We are a country divided, and maybe always have been. I speak, obviously, of summer people and autumn people. The latter have been on my horizon for months now, eagerly anticipating the end of all that is good and pure. “When will this T-shirt weather and optimism end,” they sighed in July, as children ran through water fountains and lovers strolled on balmy nights. “When can I wear a scarf and read my sad poems?”
I was obscurely offended by their longing for cloud cover and vegetable death. “Mmm, feel that crispness in the air,” they would say. Cold. You are talking about cold, so call it that, I thought. And what exactly is mellow fruitfulness? Is it spots on bananas? The worst was when they would bang on about petrichor – the supposedly intoxicating smell caused by rain falling on dry soil – as if they lived in Hundred Acre Wood. (The smell I associate with this time of year is a particular sourness, the source of which I have never quite pinned down, but I think it emanates from concrete when it has been rained on, and it is quite foul.)
What do they want, I wondered at night, when it was too hot to sleep. Wet feet and ruined hair? Increased susceptibility to viruses? Is it just Halloween they want? You may as well wish away decades of life because you fancy the sound of Yahtzee night in a retirement home. Then I wondered why I was taking all this to heart. Why did I feel so attacked, simply because other people didn’t enjoy sweating from their eyelids and riding buses that smelt of BO?
The fact the autumn people may be right is what is currently keeping me up. Maybe the new season is more rewarding than summer. Burnished lounging with a Calippo remains my ideal, just as eternal youth and sexiness would be my preference. But wool and nesting and trousers are probably more my speed. I can’t wear shorts without resembling a child lost at the seaside. Now, clothing is no longer dictated by airflow dynamics and wicking: I can dress in a way that expresses myself, ie as a crow with a library card. Being able to read for three minutes without passing out, long walks and long socks, blankets, peacoats and decent films at the cinema, food that sticks to your ribs, calling it a day at 4pm – nothing suits me finer. Perhaps it is not quite bath weather, but a bath is an option. I like that a bath is on the table, as messy as that sounds.
Our relationship to the seasons is unavoidably personal. Each has an enveloping aspect, beyond mere weather, that nudges us toward a worldview. The quality of light, the behaviour of trees and the length of our days tell us things we don’t want to hear half the time. Autumn’s is a melancholy overture: an embrace that says: “It’s later than you think.”
This symbolic invitation to enjoy ageing and accept mortality is what I really struggle with. What I resented about the petrichor crowd was their rushing forward, their inability to enjoy the present. Now that the season has changed, I don’t want to be guilty of the reverse, only constantly harking back.
Still, as mentioned, I have a problem growing up. So, instead, I am going to give these people a dose of their own medicine. Every time they lift their pumpkin spice, I am going to remind them how chapped their lips are, how expensive their gas bill is, how I cannot wait for midwinter, Easter and the heat death of the universe. What can I say? I am an autumn person, and we are very contrary.
Catch the train to London, stopping at Delays, Disappointment Central and Rising Fare Parkway
Steve Coogan was filmed on a Southern Rail train this week, arguing on behalf of normal commuters who were kicked out of first class on an uncomfortably packed service. He can be heard enunciating, very clearly: “You’re not being pragmatic,” at the ticket inspector, which makes him a latter-day Rosa Parks crossed with Karl Marx, but also sounds, gloriously like Alan Partridge.
His principled stand struck a chord with me. Or pulled an emergency cord. Is there anything more deeply, existentially pointless than first-class travel by rail? At least on a plane, first class is predicated on luxuries: a sports massage, lute serenade, phone call with Philip Hammond, I don’t know. By rail, you may get chucked a muffin. On smaller routes, seating is identical throughout the train and there are no muffins, but you might get darker upholstery and a sliding door with a number 1 on it to prove you are special. The vanity of small differences is defined by these pointless little pomp-tubes; where the only perk is getting to sit, while every other passenger is folding themselves into the luggage racks like flesh Jenga. Actually, that sounds like quite a big difference.
That sitting is now viewed as a premium service, reserved for the rich, is galling in the case of Southern, voted the worst UK train company three years in a row. Raising fares beyond inflation and increasing profits, despite a staggering number of cancellations and delays, they have lowered the bar so effectively you would think they were regulatory body for the limbo Olympics. When the revolution comes and their leaders are thrown in jail, I hope their cells are marked with a little number, so they know they are special. As irony goes, that would be first class.
Sleep secrets from soldiers sound incredibly sinister
A US military technique for falling asleep that apparently works for 96% of people is gaining attention, despite first being published in 1981. It seems odd to learn the sleep secrets of soldiers, whose culture is seemingly founded upon sleep deprivation. If they do fall asleep, their mates will likely set their pubes on fire. Picturing a black velvet hammock in a pitch black room is one of the tips, which sounds incredibly sinister. Saying: “Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think” to yourself over and over is another. Imagine lying in bed and trying to nod off next to that. You wouldn’t sleep for weeks.
