The Metropolis

Weather, portents and milestones for the week ahead. The saddest weather forecast of the year

Mike Pollitt | Monday 3 September, 2012 12:54

Weather

A final burst of sunshine will illumine the shortening days. This is the week when windowsill tomatoes, noruished and neglected alike, will redden ripe for eating. This is the week when suntanned limbs will receive their final coat of varnish. This week, for the last time, summer wears its crown.

It’s the saddest forecast of the whole year. Every golden ray brings not heat, but the certain promise of winter’s coming chill. God damn this forecast to hell.

• Monday – Sun.
• Tuesday – Sun.
• Wednesday – Sun.
• Thursday – Sun.
• Friday – Sun.

The full BBC weather forecast is here.

Portents

By the French Revolutionary Calendar, we now enter the second half of the month of Fructidor, or in Thomas Carlyle’s proposed English equivalent: Fruitidor. The month is indelibly associated with the repressive coup of 1797, of which Wikipedia offers the following assesment:

“A formal bankruptcy of the state…crowned the misgovernment of this disastrous time.”

Happy Fruitidor to you all.

Milestones

The Great Fire of London did its worst on the 4th of September 1666. This week, as welcome rays of sunshine warm your eager skin, consider raising a glass in sombre memory of the hot horror of that September time, many years ago.

---