Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

“Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot,” I just love these clips with the music from Bina Mistry from the end of   ‘Bend it like Beckham’, which has to be one of the original feel good movies.  

Whenever I see actors and production crews goofing around and obviously having a really good time, as they were in these clips, I find it almost impossible to imagine bankers and teachers cavorting around having such fun and I am thus tempted to rush off and enrol myself in NIDA, the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, for after all there must be some roles for middle aged ladies with a good track record.  As a tone-deaf child it was a requirement of my totally terrifying primary school music teacher who was an ex opera singer with the requisite chest to match, that I make an appearance on stage rather than wrecking her choir.  My great dramatic moments thus included a baby angel (a number of times) and lured on by this early success, numerous senior school productions including a totally dreadful Mrs Sullen in a Restoration comedy called The Beaux Stratagem (with hindsight I cannot think what madness overcame the Glasgow Academy master who chose that one as there has never been a play less suitable for a school packed with teenage boys).  I had a ball as one of the four girls imported into the cast to provide the love interest but I don’t think any of the cast – or indeed the audience, ever understood what on earth was going on in the play.  My dramatic career may have peaked with a performance as an “Old Etonian Fag and Friend” in ‘Lady Audley’s Secret’ – funny how some lines stay in your mind for ever, just recalling my 16 year old appearance in plus fours and a cap also makes me wonder why my girls’ school didn’t return the dramatic favour and import some boys for the roles that called fairly obviously for a bit of testosterone. 

‘Bend it like Beckham’ and actors hamming it up aside, ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’ applies to Sydney today.  34 oC or 93 oF today at 4pm, with a hot wind blasting through.  The Drama Queens and I took ourselves off down to the beach at 6pm, the water temperature is about 20 oC and was cold enough compared to the air temperature to provide an initial shock, but such bliss to come out of the water and be warm within seconds – being a product of windswept Scottish beaches where running up and down the beach was required to restart circulation and no one in their right mind stood still to let the wind dry them off for fear of hypothermia setting in, I find warm weather bathing an ongoing treat, particularly when followed by a walk along the beach to the bottle shop to buy an ice cream.  Doesn't come any better than a small tub of Ben and Jerry's, sitting with my girls on the esplanade watching the beach day come to an end.  

The wind is getting up this evening as I type as what is called a ‘Southerly Buster’ blows in and cools everything down, but there is a joyous feeling that even if the stage fails to beckon me forward into the spotlight, there is at least the long, hazy days of a Sydney summer where the locals don’t wear shoes, to look forward to.