Listen to the Rhythm of the Rain
Oh God when will it rain?
No, I'm not too fussed about the allotment and my success at Chelsea - I'm totally fed up with people stopping me in the street, store, at traffic lights, in public conveniences and bemoaning the lack of rain.
Get over it - eat prickly pears and grow aloe.
Most of the people who stop me, looking pleadingly in my eyes weren't born in 1976 - the year of the great heat when many of us slept naked for the first time since the Summer of Love. Others who should remember don't or reminisce about the Great Ladybird Invasion when you couldn't walk past a pansy without being swamped by
In '76 a wet patch was seen as a blessing, sex was restricted to 10 second pulses (what's changed) and the Ramones first performed professionally.
My mate Peter and I went in search of America, via comfortably upholstered friends in New York, Hartford, Pennsylvania, St Louise, Stockton and San Francisco and getting lost in Nevada, Utah and Yosemite.
During the summer of '76 the TV news was full of aerial shots of parched fields, empty reservoirs and vanished rivers.
It got really serious when rumours spread that because of the shortage of water beer production would be reduced - nigh stopped. It was seriously suggested that the locals at the Belsize Tavern (alas no more) should be limited to a pint a night. That was, happily, thrown out along with the Sally Army infiltrator.
So don't go on about the lack of rain: I've seen it all. I've spent nights in a fridge trying to cool down, slept alone in a bed because of the heat - as a desperate 28 year old that was some sacrifice.
And...I survived the Great Storm of '87. Don't get me on that and my struggle through the outskirts of London having landed at Gatwick backwards.
I've always said it. I blame it on the Bomb and those anarchic ne'er do wells "The Goons". It all went wrong when we rejected Mr Churchill.
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