Ben Machell on the highs and lows of summertime

It’s summertime in London. Or at least it’s going to be very soon. It’s already been hot — cider advert hot — and over the coming months it’s only going to get hotter.

This is good. Summer beats winter hands down — it’s genuinely embarrassing how much better it is as a season. But while I’m cautiously looking forward to the prospect of getting ironically mortalled on Aperol spritz and wearing my chinos flecked with a million Magnum stains, it’s important I don’t get complacent. In the past, I’ve been guilty of setting my expectations too high only to be left feeling deflated when the reality fails to live up to the fantasy.

With this in mind I’m guarding against disappointment by compiling a checklist of all the things that I always forget annoy me about summer. I know that seems counter-intuitive but at least this way nothing can take me by surprise. First up: my cat is guaranteed to go mental. Dunno why. But as soon as summer is in sight he spends the day trying to either shag me or kill me. Possibly a bit of both. Then there are the bins. Specifically, the hot waft of horror I get after letting the lid drop on a wheelie bin containing two dozen fermenting nappies. I always remember a nanosecond too late and stumble back into the house in disgust. Never again.

There will be ice cream vans, which in theory aren’t a problem, only I have a genuine aversion to the tawdry, knock-off, disfigured Disney characters daubed across them. They’re creepy and depressing. What else? Weather forecasters who seem to insinuate that the nice weather is somehow their doing. The men who, during boozy games of post-BBQ football, still try to pull you up on foul throw-ins. To be fair, I am generally one of those men. Know thyself and that.