Remember last winter? The seven, probably eight months of miserable, grinding grey weather?

The chill that worked its way through the eight layers of clothing you had to put on before venturing into the outside world? The red-faced sweat you broke out into every time you had to go into a building and take off most of those eight layers of clothes?

Do you remember the wind, the rain, the almost perpetual darkness? The way you had to take your life in your hands the moment you decided to step onto an icy pavement or drive on an ungritted road? Those freezing feet that just wouldn’t warm up? That cough you couldn’t seem to shake off? Worse, the cough your partner or the bloke at the next desk couldn’t seem to shake off?

Do you remember sleet? Do you remember slush? Do you remember the boiler breaking down?

You do? Well, for pity’s sake, stop bleating about it being too hot outside.

Whenever someone starts complaining about the sun being too strong or the weather being a bit close, I feel murder in my heart. In this forlorn northern outpost we spend two-thirds of our lives trying to remember what a summer’s day feels like, and convincing ourselves summer will one day return. The bleakness of our weather is so severe, it is often said to bring on depression, alcoholism and even suicide.

So why on earth must we moan about it when summer finally arrives?

When fresh green leaves force their way through tree bark or bare earth I want to throw a party. From daffodils through bluebell woods to poppies in cornfields, spring and summer put a smile on my face. How can anyone say they liked it better when the ground was frozen?

Still… for those who refuse to stop bellyaching, I have good news. The days are getting shorter and in about six weeks’ time we’ll all be shivering again.

Happy now?

Eeh, sorry for getting so grumpy – I’m just a bit tired. Too hot to get a decent night’s sleep, you know.


* If it’s not the weather we’re moaning about, it’s grown men crying. Poor old Michael Vaughan is getting a right slating for breaking down as he told the world’s media he was resigning as England’s cricket captain.

Just when you thought we’d stopped all that nonsense, it seems big boys still don’t cry, even if the achievement they’ve worked for all their lives, the passion that drives them more than anything else, has decided to betray them, fleeing with the form they once enjoyed.

A couple of years ago, Vaughan was England’s hero. Now we want him off the stage without showing us it matters.

Fair enough, I accept that there are worse things going on in the world and that other people are facing up with courage and dignity to genuine grief or hardship. But who among us has not felt choked at some serious personal setback? It doesn’t even have to be personal for this country to get out the Kleenex – we weep for people we’ve never even met.

Anyway, why on earth shouldn’t a bloke cry? Next thing you know we’ll be saying a woman shouldn’t drink, swear, or have a loud opinion. And then I really would have something to cry for.