It’s still damn hot. Don’t believe them when they say that Summer’s over. The campgrounds are closing, the beach ferries scarce, winter clothing has been ushered in. But don’t lament the end of Summer. Because it’s still. Damn. Hot.
New York sweltered this Summer, the hottest on record. I’ve sweated my way to work longing for those drizzly Tupperware days in London. I soon snapped out of it. Just as the English quit moaning at the first wink of sunlight, New Yorkers have a sociable and laid-back way with the hotter months.
They jam-pack them with rooftop movie nights, block parties, stoop sales, food festivals, open-air salsa classes…New Yorkers know how to grasp every inch of spare time. And then cram another activity into it. They remember the pace with which the big freeze sets in, and how quickly that breezy attitude turns cold.
Could there be something to the idea that local weather shapes a people and a places’ behaviour, even personality. New York is a city of extremes, not only in terms of its climate. The weather is straight-up, committed, just like New Yorkers. There’s no argument; In Winter it’s freezing, in Summer, stinking hot. No grey area, no pussyfooting around.
Whereas life in California and the South seems like one long Summer from up here. The weather sets the pace. New Orleans is still the Big Easy, even if life is not as easy as it once was. Winter clothing becomes a cotton shirt, not an 800 fill down jacket. Why hurry to go surfing or barbecue today if you can do it six months down the line? Pack-it-in New Yorkers are infuriated, but maybe also jealous of this languid persona.
But a relaxed way of life can have a darker trigger. New Orleans is testament to extreme weather wrecking lives. A Dominican friend puts the islanders’ mentality down to the uncertainty of their potentially fatal weather. “If you’ve been paid today, why work tomorrow?” he explains ‘If there’s a hurricane the next day, you lose everything. People enjoy it while they can. They live life one day at a time.”
Not so in England. Bill Bryson is not impressed: “The most striking thing about the English weather is that there is not very much of it All those phenomena that elsewhere give nature an edge of excitement, unpredictability and danger, are almost wholly unknown in the British Isles.” Are the English gloomier because their weather’s nondescript? Holed-up in castles, terraces and starter homes with cups of tea and dreams of a hot villa in the Costas? A sunny picnic in the park would suffice. Could it be that the temperate weather keeps the country on an even keel, and it’s on stinking hot holidays to the Med that we let loose, run wild. Maybe the English don’t know how to deal with weather that isn’t bland. “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun,” sang Noel Coward.
Frankly, the English don’t suffer the weather. They ignore it, and continue in spite of it. A drizzly day at the beach, a windy barbecue. In searing midday heat, mind-numbing blizzards, they keep going. We take pride in dressing inappropriately to suit the occasion. A brass night out in Huddersfield or Plymouth or Carlisle will have girls hurtling around in short skirts, bare legs and sub zero temperatures. And don't even think about bringing your coat when you're in Newcastle. What’s wrong with admitting it’s cold? Last Winter, the BBC’s correspondent in New York, Matthew Price, reported on dressing for the city’s big freeze. “After three winters here, I have learnt the hard, stone-cold-frozen way that elegance is not what a New York freeze calls for.” Woollen coat and leather gloves didn’t cut it, and he finally succumbed to the warmer layers of the Michelin man look. ‘New Yorkers are a stylish lot, of course. But come the cold, they go all practical as well. I have never seen so many men in ear-muffs in my life.”
I don’t deal well with the cold. I grew up in a seaside resort that I remember living up to its self-appointed tag-line ‘Sunny Bournemouth’. We would wait in line for the school bus and sing, with a twinkle of pride, "We're from Bournemouth, sunny, sunny Bournemouth." Take this with a pinch of salt. The town may experience 25% more sunlight than the rest of the country, but this is within the context of the nation that spawned the Cloud Appreciation society. And why not embrace such a common resource? The Society’s manifesto is heartening: ‘We pledge to fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.’ Fine, I say, but life is dull when we look up a monotony of clouds day after day. Stick that up your manifesto.
There might be one distinct advantage to bad weather. A friend of mine speculated that the colder the weather, the funnier the people. She thinks San Francisco is funnier than the rest of California, simply because the weather’s worse. If everyday’s a winner, what’s to laugh about? Everyone’s a little ray of sunshine with no sense of humor. Maybe those English clouds have a silver lining after all.
