If you’re from the UK and you look outside your window right now, there is a strong chance that you will see sunlight. Similarly, if you log onto Facebook you will see status updates concerning the sunlight, and if you have Instagram you will see photographs of the sunlight. Y’see, the sun rarely graces our neck of the woods, so when we feel its warm glow upon our faces we find ourselves become giddy with excitement as our natural British pessimism is replaced by optimism (until a week later when it starts raining again).
Here are 10 things that we only do when it’s sunny:
1. Host BBQ’s
Attending BBQ’s is the staple of an enjoyable summer – getting steadily drunk in someone else’s garden, whilst eating overcooked burgers and trying to avoid the imminent threat of wasps. However, hosting a BBQ requires you to maintain a level of sobriety in order to ensure your guests don’t contract food poisoning from your cooking, and that they don’t accidentally spill hot sauce into your fish pond. Good luck with cleaning the mess up the next day.
2. Wear Hawaiian shirts
Regardless of whether it’s sunny or not, just what the fuck are you doing?
3. Look at girls legs
In the UK girls legs are largely a myth, usually covered up in jeans or tights in order to prevent them from catching pneumonia due to the coldness of the grey, dreary little island that we inhabit. However, when the sun appears they are suddenly allowed to break free from their clothes, poking out of hotpants and shorts like they own the place and sending any males in the vicinity into a frenzy of surprised excitement.
4. Wear vests
No female in the history of the planet Earth has ever complimented a guy on their “nice vest”. Vests make a man look like one of three things:
1. An escaped convict
2. An alcoholic
3. A reject from the Geordie Shore auditions.
However, when it’s sunny vests suddenly become socially acceptable, meaning you can wear one whilst sitting in a pub garden without anyone mistaking you for the kind of guy who would down a pint of Stella before punching his wife for not making him a ham sandwich.
5. Drink in the street
If you carry a can of Carling around with you on any other day people cross the road just in case you bite them, but as soon as the sun comes out of hibernation you’re just another one of the masses enjoying the good weather.
6. Listen to Will Smith
This very second someone is driving through the sun-kissed streets of Coventry pumping out DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s ‘Summertime’ from their Ford Fiesta, one hand on the wheel whilst readjusting their fake ray-bans with the other.
7. Enjoy going to work (well, at least more than usual)
While having to sit inside the sweaty confines of a poorly air-conditioned room whilst the whole world bathes in the sunlight outside is initially disheartening, you eventually learn that your usually miserable and hopelessly boring co-workers are – GASP! – smiling. It turns out that despite being doomed to spending the rest of their days staring bleakly at Excel spreadsheets, the sunshine has actually brought a glimmer of hope into their dull lives. This hope will have vanished by this time next week, of course, but try to enjoy it while it lasts.
8. Be more outdoorsy
Aside from developing upon your burgeoning alcoholism there are very few things of interest to actually do in the UK, but when the sun appears you are suddenly overwhelmed with new and exciting opportunities that you had never even considered before. Golf, rock-climbing, theme parks, walking – a veritable cornucopia of activities that had been alien to you prior to the sun putting its hat on.
9. Smile at passers by
2 Weeks B.S. (that’s 2 Weeks Before Sun) you did everything within your power to avoid eye contact with people whom you passed in the street, but now that the sun has made an appearance you just can’t hold yourself back from flashing a grin at anyone you pass with all the faux-friendliness of a game show host/prostitute.
10. Get drunk before 12pm
On any other day finding yourself slurring before the afternoon would result in an intervention, but today it is acceptable to free yourself of any responsibilities and spend your morning dribbling over yourself in a pub garden somewhere.
Follow: @PaulTamburro
