Summertime Hues
All bets are now off, because this year, it was the end of May that brought the intense and unpredictable 3-5 day heatwave that annually constitutes summer in the UK. As usual, it came quite literally out of the blue, immediately following a dreary and lengthy spell of stormy, autumnal weather that left us wondering whether we’d have the opportunity to do our time-honoured and traditional ‘it’s hotter than the Costas’ routine at all.
But, last Wednesday, the ritual commenced, as our largely caucasian nation stripped off all superfluous clothing (and in some cases, necessary clothing), before claiming territory on grass, sand, decking, concrete, roof space, or any other free surface, and exposing ill-prepared and unacclimatised skin in worship of the newly visible sun-god. As is customary, all this occurred amidst loud and relentless complaints about the soaring temperatures we have spent months yearning for.
After almost a week of performing this very British ceremony under very un-British bright, clear skies, the streets are now full of underdressed, overcooked people, pleased with the results of their attempts to forcibly alter their DNA. Having toasted themselves under every available ray for every available daylight hour, the topless men, and the women wearing less than the average prostitute will now spend the rest of the year showing off their parched, permanently damaged skin interspersed with glaring white marks caused by the garments that public decency laws forced them to retain.
Apparently in our 21st century culture, this stripy, scorched look is significantly more attractive than simply accepting the complexion our weather dictates, and being a bit pale.
As a redhead/daywalker/borderline albino (I’ve heard them all), who can’t even produce enough melanin to create freckles, I could be accused of being bitter. Indeed, I’ll admit to being slightly offended that people also spend extortionate amounts of time, effort and money having their skin artificially stained various shades of orange all year round, just to avoid looking like me. But I can assure you it’s not inability to join in that makes me mock this process, it’s total refusal. I too could venture out in clothing totally inappropriate to my figure, age and location if I choose, it’s just that instead of being bare-skinned, burned and patchier than a Friesian cow, I’d be galvanised in a coating of ultra-strength SPF and dazzling the sneering passers-by with the glare from every inch of my soft, healthy, youthful skin. And there’s also nothing to stop me resorting to the sprayed, bottled, ingested or even injected fakery to fit in with current ideals, but the point is, I neither want nor feel the need to do so.
To me, it makes a sorry statement about the human condition. I know people always want what they haven’t got, and that our modern perception of beauty in the UK seems to be defined by the darkest possible tan, real or otherwise, but it’s people’s desperate desire to radically change their physical appearance and the notion that it’s their most important quality that saddens me most. Wouldn’t the world be a nicer (and arguably more aesthetically pleasing) place if people ditched all the superficiality, fakery and surgical modification and instead put all that time, energy and faith into improving self-esteem and learning to love their natural state? One of the most fantastic things about our species is that everyone is different, and I fail to understand why we don’t celebrate that diversity instead of obsessively trying to conform to a uniform image cynically perpetrated by corporations that manufacture the means to create it. Nobody is perfect, and no expensive consumable product will ever make them so.
While I may be mostly treated as a freakshow in my homeland, when I travel to other countries, my fairness is the reason I’m practically hailed as a Goddess, stopped in the street by both genders just to be complimented, marvelled at and touched. Those in the service industries fall over themselves and even fight each other to attend to me. No matter what living in our excessively image-conscious society has conditioned us to think, there will always be others who see our little ‘imperfections’ as exquisite, or be prepared to look past them at what lies beneath. And why care for the opinions of those too shallow to do either?
So remember that while you might always wish to change the way you look, there is always someone else who would wish to look just like you, exactly as nature intended. Plus, nobody need suffer those unsightly white bits again if, like me, you rebel and allow yourself to stand out as one, giant, evenly toned white bit. While my fellow snow-white citizens of these rainy, grey islands continue to enjoy and make the most of the rare bursts of sunshine, I hope more will join me in my campaign to remain pasty and proud.
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