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?

Northern Sky

In response to my last posting, whinging about the usual non-appearance of the sun on what's supposed to be his big day, the summer solstice, a friend wondered why I had personified the sun as male. I remarked that I was following accepted, and near-universal, convention, as formalised in the Greco-Roman deities Helios and Apollo, or the eastern Shamesh, Mithras or Surya. But on investigation (in that bullshitter's bible, Wikipedia), I discover quite a few cultures personified their solar deities as female. Including, intriguingly, the Germanic solar deity, Sol, otherwise known as Sunna or Frau Sunne. Incidentally, the Norse tradition has another sun god, Freya who is also the god of rain. Bloody typical. We in the north can't just have a god responsible for sun like they do down south. I suppose because there was not enough work to go round, and he had to lend all the other stormy, rainy, thundery colleagues a hand with their workload to justify his post. Sunny spells with intermittent showers, the celestial weather forecast since time immemorial. But I digress.

I do find the idea of old Frau Sunne rather intriguing, and, in my experience, more plausible than the Classical tradition of the sun god, riding his shiny red boy-racer chariot across the heavens each day, and sending phallic rays down to fructify mother earth. It all makes sense now. The sun of the north, the sun of my sky, is most definitely female. Take today, I went to bed last night fully expecting the sun to be shining, as suggested in the weather forecast. But here we are, past 10.30 and I'm still waiting for Frau Sunne to turn up. Looking at the revised forecast I find that she, or at least her meteorological handmaidens, have changed their mind. A woman's prerogative, supposedly, on both counts. As the Monkees so eloquently put it, 'When I wanted sunshine, I got rain'. Needless to say, I'm not a believer. Not when it comes to weather forecasts, and well...

Now, please don't mistake this for a cheap misogynist rant. Take it rather as the tragic lament of a sensitive sun-worshipping romantic who is unlucky in both love and sunshine, and finds the fact that our ancestors thought Sunne was a Frau confirmation of a big theme in my book. A book I describe as 'an open love letter to the most fickle mistress northern man ever served'. I wanted to call the book Sunshine: A Love Affair (but my publishers knew better, and consequently you are more likely to find it, if at all, in 'biography', or even 'personal development' [yuk] than where it should be CULTURAL FEKKIN HISTORY; but that's a rant for another day). I have a whole chapter on love and sunshine, and why all those pop songs and before them poems, find the weather a perfect metaphor for the highs and lows of love. I'll sign off by quoting myself from that chapter: "Weather must surely be the most baffling, tricksy, and infuriating realm of experience to have tasked the intellect, patience or reason of man, from the very dawn of time. After love, of course.". I'll leave my post now, but intend to return to this theme another day. I don't think I've exhausted it, it's just that I have to go upstairs and close the skylight through which rainy Freya, who has come in the stead of Frau Sunne, is now tinkling. TBC...

All Stice and no Sol (once again)

It's the longest day, in the northern hemisphere, and with tedious inevitability the sun refuses to show up for the third year running. Solstice means the time when the sun appears to stand still at the very high point of its 'journey' across the heavens. So he should be there, in his own spotlight, taking a bow from his adorers at the very pinnacle of his journey across the heavens, and his victory over darkness. Stonehenge, one of the most impressive megalithic structures in the world, whose solar and astrological alignment betrays a profound significance at which we con only guess, and whose construction took centuries of extraordinary effort and ingenuity clouded in the mists of time. As such, it must be the most redundant public edifice the other side of the Millennium Dome.

For if solstice means sun standing still, our sun has been standing still behind a filthy great bank of cloud, and it's high time he showed a bit more consideration. But can we really expect more, when the odds are so heavily stacked against us? Here's a depressing little historical snippet from my book: our word 'sky' derives from the Old Norse word for 'cloud'. And what do our more fortunate Latin neighbours further south call their sky? The same word for 'heaven'. Whilst they beheld an infinite dome of celestial blue with a golden god riding across it, we looked up and saw, well, very little, and went down the pub. Small wonder the British are known for melancholia, and an urgent need to escape. One in ten British nationals live abroad: the favoured destinations Australia and Spain.

Wish you were here?

