Bikini Bottom

Today's title is, as well as pertinent to my subject (which is the purpose of a title, is it not), also an obscure reference to Sponge Bob, who, in case you didn't know, lives there.  I mean Bikini Bottom.  I can't usually stand cartoons, but for homosexual, gap-toothed, square-panted Sponge Bob I am prepared to make an exception.  Whoever writes the script has a razor-sharp sense of humour.

Anyway, I was going to talk about bikinis.  The weather here was so hot at the weekend that  many people were already flaunting their flesh at our local lake yesterday.  Nobody was actually naked, I'm pleased to say - perhaps they only do that in the very early morn.  But there was the usual selection of faded, too-tight Speedos and futile cover-all black one-pieces.  I was quite happy to just observe.  As a child, it was drummed into me that you shouldn't cast a clout till May is out - which somewhat contradicts the British convention of small public schoolboys wearing short trousers all year round, but never mind, for what nation is not a melting-pot of contradictions? However, I like to prepare well in advance for most things, so I tried on my bikini this morning.  The mirror didn't shatter or anything, but I got a nasty premonition of the panic that descends on me, every year, when I have to display my insufficiently-clad self in public.  It never ceases to amaze me that, although most people wouldn't dream of walking around in their underwear, we are expected to parade quite unselfconsciously whenever warmth, sunshine and water occur simultaneously. Not only that, but we often spend whole afternoons, or even days, cheek-by-jowl with other scantily dressed people on a crowded shore.

It is just the initial transition period that causes me problems, though.  After a while I get used to it again, as I do year after year, and am sad when autumn comes round again and I start wondering where I put my 90 denier black opaque tights.