Bring on the summer — but don’t bring out the barbecue

BEFORE we start — and by we, I mean me the column and you the reader, not the royal we, unless I have undiagnosed sunstroke — a quick disclaimer. At the time of writing, it was summer, writes Suzanne Harrington

I am working on the assumption that it still is. Summer. All hot and bright and insanity inducing.

Which is great, no? Perks us right up. Plodding along in the damp grey fifty-one-and-a-half weeks of the year, wondering if we are still actually alive, and a blast of solar power transforms us into shorts-wearing, toe-baring, ice-cream slurping, park-undressing, skin-burning creatures laughed at by countries who know how to do summer properly. The Spanish call us gambas — prawns — on account of our willingness to self-immolate on their beaches, like prawns voluntarily hurling themselves onto the barbecue, marinaded in lager, and a dangerously low SPF. We don’t care. We love it.