actually be increased. Firm orders from Downing Street will decree that henceforth all subterfuge be forbidden them. No longer will they be allowed to mask the grim elimatic reality with frivolous chat of isobars and depressions over the Atlantic. All dilution of the ghastly truth with hazy. abstractexpression 1st works of art purporting to be 'satellite photographs' must be prohibited. Above all, euphemisms must be totally eschewed and the next forecaster who prat: ties desperately about 'merged showers when he means ceaseless downpour will receive a stiff custodial sentence. Henceforth, revolutionary austerity will prevail and all weather forecasts will be restricted to one of the only two meteorological pre& ictions having any relevance to the British Isles: bad and very bad.
It is important. at the outset, to scotch a prevalent hypothesis. This takes the form ai maintaining that our weather is intrinsicallY superb but has been corrupted by some external agency. Atmospheric nuclear tests. excessive discharge of hydrocarbons. deterioration of the ozone layer through promiscuous use of aerosol containers are some of the harmful agents proposed. Were any of these diagnoses valid it would. of course, follow that the situation were remediable and radical action would bC aborted. But I have done some historical research. In Shakespeare's little known early history Boadicea we find the lines: CENTURION: But certes some devil cloth infect this clime.
These beastly mists, hails, fogs and rain as well As gusting blizzards smite our legions worse Than all your whizzing spears and arrows do. CAPTIVE BRITON (hoarsely): Aye. els another filthy summer. Some Do say the Queen's mad chariots charging .o'er The land, stir up a putrid dust which fouls The upper air till it discharges muck.
Analogous references in Piers Plowman and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle must Ms' perse any forlorn remaining hope that the cruel conditions are temporary. No. We must live with them or do something about them. What?
My plan hinges upon North Sea oil. Willi our industry in permanent decline, we have very little need of it ourselves. Indeed, itS chief employment, which is conveying motorists to dismal lay-by picnics in the drizzle, arguably bolsters native masochisin and so unmans the nation, thus postponing the economic resurgence we all crave. Japan, on the other hand, has an inexhaust" ible thirst for oil, indispensable for fuelling its already hypertrophied, but ever expand' ing, industry. The remote islands of Nippon are. in every sense. comparable with oar own, with one important exception: theY are blessed with a superb climate. The solution is clear. Living with our meteorolo; gical nightmare would be a relatively small price for the Japanese to pay for our pet' roleum stocks. These stocks would be a negligible price for us to pay for Japad5 idyllic climate. Modern transport techni't ques are perfectly adequate to the task 01, inter-changing the entire populations 01 both countries. When a spell of genuine weather forecasts has prepared public opinion for it. we must propose a swap.
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