Image is everything

November is here. Christmas is only a few weeks away and its getting cold. This is the time of the year that I hate most. The days are getting shorter and any hot day is seized on by me as probably the last hot day of the year. In fact there aren't any days that are warm now. Its down hill all the way to next year. However, I love the colour of the leaves and one of my favourite pastimes is having that long lazy walk through a wood. But this is often tempered by the cold air and many times than not the endless rain. However, I am not alone here. I know that we the great British public like complaining about our weather. This was one of the art of conversation that I learnt pretty much as soon as I arrived on these shores. It was not taught. It was more like instinct.

The summer of 2003 is the last time that I remember a nice stretch of heat. The rest have been a wash out. What happened to the barbecue summer we had been promised? Did I miss it or was it a sick joke? For the summer of 2003, I remember watching the weather forecasts while in Bristol. The job was an easy one for the weather forecasters as all they had to tell us that was that we were to have wall to wall sunshine the following day and the day after that and then the day after that. An area of high pressure sat on top of the UK and refused to budge. I heard about Bewl reservoir and how it was getting drier. But for me I thought the weather was glorious! Or was it? Soon we were complaining that it was too hot. The gardens were getting parched and the threat of hose pipe bans was a reality. I was told of days when water tanks were left on street corners for people to fill up. Armageddon was going to happen on us! I started listening to the broadcasts. How was Bewl reservoir holding? She seemed like the measure of how the country was wilting under the relentless sun. Thank God she did not get to her lowest levels until 2005.



Having grown up in Africa where I had to get water from a well at times, I thought that it was not going to be that bad. Just a little discomfort especially where we had to flush toilets. I should have known better but I joined the complaining masses. Why is it then that we are never happy with what we have got? The temperature is never right. When we get temperatures touching 0C, we are experiencing Arctic conditions! When they creep towards 30C, we are now hotter than the Mediterranean regions and records are hauled out. I reckon even God (if you believe in one) gets confused.



I have experienced all year round summer. Its boring! Day after day, month after month temperatures hardly never going south of 20C one starts to wish for a rainy, windy day. A bit of atmospheric activity. There is nothing to look forward to. Even Christmas day can be hot! Yes, that seems like an attractive prospect. But my sincere submission is that when one starts to look forward to the spring and the rebirth of flowers and animals coming out of hibernation, nothing beats that.



Now that the days are shorter and the cold has started, summer holidays are in the distant past. The days when a huge proportion of the country were sunning ourselves in sunny climes, kids playing in the surf and having no care in the world have almost faded.


With that so have the tans. People are fretting with the onset of pasty skins. Tanning shops are doing a roaring trade. There is a popular belief that people look healthier when they have a tan.


People feel good about themselves. That look is better topped off with a slimmer physique. I find that interesting because the reverse is true in many regions of Africa. Anyone going back to Africa is well received if they are looking decidedly plump and pasty! I have stopped doing this now but I used to go on a fattening diet before I visited Uganda.


It was even better were I to be visiting in the depths of winter because despite the fact that I am black, come the winter months I would have my tan as well. This time though it is more like me looking a little lighter due to the lack of sunshine. My mother would look me over with concern if I was not fat enough.


She would order a fattened goat to be dispatched if she was not satisfied with my size. Tragically now I am having difficulty dropping a few inches. I have had to warn friends with whom I have travelled with back to Uganda that should the locals comment that one is fat, it is a compliment! And should they be told that they are thin, yes, they may feel good inside and its a compliment here but its a matter of concern in Uganda.


The reason this is so is that most of the Ugandan diet is not fatty. There is a plant called cassava. It is a root tuber and its eaten by so many people. Very drought resistant and heavy in starch. There are allegations that when one eats it, the body uses more calories digesting it than it gets from it. Therefore people can not get fat eating cassava. It's also better eaten if one does not want to exert themselves. It completely drains one of their energy leaving people lethargic.



There are concerns here in the UK that those on low incomes eat a lot of saturated fats and therefore obesity is rampant in this group. It's the other way round in many parts of Africa.


Those on high wages are the ones now facing medical problems associated with high intake of fatty food with increases in diabetes and high blood pressure. The people on middle incomes remain lean because they only indulge themselves on certain days only. It's sad however to note that those living in abject poverty suffer from malnutrition the result of which is death in many cases.


We may not be happy with what we have got but in many cases, these are just issues that one can easily laugh at. However, last Tuesday I saw a programme on Channel 4 called Bleach, Nip, Tuck; The white beauty myth.


Three people on this programme where not happy with the deal that they were dealt with by their races. A lady who lives in Brixton, South London who is of Jamaican origin wanted to look like Victoria Beckham whom she thought had the perfect figure. She had a huge bust and she wanted it reduced.


On the other end of the spectrum, a lady of Chinese origin wanted to have a bigger bust just like the white women she was seeing. I thought that this was just going too far with people getting really hardcore, wanting to change their entire person.


Again, I understand that people have the right to do with their bodies what they see fit. And I do hope that they get the help that they need both physically and physiologically because I can only imagine what it is like for one not to be happy in their own skin. I am in mine. So let us complain now about this dreadful weather!