A snap shot from my holiday. This is Malaga airport, and yours truly making the most of the last drop of sunshine before returning to the grey. With an hour to kill and the sun still beating down at 19.30, I managed to find the last patch, next at the corner of a car park, on the edge of a building site. It is part of my creed that sunshine can turn the meanest scrap of land into a corner of paradise, but this was pushing it. The security guard opposite hand me down as a suspicious character, and kept muttering into his walkie-talkie with officious intent. I was almost looking forward to being detained and grilled, so I could claim a martyrdom for the sunshine cause - harassment in the lawful course of my obsession -; but then the signal went up that Spain had beaten Sweden in some football match, and he even gave me a thumbs up and left me alone. He to his pleasures me to mine. An unusual snapshot from a holiday, perhaps, but for me a fitting souvenir from the land of solar abundance.

Making Hay while the sun shone

Just back from Hay-one-Wye literary festival, where I was spectacularly inappropriately dressed. I have devised an outfit as part of my 'brand' for my public promotional performances. It is composed entirely of blue and yellow, and includes yellow canvas sneakers. You can imagine what colour they are now, as it has rained every day bar one at Hay, and the local fire brigade had to pump the site to stop it disappearing. Whilst grungy musos and young folk will wallow with glee in the mud at Glasto, but we sensitive literary types have to maintain some standards.

Well this getup certainly raised a few eyebrows, as did the bright yellow flip flops I adopted once the sneakers were cacked in brown. When asked why I was in flip flops while everyone else was in wellies, I quipped: when they said we want you to talk at Hay-on-Wye, I thought they said Hawaii, and dressed accordingly. Yes, it didn't get a laugh then either. Which is unfortunate, as it was on live national radio, albeit at something like 3am. Graveyard shift, or what the BBC called 'up all night at Hay'. This, let me tell you, was rather a surreal expereince. It ran from 1.00 to 5.00 on Radio Five Live, and involved bantering away about books with the nice folk from the BBC and the Festival, and took place in this caravan parked in a muddy field. This caravan combined the cosy kitchy domestic of the usual granny-shunting, country-road-blocking, bungalow on wheels you'd expect of a caravan, with the high-tech gubbins of a BBC recording studios. A bit like those units spies and criminals have in movies, when they are monitoring people, but with a toaster, a jar of Mellow Birds and a pair of Marigold gloves drapped over a tap.

As the night wore on, the cosy domesticity overtook the high-tech, and I began to relax, be myself rather than on my best behavior. Being yourself is not a bad thing on the radio if it means opening up and giving a natural performance. In my case, however, it meant cracking corny jokes and snerking at double entendres that would escape Finbar Saunders. In short, enjoying myself immensely. What this will do in the interests of 'promotion' is any one's guess. Although I'm not sure how many sun-worshippers listeners avidly tuning in at 4.00 am on a weekday I'm likely to alienate with my wittering anyway. In all, not a bad way to round off my first Hay Festival. And the sun shone the day I was there.

Sunny spells more powerful than magic ones as Sunshine whops Harry Potter's speccy wizard butt.

Forgive me. I've just heard my beach stunt on Broadway Market for the last bank holiday was so successful it's given me best-seller status*, with my book OUTSELLING THE LATEST HARRY POTTER*. Yes, whilst the latest wizard waffle was published last summer, with a huge international advertising budget behind it, my book has been out 3 sunny weeks now, has had as much marketing spend as the local scout jamboree, yet has pipped the speccy spellster's latest in the best-seller charts*. You'd crow too if it happened to you.

East Londoners are voting with their feet evidently. Not for them the pot-boiling puerility of the Rowling industry, but honest local fare, by local authors pouring their honest heart-felt toil into their works. Supporting local produce, full of hearty, heart-warming, nourishment. Nurtured by the benevolent rays of the East End sun, and fanned by the gentle zephyrs of amateur publicity puffing. Is it too far fetched to see this as the spirit of the Blitz reasserting itself? Plucky East Enders standing up to the boastful boschfulness of the publishing megabrands. Resiting the tyrannical doodlebugging carpet-bombing tactics of the sinister book-peddlers, who'd have us believe there is only one book in the world (or 2 counting the Da Vinci Crud). Well, that won't happen here, and the mega-sales* sensation of the Sunshine spirit of independence and integrity has proven this.

