The orange side

I woke this morning with the song Blue Savannah, by everyone’s second favourite 80s British electropop duo featuring an anonymous computer geek and a flamboyantly camp frontman, Erasure, in my head.

This happens surprisingly often if I’m in a good mood and the sun is shining. The extent to which weather determines mood is pathetic, really, isn’t it? So much for free will. Last night we met a well-known Alaska-based blogger and his family and went with them to Jamie’s Italian restaurant (a nice place, I give it a rating of four pukkas) in Bath. Skipper’s kids are strikingly bright and well-mannered. This is the second time I’ve met an American blogger whose kids are strikingly bright and well-mannered. It makes me wonder if we’ve stopped making such kids in Britain. No of course we haven’t, but we are tediously and irresponsibly critical of our teenagers; we treat them like children then complain that they aren’t adults. Look at this daft sod for example.

Mrs Skipper reckons that the British countryside is the most beautiful in the world, when the sun is shining. Important caveat that, but of course without all the rain the countryside wouldn’t be so green and pleasant. Nothing’s ever easy, is it? Always something in the way. George Emerson’s father said that there is only one perfect view, that of the sky over our heads. An uncluttered Blue Savannah.

Do you remember that song? It’s the second best pop song of the last thirty years featuring lyrics about the Orange Side.