We are having very strange weather at the moment, and it seems to be set like this until the end of the month.
The day begins crisply with an East wind and brilliant sunshine, then gradually the cockerel swings through 180 degrees, the sky goes dark before sundown and the wind increases in speed by about 30 miles per hour, throwing the rain horizontally at the Christmas street decorations. It has been like that for three nights now.
I cannot help thinking that this has something - if not everything - to do with the ceiling of the Apollo Theatre coming down on the packed house last night. Now they may never know how it finishes.
On the same principle as the butterfly causing a hurricane but wafting its wings in a Brazilian jungle, or the superstitious one of always taking an umbrella out with you when you leave the house, it may be something to do with the fact that - on a whim - I gave my hat away to a pretty girl the other night, just before this weather pattern set in.
All she did was pick it up and put it on her head, but when I saw how much better it looked on her than it did on me, I insisted she take it, and I have been arriving home with a wet head ever since.
This is the hat which was made in Ireland, sent to Chicago, bought by me and flown to England - at far greater expense than it would have been to get one direct from the maker.
Every time I looked in the mirror when wearing it, I just reminded myself of one of the more disturbing Hitchcock characters, but when she put it on, the effect was instantaneously Audrey Hepburn.
This isn't the first time this year that I have altered whole weather patterns by giving a hat away. We were having a very mediocre Summer up until the point that I gave my cherished Panama to my cherished German mate, and watched him drive off home in it and his open-topped M.G. two-seater.
When I put it on, I looked like... well, you can make your own mind up about that, but when he put it on, he looked like an amiable, German archeologist from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
So I spent the whole Summer with the sun beating down on my mercifully hairy head, and I am set to spend the rest of the winter with the rain and snow doing the same thing.
I still have not given up on finding the Rathebone ideal above though, but I know of a website forum of around 50 American people who are all searching for the same hat. That forum was last contributed to around 8 years ago.
I believe you have indeed effected the Butterfly Effect by gifting your hat ~ twice! Maybe Santa will return the kindness. Oh that's a different theorem of physics isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThey recently slowed down time (by a fraction of a second) by using speed. That's what Santa must do every 25th. Santa's on speed.
DeleteI hope she appreciates it.
ReplyDeleteThe weather or the hat?
DeleteIt pains me to add this footnote, but when the German arrived back for a second visit this Summer, I saw - with horror and disgust - that he had deliberately put a dent into the perfectly ridged dome of the Panama, splitting the hat in the process. I had spent several years carefully handling it against any minor distortion, and putting it in a box over the winter. I almost killed him, but said nothing.
ReplyDeleteI still regret lending my beautiful brown Harris tweed flat cap to a pretty Parisienne. That was the last I saw of it, but as with yours, it looked far better on her anyway.
ReplyDeletep.s. I was listening to Suggs last night, talking about when they played 'One Step Beyond' at an open air gig in London. The entire audience all jumped at the same time, and a nearby tower block shook under some quite high Richter scale reading.
DeleteStrange - the girl I gave my hat to was from Paris too.
DeleteShe probably has a huge collection.
DeleteGallantry is your middle name.
ReplyDeleteActually, Gaylord is my middle name, but you were close.
DeleteGaylord? For real? Have you ever seen the movie 'Meet the Fockers'? There is a character named Gaylord in that movie.
DeleteDon't you dare give away any rain boots that you may own or we will have a flood coming on.
Have you got any diamonds ? I'd look so much better in them than you !!!!
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe that you gave your Basil Rathbone hat away ….. I remember all of the posts about it and how happy you were when you had one made ? Had a few Christmas bevvies passed your lips when you gave it away ? XXXX
I still have that one. It wasn't the one I gave away. I am having it stretched (and my sphincter the reverse).
DeleteI can change the weather by hanging out washing.
ReplyDeleteWe too are having the crisp morning followed by hellish wind and sleet. Just keep your hats to yourself from now on please.
Stop hanging out your washing and we may have a deal.
DeleteI'm with Em, the weather changes when i hang out washing, too.
ReplyDeleteI wear winter hats and have two hats i wear for boating, but i've gotten out of the habit of wearing hats as fashion accessories. If i give those away, will that put weather matters to rights?
No, I think the weather would show you greater respect if you used a capital 'i' for yourself, Em. Two hats for boating? Luxury.
DeletePanama Joe, could be the man with your hat. I know him, he lives in Austria and and reads Edgar Wallace mysteries in German, he has probably read everything Wallace wrote, and he reckons to have some Scottish ancestry.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen him lately. He's a fair weather bird.
ReplyDeleteStille Nacht...
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