At the end of all our whining about the weather, the jet stream has moved and blessed us with a heatwave and the hottest day of the year today.
“Wet summer”, “brat summer”, no summer at all — all the theories about what the hell happened to summer 2024 have evaporated like puddles on the pavement. Now we are left with the original archetype: traditional or trad summer. It’s dry, the sun is shining and the cricket’s on. But how to do trad summer properly? Here is an non-exhaustive list of pointers.
Don’t moan, no matter how infernally hot it gets. You spent all year waiting for this so don’t be an ingrate.
Shorts should be worn by only two groups: schoolboys and athletes
Gin and tonic, not lager. An inexplicable rewriting of history has happened over the past 40 years when it comes to summer drinking in this country. “Beer gardens” and “a nice pint of cold lager” seem to have burrowed deep into the English psyche as some sort of natural way to enjoy a summer’s day, even though all these things are thoroughly German and only got a foothold on these shores in the mid-Eighties —though flat ale is very English. Before that, the natural thing to kick back with in the sun was a gin and tonic. In my opinion, it remains so. Better for your waistline and it leaves you with an easier hangover (if you can handle the prices).
Linen trousers: not shortened trousers or “shorts” as people now babyishly insist on calling these strange articles of clothing. “Shorts” should be worn by only two groups: schoolboys and athletes. Stylish and breezy, linen trousers bring a bit of the Riviera to your briefly sunny bit of London. Do invest in a pair.
Picnics, not barbecues. This is for simple reasons of good manners. Your miniature crematorium may seem delightful but to everybody else it’s simply obnoxious and, well, noxious. Picnics on the other hand are the traditional low-faff alternative.
Gentleman’s hours, not early starts. Broadly this means coming in to work no earlier than 10am and leaving around 6 to head straight to the pub, with a long lunch in the middle. OK, it’s not feasible for everyone (not least at Standard Towers where we’re up with the birds), but enjoy it if you can.
The “silly season”, not serious news. A venerable tradition in English newspapers going back to the Victorian period, when journalists can’t find much real news to report on in the summer so fill their pages with more frivolous and tongue-in-cheek articles.
