by Rufus J. Flywheel (07 Jul 06)

A familiar gloom has come over me. As I write this, it is the height of summer, and I object to summer. For a start, there is far too much sport going on, a situation exacerbated this year because of the World Cup. A single football match is enough to give me the jitters, but three weeks of them are close to intolerable.
 
The England team fell out of the competition at the quarter-final stage, which was so predictable that I still can't understand why anyone thought things might have been different. The best thing about England games is the bile they inspire in people of a Scottish nature, which is always fun to watch.
 
There was an example of this at the recent launch of the Kia Sedona. The event happened to coincide with an England game, and the Kia PR people insisted that all the journalists should gather round the telly and watch it. A Scot, after muttering a few oaths in Gaelic, warned the Kia PR folk that a curse would fall open them if they persisted with their plan, but Kia wouldn't listen.
 
You can see what's coming next. Twenty minutes into the match, the building was struck by lightning, and the electricity supply was out of commission for the rest of the evening. From the darkness came a Highland voice: "told you," it said.
 
Even without all the football, summer brings inevitable sporting trauma. A British tennis player will be hailed as the next Wimbledon winner, and then condemned as a failure when victory once more eludes them. Colin Montgomerie will nearly win a golfing Major but then send the ball into a nearby forest with two holes to play. Silly things will happen in Grand Prix racing while people complain that it has turned into a business, forgetting that it has actually been a business since before the First World War.
 
The British weather is being as capricious this year as it always is. During days of burning sunshine the Green Nut Who Lives Next Door tells me that "it's because of global warming, and it's all your fault because you drive so many cars". Then it starts raining, and he tells me the same thing. And I'm thinking, what weather conditions would persuade you that the atmosphere isn't going to hell in a handcart?

The Green Nut Who Lives Next Door actually has three cars in his household, which is more than I usually have, but the fact that he always has the same ones while mine keep changing makes a difference for some reason that he has never adequately explained. When I express surprise that a Green Nut should have even one car, never mind three, he tells me that "personal transportation liberates the masses". So that's okay then.

Summer this year has also brought a spate of convertibles. Not many years ago, manufacturers had a habit of sending me these exclusively in the winter months, while providing me with off-roaders between June and September. Although this seemed peculiar, it did at least give me an excuse not to put the roof down. I detest al fresco driving, and the threat of having the Flywheel features pebble-dashed by hailstones was a good reason to avoid it.

Now that the convertibles are appearing in mid-year, there is astonishing pressure from those around me to make full use of their convertibleness. Relatives, friends and onlookers are forever urging me to fold away the roof myself (in the ever-decreasing number of cases where this is a manual job) or to press the button that does the job for me (if the car in question is a coupé-cabriolet).

Even the Green Nut Who Lives Next Door says I should be doing this so that I can "commune with nature". I would have thought he would rather I left the car in the garage, or preferably destroy it to appease the wrath of Gaia, but perhaps he wants me to push it to the top of the hills near where I live and then hop in and coast down the other side to enjoy my dose of nature-communing.

All things considered, I can't wait for the summer to be over. But further horrors await later in the year. Sweeping up dead leaves is just too depressing for words.

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