Siestas for Cork

28th Aug 2003

PURE HOT
If global warming gives us four weeks of glorious sunshine every summer then City Hall better update their waste management strategy fairly lively because all over the county people are soon going to realise that the campaigns to reduce the amount of CFC's eating away the protective ozone layer over our heads aren't all their cracked up to be. We're so desperate for a bit of sunshine here in Cork that if having a tyre, fridge and deodorant cylinder bonfire out your back garden once a week guarantees us a bit of sunshine in the summer sure we'll put up with everything else especially when it might bring in a few badly needed tourists who might be willing to pay EUR300 for one night's B&B and who don't mind sharing a barn with 23 cattle.

Of course we love our foreign visitors in Cork and we have much to learn from all of them. Ageing Aran sweater clad yanks tracing their roots, the chic and reserved French and West Cork's favourite: the Dutch who revel in cycling 80 miles a day (mainly uphill) in horrendous weather. However there is another special group of tourists who, in this summer's heat, may be the unsuspecting cause of a social revolution in Cork:

 They're normally heard before they're seen but Spanish students who fill the city every summer have been quieter this year than most despite the large numbers of them here. Naturally they are used to the humidity and temperatures we have been experiencing here on Leeside in the last few weeks but why do they now seem more withdrawn and bleary eyed than before? Why can you take a city bus this summer without having to take out a claim for temporary deafness?.

 Quite simply the poor students are completely bewildered by the absence of the 'siesta' (when workers take a nap for a few hours around lunchtime to shelter from the midday heat). They simply can't understand how we keep working all day and how every shop stays open during the long sweltering weekdays.

 This can only be explained by our enthusiasm for the sweltering conditions, which know no bounds. How could you persuade a Corkonian who has experienced rain, rain and more rain for the last eleven months to get into bed at lunchtime for a few hours and work late depriving him or herself of a few minutes of precious sunshine.

 In the same way a Spaniard might dash outside to see an unusual event like an eclipse (or a British tourist cleaning their town) the Corkonian will cease any and every opportunity that comes his or her way to catch a glimpse of the sun in any shape or form.

 As soon as sun looks like its going to stay out for more than two minutes there's hysteria followed by panicking striptease'