The face and dress sense for radio

I doubt if since the days when male presenters wore full evening dress at the BBC has someone cared so much about his appearance on radio. I'm on radio tomorrow, talking about my book Sunshine (which, incidentally, was Metro non-fiction book of the week today: http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/books/article.html?in_article_id=145309&in_page_id=28), and I'm as concerned as much about how I look as what I say. Why? The presenter is Robert Elms, a hero of mine, who, since he wrote in The Face, back in the day, has been a prime pontificator on stylish clobber and I rather fear I will not measure up to his exacting standards. Elms is obsessed about togs as I am about the sun. His book, The Way We Wore told the story of what it was like to grow up when dressing up mattered. I reviewed it in the Independent: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20050424/ai_n14598703 because the world he described was a world I once knew. I hope I haven't completely gone gently into that good night of style oblivion, and so find this a daunting prospect. It's hard enough on live radio suppressing the desire to say something rude, or worrying about how crap your voice sounds, without worrying whether the presenter is shooting withering glances at your get up, or tutting at the presentation of your cuffs.

I'm sure he'll be a gent. But all the same, I'm tempted to conduct the whole interview under a buttoned up mackintosh. I bleedin need it in this weather. Will the sun never shine again?

Drop everything sun-lovers, it's time to show our true national colours

Bright red and puffy by the end of the day. The forecasters, appear to have got it right for once, and have hoisted the happy flag (left) above the grey turrets of this isle and promised us the hottest day of the year so far. But it's not going to last. By tomorrow it'll be business as bloody usual in bunker Britain. So here is our chance to show a scornful world that there is at least one Olympic event at which we can excel (German challenges excepting) - freestyle making-the-most-of sunshine. We'll take it on the beaches, take it in the parks, in our gardens, anywhere and everywhere the sun bestows its blessings today. By jingo we deserve it after last year, and sincerely hope this is not another nugget of fool's gold, an ignis fatuous of summer promise, raising our hope for a scorcher, only to find us in September saying, well, we had one nice day in April, do you remember?

Summer is a game of two halves. It's time to kick off in style.

Guaranteed Sunshine at the Broadway Bank Holiday Beach Bonanza

A Bank Holiday weekend looms, and if the current weather is anything to go by, will typically thwart the cherised hopes of a sun-starved nation. But, despair not. A jolly day at the seaside, offering all the traditional delights of a traditional British Bank Holiday, with the addition of GUARANTEED SUNSHINE can be had on Saturday May 3rd in front of The Broadway Bookshop, Broadway Market, London E8.

To celebrate the publication of my book Sunshine, the 8ft by 3.5ft of pavement belonging to the Bookshop will be transformed into an urban beach with a difference. It will be the smallest and most depressingly British urban beach in London. Not your trendy, Shoreditch, meterosexual chillout ambient vibefest, but a plucky British seaside stalwart of yesteryear, complete with men in knotted hankies, belles in kiss-me-quicks, wind-breakers, tartan rugs, thermos flasks and 'musn't grumbles'. Hell, I'm not even sure we will have any sand. But it's the spirit that counts. And by golly, we'll have bags of that down Broadway that day. Weather permitting? Pah! We'll bring our own, sir.

So, stop me and buy one at: The Broadway Bookshop, Broadway Market, London E8; Saturday May 3rd, 10.30 - until I get moved on by the Council. Broadway Market: It’s so bracing.

The rain from Spain must have followed my plane

I'm cursed. I've just come back from Madrid, where it rained for nearly the whole time. The first few days were lovely, there first really hot sun they had had. How lucky I was, they told me. But then, I suppose my luck ran out, and was washed down the drain with persistent, near perpetual pissing down. Inky skies and overflowing gutters is not what I've come to expect from Madrid. Not what I expect from a holiday, full stop. When I board a plane it is to outsource that big yellow thing we don't have here, and it just isn't a holiday unless I get it. Call me superficial. Declaim on the architectural gems, masterpiece-stocked museums, and culinary bounties of the great cities of the world; but, as the world shrinks, British food gets better, and the Internet allows us to roam the globe from the comfort of an armchair, the ultimate need, the ultimate elusive entity is sunshine. Especially for me.

And especially now. I had gone to Madrid to get my fix, after a long winter, and to get a publicity tan. How can I promote my book about sunshine, claiming to be an authority and world-class professional sun-worshipper if i'm as peely wally as an old potato? Well that particular plan came to nought. For five days I was treated to near-Biblical downpours. If my face is any darker, it's from the raging apoplexy of righteous indignation I've whipped myself into at my bad luck. That or rust.

And on the 6th day, the clouds departed. But, alas, me with them. I swear we towed the bastard things back with us. The skies over Gatwick looked suspiciously familiar, and welcomed me back by resuming their business on my head. God, I need a holiday.

Sunshine guaranteed for May 1st 2008

May 1st is an auspicious day. It is the day of local elections, and our future happiness will be held in our trembling hands. Will that day be respendent with effulgent radiance, or be clouded with ignorance, short-sightedness and self-interest? It is entirely up to you and your fellow citizens.

And yet, I behold a path to happiness shining clearly. A yellow brick road leading to a happy sunny land. Not to the polling booth - for, in truth, it makes little difference who gets his or her snout in the trough, the pigs always end up walking on 2 legs and re-writing what they scrawled on their manifesto walls - no, to the local bookstore, where your friendly bookvender will be happy to furnish you for a very modest sum a freshly minted copy of Sunshine: One man's search for happiness: the essential sun-worsphipper's companion. Published that very day, and the pious labour of my own humble hands.

It is high time I stepped forward and introduced myself properly, declared my interests, and declaimed from my solar solar box the virtues and values, features and benefits, even the Unique Selling Points of my particular product. Unique indeed. For it is the very first book to attempt to explain our love of sunshine. To explore why it makes us happy. Why some of us might be addicted to it, and why we have so much to thank the nudists for.

Over the coming weeks I'll be bringing forth shiny nuggets about and from the book, with regular features such as The Confessions of a sun-worshipper (mostly the same old tat I've been peddling in this blog for years); The Helioholism Hall of Fame (celebrating the heroes of extreme sun-worship); and a regular spot called Pop Goes the Sunshine (featuring the sunniest spells from the world of popular culture). How exciting is all this? So, on May 1st there is only one party, one candidate, one decision. Vote for Sunshine, and contribute to my holiday home in the sun.

Con-sol-ation: snow in April is not such a bad sign

Despair not, sun-lovers. As one swallow does not a summer make, so a rather chilly spring does not necessarily portend a ropey summer. Summer is a game of two halves, and, as we know from experience, an early burst of promise can so easily fail to be sustained.

Last year is a classic example of this principle. A spectacular April, beguiling us with false promise. How me must have said to ourselves, boy o boy, if this is April, how good must the rest of the summer be? Alas, the rest is history. April was our summer. The clouds mustered by early May, and the rain didn't stop until mid to late August. How better to have snow in April and a scorcher to follow. Not naturally an optimist, and lacking any real meteorological nouse, I do have a long memory when it comes to summer performances, and can offer crumbs of comfort from the archives of obsession. The spring of 1994, I recall, wasn't much to right home about, but delivered a rather fine summer. 2006, gave us a miserable spring (the wettest since the 18th centry), but a corker of a summer.

Take sol-ace my friends. The current can only be good news. This optimism has nothing to do with the fact that I write from Spain, where I had 26 degrees and blue skies while Britain shivvered. I write to consol (with sun in Spanish), not to gloat. Honest.