Weather Zones and Hippies

The great thing about the heat here is that it is mitigated by good sea breezes and the houses are built with big verandah overhangs so that it is cooler inside and ceiling fans are enough at night, without air con. The thought of actually living somewhere where there is a grinding, freezing, icy, rainy, snowy winter fills me with horror. But everything has a price on its head: to make big $£, you have to sell your soul to a demon in a banker-striped suit, in a brass monkey-freezing weather zone; to redeem it and live somewhere warm, you have to give up earning big $£ but you can do as you please and give the rat-race the go-by, which, I tell you, is bloody good news: I see my oldest friends struggling around a city that they increasingly dislike, in a society that they say is crumbling around their ears, and the older they get the faster they have to run to keep the wheel moving fast enough to grind enough grain to justify their continued existence, as there are youngsters coming up behind them, with mean, greedy eyes, twisted, slavering mouths and hatchets in their hands - and the youngsters, at best, are: wearing Ralph Lauren; they live in New Cross, Beckton, Archway and Kentish Town; drive Beamers and Toyota sports cars; send their small kids to Montessori schools; pretend to like sushi and Woody Allen; would only ever watch Jacques Tati on the sly; follow foreign sports' teams; drink Dutch beer and ultra-chillled Guinness; don't smoke; play squash; suck up, pro tem. to the men and women that they'd assassinate in a trice and play lots of smiling golf.


Yes, yes, I have been 90% hippie all along. Now I even sometimes kick my shoes (sorry, sandals) off and go barefoot on the Natureza Reserva.

Today's picture is of Charles Lees' The Golfers

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