Keat to the heat

I may have given the impression that I'm something of a one-trick pony in the circus ring of belles lettres. Just how much copy can you squeeze out of the sun, you may well wonder? Well, let me tell you, I've only scratched the surface. But taking stock, and applying some Savlon to that well-scratched sun-swollen surface, I post this from Rome where I have scurried, to embark on my next project. One that has NOTHING TO DO WITH SUNSHINE*. A wee biography of Keats.

And I do mean wee. But he was a small chap and didn't live long, so it may just be possible. I've been hard at it. I've visited his grave, and the excellent museum in the house where he died now dedicated to Keats and Shelley, and the other one. Byron, who I think should be barred for being so mean to poor Keats; but he was a hit with the ladies in life, so is no doubt a posthumous pull. So I came to where he quit his tragic life to start my account of it. Yes, Hampstead (where they have another Keats House) is closer; Moorfields (where he was born) closer still; and Enfield, where he went to school, somewhere north of here and may involve the Northern Line. And I suppose these might all be more logical places to start a biography. But I figured I shouldn't rush my transformation from apostrophiser of suntan oil to serious literary biographer, so thought I'd start by lapping up the 'atmosphere' of Keats' final destination and 35 degrees and sunny. How was I to know Enfield might attempt something of the like itself over the last couple of days? Keats, who gave up medicine for poetry, was conscious that Apollo was the patron god of both. So I thought I'd segue into my new role by paying due reverence to his more famous aspect. Sun god. I'll deal with the mists and mellow fruitfulness in due course... Ciao Ciao for now.

*It may actually have something to do with sunshine. Keats was acutely weather conscious, as his letters reveal. As I've argued in my book and will no doubt trot it out again, To Autumn is partly a celebration of a good-old-fashioned late-summer scorcher, coming after a run of lousy summers. Don't be fooled by thinking Romantics only dug storms; as I will declare, sun-worshipers are the true Romantics of the skies.

Announcing the next meeting of the Mighall-low club

On Saturday I'll be talking about Sunshine at the Way With Words festival at Dartington in Devon. I'm an old hand at these now, and I'll be doing my song and dance - an illustrated history of sun-worship this time (if the technology works; blind panic staring at the audience and improvising with shadow puppets if it doesn't). And then afterwards sitting hopefully behind a pile of books as they form an orderly queue for me to sign their precious copies. If it goes anything like all the other festivals, the very first people to excitedly present their pages for my scrawl will be long lost relatives. I kid you not, it's happened everytime so far. So this time I'm ready, and have decided on a new marketing plan that more effectively targets the core demographic for my product - people who share my surname. I didn't realise there were so many Mighalls (pronounced 'Mile') out there, but, as I've discovered, a sufficient number are of the book-reading, festival-going type, so they are worth targetting directly.

So , in advance, and to the Devon chapter of the from-this-moment-formed Mighall Low Club, get your tickets now, and see you on Saturday. They'll be lurking by the signing table, bright eyed and expectant, as they reveal their special secret and our unique bond. I'll daub some tosh about to 'auntie Angela, long-lost relative', and wonder if they'll ever read it. The book, that is. A doubt does occasionally trouble me about a vainglorious desire to be read and loved and, more importantly, purchased, for disinterested rather than probably spurious quasi-genealogical reasons. But it is but momentary. Whatever it takes. Once my official tour is over I will systematically go through the telephone books of all major cities, cold call all the Mighalls and ask them if they are interested in a book about sunshine by someone who bears their surname. Based on results so far, I'll be laughing. Mighall 'Low?'. Well, it is rather, but a man's gotta live.

Inside

OK. I’d held off commenting, but a serious soaking, from which I’m still squelching prompts me to post on this awful weather. Maybe my expectations had been substantially lowered after the disgrace of last year. Perhaps the near miraculous completion of Glastonbury and most of Wimbledon without significant meteorological molestation had lulled me into a false sense of security, and to believe in summer once more. Not a corker or a scorcher, but a workable, I-can-live-with-that version of the kind of weather children’s books and advertisers suggest should happen at this time of year. But it changed at the weekend and an alarming sense of déjà vu is creeping in from last year, and I feel duty bound to comment.

At first I manage to rise above it, and accept that into this life and onto our gardens some rain must fall. But far too much has now fallen on mine. What irks most is the return to ‘inside’ as our allotted sphere and condition of life. There’s a awful lot of inside in this country. If an Englishman’s home is his castle then it is one nearly constantly under siege. True, some people appear to be quite happy with this, and, as if there was not enough genuine inside to go round, they choose to spend hours watching morons self-incarcerated in fish-bowl prisons of discount fame on the goggle box.

But I’m not a fan of inside. I’d got used to outside, and was enjoying it. Meals tasted good under balmy air each evening. BBQ charcoals were not allowed to pass their sell-by date, and were even replenished. Garden furniture got used to not being moved in and out each day, and the grass started to assume my favourite shade: digestive biscuit. Life slipped through the door we'd left open while we were outside.

As the snails re-claim the courtyard, and chlorophyll the grass, I have to accept there are fewer excuses for not tending to my blog. And so, for all our sakes, let’s pray for a prompt end to inside.

How many suns does it take to stage a scientific debate?

Last night I appeared at an event called The Sunshine Fix at the DANA Centre, in London's Science Museum. I was there to cover the cultural and historical aspects, while real scientific experts explained the physiological and psychological reasons behind our love for the sun. There was quite a good turn out, which was split into two groups and rotated around we experts.

In my groups it was all sweetness and light. Ours was a happy sun, welcomed by many who shared my rather disgruntled view of our stingy sunshine quota. And it wasn't just me inciting them. I shared the floor with a nice chap called Lance Workman, an evolutionary psychologist from Bath Spa University who has been researching SAD. I didn't know this, but the UK has the highest rate of (self-reported) SAD sufferers in the world. Even worse than those at higher latitudes. We also have the most unpredictable weather. To two are not unrelated. We are also known as a nation of whingers (as was pointed out to general agreement), so maybe we have to take this with a pinch of salt. If there was a pathological condition we could self-report on grumbling about late trains, or tutting when people push in front of us in queues, we'd no doubt display epidemic occurrences of this. Yet everyone seemed to have a positive view of the sun, or if they didn't they kept schtum.

When the groups came together, and I caught the tail-end of the other experts' session, another sun came into view. A sun of death, to be feared and avoided, and against which we must all protect ourselves or suffer the consequences. An American dermatologist was holding forth by satellite on the perils of sun-exposure. The smiles soon fell from out faces. Could this be the same sun I wondered to myself? The sun of micro-molecular mysteries revealing itself in mutated forms deep beneath the dermis, to be anathematised by the white-coated ones (the counterparts of those who encouraged us to sunbathe in the first place not 60 years ago)? Or the sun I could still see lighting up the smiles of those enjoying a South Kensignton summer evening as they dawdled past the Centre?