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Destination Death Valley

I knew it was too good to last. The sun teases us with its presence on Sunday and is clearly so pleased with itself, it comes back on Monday for an encore. But just as we dared hope that we might have what would surely be a record-breaking three hot days on the trot, it decides it has better things to do with its time and disappears once more behind its grey blanket.

Now I did manage to get some sun over the weekend… but sadly it was beating down on me as I sat trapped on a stinking hot bus. It should have been a 15-minute hop from the Bluewater shopping centre to Gravesend in Kent. But I think we went via Death Valley. No windows could be opened, nor could the driver fathom out how to work the air conditioning.

As I hastily fashioned a fan from a ripped out page of one of the Sunday supplements, I watched in amusement as a lad across the aisle peeled off his shirt and tossed the sweat-sodden garment on to the seat next to him, revealing – much to the delight of the two girls sitting opposite – a surprisingly toned physique. “Feel free to take your trousers off, too,” they cackled, blissfully unaware of the mascara snaking down their sweaty cheeks.

The point of this story is, I guess, that here in the UK, we don’t do ‘heat’. We spend all year waiting for some sun, and when it finally appears, everyone – and everything – goes into meltdown. Literally. But I have managed to come up with some positive news to help those still desperate for a tan cope with the depressing realisation that the weekend sunshine was probably our summer.

Apparently, all we need to do is eat our five-a-day and, according to scientists, in just one month’s time our pale skin will be enhanced.

“We have produced evidence that dietary intake of fruit and vegetables affects skin colour,” says Ian Stephen, of Bristol University, who led the research team. “And we found people always preferred the golden effect from diet to the darker effect from the sun.” For those of us living in the UK, it’s just as well…




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