Let us go forward together.

* At the Broadway Bookshop, based upon sales to date. All statements are accurate at time of posting, and are based upon information provided by the Broadway Bookshop. The author is wholly responsible for all hyperbole, self-engrandisement and potential defamation of respected members of the publishing industry, and his views noway reflect those of the Broadway Bookshop or its subsidiaries. All hyperbole, self-engrandisement and defamation are the result of a hangover. The supplier of the alcohol The London Review of Books Bookshop, where the author ligged a fair amount of free plonk last night, is not responsible for the author's condition and resulting views. It is however responsible for not having a copy of his book, and being rather sniffy about whether they would stock it or not. Which led him to seek solace in the bottle they so readily plied at their event. Indirectly therefore, scarcity of book and abundance of wine resulted in the author's need to assert his worth in this posting.

Another mist opportunity: the curse continues

I have always wanted to see St Ives, and for two main reasons: the famous light upon which an artistic school was founded; and the famous Lighthouse which Virginia Woolf used as the central motif of her novel To the Lighthouse. A book partly about the disappointments of the unpredictable British climate, whose opening passage I use as the epigraph to my first chapter. The first of many cruel ironies.

And so I finally got to St Ives this weekend, using my appearance at the Daphne du Maurier Festival in Fowey, and the hottest, sunniest weekend of the year so far as the perfect opportunity to see both light and Lighthouse in their elements. As the whole of the country blazed under cloudless skies, as London saw 26 degrees, Brighton 27, other parts of Cornwall around the same, St Ives remained in a sepulchral sea mist which meant I was lucky to see my hand in front of my face. Light, famous or otherwise, was in scarce supply. Two items of news were repeatedly vouchsafed me throughout my increasingly hopeless day: that it had been lovely there yesterday; and that few had seen the like of such fog before in spring time. It was all down to the hot weather reacting with the sea. Strangely enough, none of this offered me much consolation. Nor did the news that back in London, indeed other parts of the county, were having a fine day of it; nor that it would be lovely there tomorrow. Today I was in St Ives, tomorrow I wouldn't be. No doubt I would be somewhere that would be experiencing snow of such profusion that the saltiest old sea dog among had n'ere seen the like, man and boy, while the rest of the county sweltered.

Why did I stick around? Because like a berk I believed some of the other folk who told me it would clear by 1.00 ... 3.00... 4.00... an ever retreating horizon of delusional hope. And there was my long-anticipated trip to the Lighthouse. About 4.00, the sun did try to peep through, so we got in the car and headed off to Godrevy, to see the Lighthouse close up. Don't get me wrong. I quite like fog. It's so rare in London now I rather regret it, and often wish we could have a good old-fashioned pea-souper. But there is a time and a place for everything, and the time for fog is not May, when the rest of the country is in bikinis, and you are stumbling perilously close to a cliff edge staring forlornly into a bank of swirling stuff and half expecting an enormous Hound with flashing eyes to come bounding towards you and rip your flippin throat out. I know I'm a hopeless land lubber, but correct me if I'm wrong, i thought the whole point of a lighthouse is that you can see it. In any conditions. I kid you not, I couldn't see a bloody thing, and muttered a silent prayer for those in peril on the sea along with my curses for the merry dance I'd been led on that day. And to cap it all, the chirpy twonk of a DJ based in London played sunshine records for the next hour on our drive out and wouldn't shut his trap about the glorious day we'd all been having.

I had not had my vision.

O, we did like to be beside the seaside

The launch of Sunshine at the Broadway Bookshop on Saturday was a roaring success. Friends and punters turned up, books were sold. Someone tried to nick the yellow icecream tricycle kindly lent by Lock7 cafe and bike shop to drum up trade. A two year old knocked over my sand castle (I'm thinking of doing a Charles Atlas course to square up to him). Folk got drunk, and the beach was left in chaos by the end of the day.

But best of all, the kind old sun put his kiss-me-quick hat on, and kep it on all day. Kissed us all, and bestowed his blessings on a day dedicated to his celebration.

Hip Hip Horray.

