We need to stop wetting ourselves about the weather
Sun, rain and wind are now treated as devastating threats to our safety and self-esteem.

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You may have seen the glorious painting, Flaming June by Frederic Leighton, showing a sleeping woman in an orange dress. Samuel Courtauld once called it ‘the most wonderful painting in existence’. But if it were to be painted today, I doubt whether the sensual masterpiece would be given the same name. Or, if it was, it might be given a trigger warning. The eco-activists wouldn’t be impressed: ‘June’s “flaming” because of climate change, you irresponsible boomers – let’s chuck some soup on it!’
At least June’s safely indoors, away from that evil old sun. Think of those apparently innocent illustrations of the seasons – everything from Ladybird books to Alphonse Mucha’s quartet of panels depicting four pulchritudinous women as the seasons of the year. Summer wears poppies in her hair and dabbles her feet in a pond in front of a grapevine. Autumn picks the resulting grapes. Spring has donned a flimsy white dress. Winter stands beside snowy foliage. They are all of them – the shameless, heedless hussies – quite flagrantly standing outside, with no apparent purpose. They are certainly not ‘staying safe’ at home, as BBC weather presenters would doubtless advise when they’re not warning us to wrap up warm / stay hydrated / don’t leave the house lest that large yellow disc in the sky burns you to a crisp.
After decades of the media encouraging the idea of ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’ (aka I-hate-my-life-and-I-want-to-go-on-holiday disorder, or SAD), a whopping third of Brits now claim to suffer from it in the winter. The science doesn’t agree. The trusted Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-8), as reported in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, says SAD does not exist because ‘being depressed during winter is not evidence that one is depressed because of winter’.
Every form of weather has been pathologised to some degree these days. You’d reckon that bright, life-affirming spring might be the exception. But, interestingly, more suicides take place during this season than in any other in the northern hemisphere – from 20 to 60 per cent more often than in actual winter, which blows the SAD claim somewhat.
Me, I’m lucky (or perhaps just not a moaner). I love weather – all weather. I love the sun best, but I love rainy days (so good to read by a window during), windy days (ditto) and cold days, because I like to put on an extra jumper and have a brandy to warm me up. But we are encouraged by the powers that be to be so finicky these days, so lacking in resilience – all the better to corral and control us. I can easily imagine some carping twerp somewhere saying that I’m in denial just because I don’t, for example, take refuge in a shop doorway when it rains, gazing fearfully up at the sky as though nuclear fallout is teeming down, as I see so many namby-pambies doing. (Men do it now too, not just women protecting their hairdos as it used to be, which for some reason I find hilarious – especially when it’s the bald ones. What’s the worst that could happen, mate?)
I thought that weather had been catastrophised completely, from causing skin cancer during summer (in 2022, I got an email from no less than the British Red Cross warning me about the temperature – if I wasn’t hot and bothered before reading it, I certainly was afterwards) to bringing about hazardous leaves underfoot in autumn. That season was once irresponsibly celebrated for mists (low visibility) and mellow fruitfulness (possible romanticisation of alcohol consumption). Here’s a new one: our mental health is now claimed to be affected by storms.
A Yahoo Life article, based on interviews with clinical psychologists, claims that: ‘extreme weather, including storms, can cause stress on our bodies, particularly if we’re not prepared for them. Despite our resilience, many of us can be sensitive to the change and uncertainty unexpected events can generate.’
Excuse me – despite our resilience? What kind of resilience has the screaming ab-dabs over a bit of weather? What the heck would have been the reaction of these wet-wipes had they been around during the Blitz, and it had been bombs rather than raindrops falling on their heads?
Here’s another joker making the case for wetting oneself when it’s a bit blowy outside: ‘Storms definitely impact our moods, particularly when we’re not necessarily prepared and ready for them’, says an ‘integrative therapist and counsellor’ named Danny Zane.
‘They can upend many things in our life (getting to places on time, ruining social plans, affecting work schedules) and this can impact our moods in many ways… For example, feeling: “Everything is bad, there is no end.” We can sometimes carry this feeling over to our personal lives, for example: “My life feels stormy, it’s never-ending.”’
I don’t mean to be insulting, but someone who sincerely thinks this way shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Because they’re not really adults – not possessed of the ability to reason that is such a vital part of adulthood. They are a flock of Chicken Lickens, convinced that the sky is falling just because an acorn landed on their bonce. The same goes for the SAD lot, who presumably when the sun comes out suddenly think, ‘My life feels sunny – it’s blessed!’. And so it goes on, year in, year out, because we live in a country that has a thing called ‘seasons’ – four of the rotters. What a pathetic and unreliable source to base your happiness and sense of self on.
Anyone who sees themselves as a victim of weather does indeed have mental issues, but not the kind they think. Not a complex kind that makes them somehow more interesting than we sturdy jocks who are equally at home come rain or come shine. They’re just as thick as two short-tempered planks.
Of course, weather can bring trouble and even death to unfortunate people. If your home is flooded, say, you’ve got a whole lot of aggravation on your plate. You’re going to very likely be annoyed, alarmed and frightened, depending on how much you were expecting it and the level of damage. But it’s a problem – and you only feel better by solving it. Can we not experience negative emotions and bad experiences without assuming that mentioning the Mental Elf will alleviate it in some way?
Those who fuss about the seasons are, simply, time-wasters of the dumbest kind. They’re the sort of self-deluding duds who think life will start when the rain stops and the sun comes out, or when they lose weight, or when they go on holiday. But that perfect day never comes. Their lives wash away like sand down the drain of a beach shower. Because it’s not really about the weather. It’s about dissatisfaction with life itself – a life they’re too lazy to take responsibility for.
I literally never find weather ‘disappointing’ (as it was recently described on BBC News), because I have an inner life that is not dependent on the vagaries of the climate, thank goodness. For he who is tired of the seasons is tired of life – and will, in turn, be very tiring company indeed.
Julie Burchill is a spiked columnist. Her book, Welcome to the Woke Trials: How #Identity Killed Progressive Politics, is published by Academica Press.
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