Sun Worshippers

The summer has made it here already. Unlike the snake-like people, who desperately crave sunny days for their cold blood, I’m ambivalent about it. For approximately the sixth year in a row, the youth of this country have resorted to gaudy 1980s pop to mark the changing of the seasons. Worst of all, they’re clothes are accessorised by a mandatory straw trilby. “Oh, how summery I am.” says the youth in his summer uniform. Yesterday, I saw them all shuffling onto buses out of town, the girls all prepped with wellies, knee-high rainbow socks, and waterproof fake tan. The Kings of Leon were headlining the event, and I so loathe them that I’m glad that’s their audience. It used to baffle me (given my deep mistrust for live music and the everybody-is-everybody’s-friend nonsense that goes on in festivals) why people were so eager about these things. That is until I saw this advert, abundant with golden promises:

Ah yes! The summer is a wonderland of endless possibilities. Men and women of exotic ethnicity and unconventional style will be interested in some dope like you. They’ll want to share tips on how to stay glamorous-looking after three days of festival, and they’ll be charmed by your Buckfast guzzling and straw trilby (How chic!). No thick ankles, no bad hygiene, no stupid assholes that steal your stuff or start fights. Connor O’Neill, nicknamed Captain Generic by his finance classmates in UCD, will get 43 ‘likes’ on Facebook, for announcing “What a weekend!”. Few will take notice that his name abbreviates as CON.

Dazzled as our youth is by the glamorous interpretation of getting drunk and getting their hole, it still doesn’t account for our endless preoccupation with sunshine. I suppose what is rare is precious, but we live in an age of cheap flights and warm infrastructure, so we’re not as exposed to the cold. And it doesn’t matter how many nice days in a row we have, you’re still subjected to boring conversation about how unfortunate we are. What matters the change in weather to me, when I can’t escape the tedious conversation about the conditions outside! And it’s usually expressed in one of two awful narratives: the God fearing narrative or the national self-deprecating narrative. Fear or shame. It says more about what’s inside than out, when you associate those two feelings with something relatively harmless and beyond our control. But it's okay to get uppity about poor bus services. If people didn't get uppity about buses, they wouldn't be able to marshal the anger to write blogs about all the people they see while they're waiting...