If I don't get a tan soon my credibility (such as it is), will be in shreds

Yesterday my long-awaited book about Sunshine was published, and the world fell silent with awe. Well, it fell silent. I managed to find one copy in a bookshop in central London, which, of course, I maneuvered into a more favourable position on the racks. No doubt it has been shifted back to its original place by now, and I can see this turning into a fun sport over the coming months. Eventually they will set guards over it, which will make it look more important, and so achieve my ends. Whatever it takes.

But, my main concern at the moment is my pallor. How will my public take me seriously as an expert on sunshine, and defiant champion sun-worshipper, if I remain the colour of old M&S underpants in need of a good boil? Next week I'll be giving a talk at the Daphne Du Maurier Festival in Fowey, Cornwall, and if the sun don't come out before then I'll be denounced publicly as a fraud. Go on a sunbed councils one friend. Go get sprayed another. It's too late for a sunbed. It takes a few weeks to build up to a tan, and, anyway, it's not the same. As for being sprayed. I did that once, and, I'm in no hurry to repeat this.

I was writing a piece for Vogue on the history of the suntan. The Vogue name worked its magic, and got me an interview with the CEO of St Tropez spray tan, and a sample all-over paint job from none other than Posh Spice's personal sprayer. I knew you'd be impressed. Yet, it couldn't have been less glamorous. There I was, in big pants and what looked like a pair of plastic incontinence pants on my head, being given 'definition' (a six pack by the trompe l'oeil of the tanster's craft), for three days of rusty smeardom smelling like an old biscuit tin. O the glamour. And what kind of message would that be? They'd see through it immediately. No. I can't do it. It's real or nothing. I can but pray for sun soon, and toast myself into a presentable state to meet my public. With a tan they might not even recognise me in that bookshop, too.

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.

Daylight saving? What about sunlight saving policy?

This weekend will see the start of British Summer Time. Officially, that is. As the winds bully and bluster us, and the freezing rain pelts down relentlessly, it requires extraordinary faith to see but the faintest glimmer at the end of winter's tunnel.

But it does set me thinking, and winging, and therefore blogging. If officialdom is prepared to notice the sun, and how it does play quite an important part in our lives, and if it can establish measures to save daylight (that grey stuff straggling meagerly down through the interminable stodge of our sky), then why can't it take seriously Sunlight Saving and Sharing policies? What good is extra daylight if if all it reveals is grumpy grey? How much more enlightened would be a policy that recognises it's not light per se we like, but sunshine. The real stuff, good and strong and not sieved through the devil's sock we call our sky?

I refer, of course, to my modest proposals for Solar Flexi-Time being adopted in this country. These have been devised to address the abuses arising from the current Sod's Legislation that sunny days invariably occur during the working week, and that, come the weekend, the skies are as black as our barbecue prospects. Absenteeism currently soars during a heatwave, indicating a grass roots disgruntlement with the current situation. So why not allow employees to slope off to parks and beaches whenever the sun shines, and to make up the workload when the clouds return? As they no doubt will. Imagine the good health of the economy if we'd all worked through last 'summer'. And if we have a fine one this year, then it's only fair. Over time it would find its level, and make most of us a good deal happier. A well-sunned, happy workforce is a productive workforce. So SAVE OUR SUNSHINE.

Rejoice: It's National Sunshine Day

Today is the Vernal Equinox. The day, as my druidic advisers inform me, when the 'the light is in the ascendancy and first matches strength with the darkness, and the young sun reaches maturity on winning this annual clash of horns'. Got that? I prefer to look on it as the sun's coming of age party. Or ancestors solemnised this important date with their ceremonies; but we, cosseted sophisticates, have lost touch with the solar rhythms, and the sun has forsaken us. Look at that sky today? Dismal. And what does this foretell for the summer? Well, there is no reason for us to prance around in woods, naked except for white flowing robes which scarcely conceal the perky outlines of Ingrid Pitt (in her younger days), or that saucy one with the weird eyes who always gets vampirized. Although, if you do, let me know when and where. The sun can still be welcomed back and encouraged by modern means. We can celebrate the good old current bun's return by wearing a piece of yellow, smiling a bit, and with a few sunny pop songs.

