Having a Great Time Outdoors, Even in a Shithole

I was reading my less talented but infinitely more successful contemporary Charlie Brooker'seffete account of Glastonbury on the train this morning. All those people having an amazing time despite the rain, mud, bad drugs and worse toilet facilities. Then, as I cycled up the polluted, filthy Euston road I saw there were people happily sitting outside Costa, enjoying their coffee in a pavement seating area, as if the trucks and buses weren't thundering past. It was like they imagined were on a secluded piazza in Florence.

This was when I realised that one of the great abilities of Homo Sapiens is the ability to completely ignore one's surroundings and doggedly have a GOOD TIME OUTDOORS. I would even postulate that there's a part of the brain devoted to filtering out hideousness when having a GREAT TIME OUTDOORS. In fact, I've decided that this cognitive centre is called Al Fresco's Winnet.

Al Fresco's Winnet is especially developed in the British, for whom HAVING A WHALE OF A TIME OUTDOORS is especially challenging. It's either pissing down with rain or so global-warmingly hot that our pasty skin gets fried after 5 minutes in the sun.

No doubt when we have completely fucked up the planet and have to live in survival-fridge-domes to protect us from pollution and a boiling atmosphere there'll be Britishers sitting outside laughing, drinking frapuccinos as their brains boil.