It’s sunny today in London. Not swollen, atmospheric, white light, but urine-tinged, honest-to-God sunshine drying up the sidewalks and re-instilling faith in its inhabitants. Faith that five months of darkness had beaten out of us. A very exciting time for London, a transitional time, when all the English come out to see and be seen!

Now to be fair, it is only the girls who put themselves out there, and lo and behold, we get to see their legs, in their peaches and cream palour, entirely stripped bare of leggings and tights. Wide expanses of cankles and calves quivering and goose-bumped in their nakedness, declaring to Oxford Street and every high street large and small, “By God, winter is over and I am hot stuff!!” In true Mediterranean spirit, many begin their bottle tan rituals well in advance and display a spectrum of orange to challenge the rain to ever come back. But it does not stop there my friends, oh no. It is not enough just to remind us that they have legs— they also have thighs, butt cheeks, muffin-top, cleavage and arms all cheekily “tanned” in  joyful tangerine streaks or vampiric au naturel as the day they were born. Soft and dimpled in Baroque grandeur, the flesh of the English is out there gently wiggling from the vibration of each stomp of a ballerina-clad foot. 55 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now and I am stumped at how the girls stay cool should it get any warmer. I understand now why Alexander McQueen only showed his collection in Paris.

The other positively brilliant thing we can see only in England and nowhere else on the continent is businessmen and women lined up outside a pub holding pints of beer. The first time I saw this I thought, “Wow, that must be one hell of a pub, all those suits lined up outside to get in! Must be one of those fantastic gastro-pubs.” And then I saw that there wasn’t anyone sitting down inside. What could this mean?

Well, London has very little terrace seating. These people were simply trying to soak in vitamin D, but as there were no seats outside, they were queuing up in a most orderly manner, drinking and talking with their colleagues single file! Lined up against the walls of the pub, with beer in hand, they looked like they were enjoying their last drink before a firing squad.