There's plenty of them. Pop loves the sun. And to prove it, none other than Nick Reynolds, the High Priest of Heliotastic Hi-Fi, has sprinkled some sonic solar scorchers into his weekly show, to get you hipsters humming and hymning the sun on this, his very special day. Check out show 51, the equinox extravaganza, and let the sunshine in with style.

Sunshine, not Moonshine is what London wants

After much deliberation I have decided to stand for London Mayor. http://www.londonelectsyou.co.uk/MemberProfile.aspx?member=402395

Londonelectsyou are allowing Londoners to vote for real people - instead of self-serving politickers out to feather their own nests, feed their newts or afford better hair-control products - and enable candidates to put on the agenda policies that really matter to London. It also provides a soap box for every mountebank and self-promoter to step on to and spout his own brand of moonshine to the people. Needless to say, I mount my solar soapbox out of the purest motives, and to help bring sunshine, not moonshine to path the grey streets of London with sparkling sunlit gold.

Sunshine is the one thing that unites, excites and delights London. It brings us out on the streets (which is more than can be said for politics or polling days), crowding the parks and urban beaches, the city squares at lunchtimes and the pub pavements in the evenings. LONDON LOVES SUNSHINE, and London will have Sunshine if it votes for me: standing as The Sunshine Superman at http://www.londonelectsyou.co.uk/MemberProfile.aspx?member=402395

So vote, sun-lovers (you can vote for the real scoundrels on the day), voting for me helps publicise the current solar rights abuses London and the whole of the UK suffer from currently. Do your bit to let the sunshine in, and ensure the Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow (or rather May 1st), in old London Town.

When destiny called: the founding of my sunshine crusade

People ask me, Helioholic, how long have you known solar activism was your vocation? I smile benignly, and recall the following moment of ephinay.

I must have been about 6. Like most children, I nurtured dreams about what I wanted to be when I grew up. These included the usual things like spy, detective and rock star; but before that I, like so many young boys, formed my aspirations on the football pitch. But unusually, I wasn’t interested in being a star striker, or spectacular goalie, or any of those chaps sharing the glory. I wanted to be the guy getting ALL the attention.

It must have been around 1974 (the annus mirabilis of the profession) when I saw my first match or news coverage, and I knew what I wanted to be. Not a striker, but a streaker. I didn’t understand he wasn't actually an official part of the proceedings, or that streaking wasn’t actually a profession. More of a calling. And it called to me.

So I decided to give it a go. It was early one Sunday, and the sun was shining, when I set off starkers to do a circuit of the cul-de-sac on which we lived. I’m not sure there were many witnesses to my maiden voyage in unclothed expression. There was one that I know of. My brother, who promptly marched to my parents and grassed me up. With bare-faced cheek I flatly denied it, and somehow convinced them of the absurdity of the claim.

From then onwards, I knew streaking was illegal, had its perils (exposure in so many senses), and was not as rewarding as one might imagine. But I also knew my destiny was to express myself in the great outdoors, and to help others enjoy the benefits of sunshine in a (legal) minimum of clothing.

Streaking may (alas) be a thing of the past, but sunshine is part of the glorious future.

Soundtrack to a scorcher: second installment

Another of the essential listening tracks for encouraging and celebrating the weather we all love.

Mr Blue Sky by The Electric Light Orchestra (1978).

I hated this song when it first came out. I liked the Police and Blondie, and these guys were big hairy twerps who wore bow ties. But it has grown on me over the years. It nudged its way into my affection with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, when it was used for the trailer.

It's a silly song. The sun Has Got His Hat On in beirdy-weirdy guise. Grandiose, operatic, inflated (making Queen look like a bunch of minimalist shoe-gazers), and paints rather childish in its personification of the elements. A picture book view of the weather. But why not? It expresses a very English response to that amazing feeling you get when the bloody grey clouds that have laid siege to our island for months eventually lift, and you are reminded that skies are also available in blue. Everyone smiles, the colours are brighter, and we are given a glimpse of how our world might be. That's worth singing about, and, yes, it does make you feel rather childish. Perhaps reminding us of a time when it was always sunny and summers were always dependable. Sigh.