Catching him in a reflective mood, which is usually just after the nurse has visited, our columnist has another hair-brained theory he’d like to share
Winter is coming. No, I don’t mean the catchphrase from that overblown television twaddle about thrones and Dothraki and naked people. Winter is actually coming. The sun’s about to shrivel into a tiny sky testicle, casting as much energy onto the frozen earth as late-career Cher. Mother Nature’s frigid finger will soon poke up summer’s nostril and flick her snotty snowball onto us all. Long lounges in the sun? Gone. Picnics in the park? Gone. Kicking over sandcastles on golden beaches? Definitely gone. In a few short months, all we’ll have left are our thermal undergarbs, central heating bills and the slow avalanche of Christmas.
Summer was nice – while it lasted. I live in rain-clogged Manchester and this year our summer lasted from 1.03pm until 1.07pm on a Tuesday in July. Our whole street loved the good weather. Mrs Guffery at number 32 held an instant barbecue and set fire to her shoes. Mr Fetlock-Cone at number 67 tried to water-ski in a puddle. My skin is so Milky Bar that within minutes I looked like a flash-fried walrus. On a side note, if you join up my freckles with marker pen, it spells “PERSONALLY I THINK ELECTRONIC WERE BETTER THAN NEW ORDER”.
Where was I? Oh yes. This brings me to my point. Dance music is made for summertime. “Summer, summer, summertime, time to sit back and rewind”, said the Fresh Prince on his summertime hit single about the summertime – can’t remember its title.
From the Mediterranean beach bodies of ‘Domino Dancing’ to the Balearic beats of Café Del Mar, commercial electronic music is made for warmer climes. Pool parties in Ibiza! Tripping your face off in Goa! Dancing around the toaster in Stockport! Apart from ‘Blue Monday’, which is best heard in a cold basement lined with dripping sewage pipes and/or photos of Piers Morgan, dance music only makes sense if you’ve got sand in your Mojito and you are picking your bikini out of your bum crack.
When the summer ends, the happy music fades. Autumn is a time for difficult techno: music that sounds shoved together on a Doncaster factory line; music that feels like its leaves have fallen off. Winter is a time for silence, everything muffled by dark afternoons and woolly hats. It’s a miserable void, drained of delight, the Morrissey of seasons. Except for the days when I dress as a snowman and leap out at pensioners. Or the days I Sellotape cotton wool to my chin and run through Aldi screaming “I’m Father Christmas, I’m Father Christmas”. Or the days I don my bikini and re-enact entire episodes of ‘Dancing On Ice’ on the local pond. I should have waited until it was frozen, really. Poor ducks.
Where was I? Oh yes. Winter is coming, and I do not like it one bit. However, Mother Nature’s fetid finger will not defeat me. I have a plan: I’ve decided to pretend that summer will never end. I’ll team up with Mr Fetlock-Cone in his puddly water sports. I’m going to keep Mrs Guffery’s shoes burning. May the summer music never stop: ‘Papua New Guinea’, ‘The Sun Rising’, ‘Tripomatic Fairytales’, ‘Always Loved A Film’, Caribou’s glorious ‘Sun’. And however cold it gets, this bikini is staying on no matter how much it rides up my freckly marker-penned walrus bum.
