Paul Kirkley: This summer I’ll be more like Barbecue Man
Enjoying the summer? Me neither.
I’m joking, of course. Sort of. Obviously I enjoy the light nights and eating your tea in the garden and not having to wear socks as much as the next person. In fact I’m already slightly depressed about the fact that, post-solstice, the ‘nights are drawing in’.
But I do struggle with this new-fangled modern weather. You know the sort of weather I mean – where it’s either hot or raining, and nothing in between. “Ooh, you complain when it’s too hot and you complain when it’s too cold,” they say. “Yes,” I reply. “I do. The clue is in the word too.” I am not a man of extremes – I’m a member of the Liberal Democrats, for goodness’ sake. What’s wrong with the normal summers we used to have in the 80s – when it was bright and sunny, but you could still go out for a burn on your Raleigh Chopper without sweating half your body weight off?
Of course, I appreciate that, here in Cambridge, we’re not exactly at the sharp end of climate change. It’s not like my entire family is huddling on the roof, waiting to be airlifted out of a flood. But these constant heat waves do make me quite grumpy. Or grumpier, anyway.
Don’t worry, I’m not planning to spend this entire column talking about the weather. Things haven’t got that bad yet. But the long hot spell has triggered something of a mild existential crisis. Because, not to put too fine a point on it, summer is when I struggle the most to be a normal human being.
Take, for example, Barbecue Man. You know the type. He’s the sort of guy who, at the first glimpse of a sunny day, chucks a load of beers in an ice bucket and invites all the neighbours round for an al fresco meat feast on his Outback Omega double gas-burner. And if he’s not doing that, he’s in a beer garden, probably watching the rugby. He’s a man who can chat effortlessly about transfer windows and Watford’s defensive problems, who almost certainly plays golf on Sundays, and who is perfectly comfortable in flip-flops. (As opposed to me, who’s only recently learned how to wear shorts without feeling pale and awkward.)
He seems, basically, to be content. And that’s not a euphemism for unintelligent – he’s smart enough, Barbecue Man. Smart enough to ‘pull down’ a decent salary, and ace it in the pub quiz. It’s just that he appears to have an uncomplicated inner life.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Barbecue Man has just as many demons as the rest of us. Maybe one day it will all get too much, and he’ll go on a killing spree. But I can’t see it, somehow. At worst, he’ll probably buy a midlife crisis sports car. And I bet he’ll bloody enjoy it as well. How I envy him.
It’s not just Barbecue Man that makes me feel this way. There are plenty of other people who appear to be #WinningAtSummer – people on whose shoulders the advertising industry, and possibly the entire economy, seem to rest. I’m talking about those people who buy new clothes for their holidays, and for whom the first cuckoo of spring is their cue to get straight down to B&Q for some new decking. They’re also the people who, in theory, buy a new telly for the World Cup, though I refuse to believe anyone is actually that basic.
A neighbour of ours, meanwhile, spends literally hours in the garden at the weekends, playing and laughing with his kids. And not fake laughing, either: this guy is genuinely living his best life, splashing about in the paddling pool and chasing them with the hose and – naturally – firing up the barbie.
Don’t get me wrong, I rate myself as a good, attentive father, who’s put the hours in when it comes to playing with my children. But I didn’t realise I was supposed to enjoy it. I did it for them, while secretly counting down the minutes until I could skulk back inside and read The New Statesman.
Another friend of mine enjoys taking his family to theme parks. And, sure, I love a theme park, too. By which I mean, I’d love a theme park if it was largely deserted, and we could guarantee extracting maximum value from riding on as many rollercoasters as possible. But in the summer? Are you mad? It will just be hot and busy and annoying and we’ll spend the entire time queuing. It will be 20 per cent fun to 80 per cent irritation. So it’s probably best not to bother.
What I’m saying, basically, is that summer is supposed to be the FUN season. And I’m not sure I’m very good at having fun. Maybe it’s being from Yorkshire, where we treat such fripperies with a certain wary distrust. There’s a famous story about a Yorkshireman who went to watch a comedian, and concluded: “It were alright for them as likes laughin’.” I guess summer’s alright for them who likes enjoying themselves.
All of the above went through my mind a few weeks ago when I was invited by a kindly PR person to take my family along to the Cambridge Club Festival.
Naturally, my Eeyore-ish first instinct was that the kids would be bored and complain all day and we’d all just get hot and bothered and irritable. But I was also intrigued – after all, it’s not every day you get the chance to watch global superstars perform in a field behind Bar Hill Tesco. So we decided to take the plunge.
I’m glad we did. It was delightful, with a lovely, relaxed atmosphere – it was busy, but not oppressively so – and plenty of trees under which to seek shelter from the midday sun. The music, which leans towards soul and funk and R&B, isn’t really my bag, but Sophie Ellis-Bextor was great fun, and us indie kids got our kicks thanks to Jo Whiley’s 90s Anthems, during which my bemused 14-year-old was forced to watch his old man jumping around and shouting his head off to bangers by Blur, Pulp, James and Nirvana. Which felt, I’m not going to lie, fantastic.
That day’s headliner was Lionel Richie, who we’d planned to catch a bit of before heading home. But then, when he came out, I was reminded that Lionel Richie has, like, a gazillion massive hits – Endless Love, Easy, Lady, Hello, Say You, Say Me, Dancing on the Ceiling, All Night Long – and so we ended up staying… well, all night long, even swaying along unironically to We Are The World. At 74, the lad can still put on a show.
This was, in fact, the second time I’d seen Lionel Richie sort-of-by-accident. Around 15 years ago, I went on a press skiing trip to Austria with a bunch of other journalists where, much to our surprise, the itinerary included watching a Lionel Richie concert in the main square of an Alpine ski village. We even got bundled into Lionel’s press conference in a hotel room, where none of us could really think what to ask him. (“Er, do you like skiing, Lionel?”)
Anyway, he was great then, so I don’t know why I was so surprised that he’s still great now. Except I do know why: it’s the theme park thing all over again. It’s because I spend so much time worrying about what could go wrong, I forget to get excited about what could go right. So my mission for the rest of this summer is to try to relax and have more fun. To be more Barbecue Man, basically. Though I draw the line at wearing flip-flops.
Read more from Paul every month in the Cambridge Independent.
