Bring some sunshine into our lives with the help of Sophia

By Mike Lowson

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THIS week, while sitting at my desk watching the rain pour down outside, I resolved to do something positive to change things before the traditional Scottish summer disappears faster than a pro-Tibet protester in a Beijing back street.

I reckon, too, that a certain Aloysius Lilius is well past his sell-by date.

It was a relief that Friday’s Olympic opening ceremony passed without incident, though, especially as the time and date when it began was 08:08:08 on 08:08:08. That could have offered a high-profile hook for a homicidal maniac.

The Chinese choice of time and date was quite deliberate as eight is considered a lucky number there, apparently. The word for eight in Mandarin sounds similar to that for wealth, I’m told, while eight in Cantonese sounds like the word for fortune.

We are less lyrical here, sadly. British bingo-callers refer, erroneously, to the number 88 as “two fat ladies”. In my view, any female with a true figure-eight figure has an eye-catchingly curvaceous bust and bottom separated by a super-slim waist. To meet two such shapely women together would be very lucky, indeed.

Still, I digress. While the sun beat down on much of the west Highlands on Friday, for example, other areas were mopping up after Thursday’s downpours that saw Edinburgh resemble a giant Beechgrove Garden water feature and left folk from Muckle Flugga to the Mull of Kintyre wondering what the heck was coming next.

There have been some decent days, yes, but my memory of this summer has been one of wind and rain. It was just as dreich last year, and the year before. Weather statistics will probably prove me wrong and it will end up as the hottest summer since records began – it usually is – but I think summers are getting steadily soggier.

I don’t remember my school summer holidays being cold and wet. My memories are of playing outside until dusk, of great days fishing on the Spey and the Dulnain on our annual trip to holiday heaven near Grantown, and of few weather-related disruptions to tennis, football, putting, beachcombing, cycling and dozens of similar fun-filled frolics. It rained sometimes, of course, but not with today’s frequency or ferocity.

After many hours working on what is going wrong, I have realised that Al Gore-style global-warming gloom is nonsense and those who can’t make up their minds whether Scotland is set to become an oven-like Sahara or a fridge-like Siberia are talking garbage. The real problem lies with our calendar. That’s why Aloysius Lilius has to get the boot.

Signor Lilius was the Italian responsible for devising our 12-month calendar. It became known as the Gregorian calendar after it was endorsed by Pope Gregory in 1582.

As with most items of about 500 years old that are still in use, it is worn out and its replacement is long overdue. We shouldn’t throw away the whole system – that would be too confusing – but schoolboy arithmetic tells me there are 52 weeks in a year, so that must mean there is room for 13 four-week months instead of 12.

My idea is simple. Scotland gets its best weather in May and June when most folk are working and school pupils have to endure swotting for exams in glorious weather. By July and August, when they are on holiday, it has become distinctly autumnal. That’s unfair.

My solution is to create a new month between April and May. This would shunt the existing months forward by one and mean we would get June weather in July, and August weather in September. Christmas would still be on December 25, but winter sports would start in February – in perfect time for the mid-term break – and last until after Easter. Brilliant.

There is some debate as to what the new month will be called, of course. Most of our current months owe their names to famous Romans, so January is named after the Roman god Janus, March after Mars, the Roman god of war, August after Augustus, the first Roman emperor, and so on.

Ideas for my new month’s name have ranged from Dalglish to Baxter, Connery to Connolly and (Liz) McColgan to (Flora) MacDonald. No one has yet suggested (Gordon) Brown as a good name for the new month, however. Imagine being born on the fourth of Brown, for example. Yuck.

I think we should stick with the Italian tradition, so I have decided the new month will be called Sophia, after Sophia Loren, indisputably the shapeliest-ever Roman. This means our year will now read January, February, March, April, Sophia, May, June, July, August and on through December. Having a wedding ceremony on, say, the sixth of Sophia sounds rather sexy, don’t you think?

If eight really is lucky I should do well with this plan, too, as I can think of no other woman blessed with such a fabulous, head-turning, jaw-dropping, eye-popping and money-spinning figure-eight shape. Her husband was, indeed, a lucky man.

She’s also one western creation the Chinese will never manage to replicate, this month or any other.

Finally to my heroes of the week, and congratulations to those in Oban who have worked hard to secure its biggest influx of luxury cruise ships. Recent visitors have included the 30,277-tonne Azamara Journey, Mona Lisa, Ocean Majesty and Deutschland, not to mention visits by the Queen’s favourite mini-liner, Hebridean Princess.

Cruise visitors usually enjoy spectacularly scenic excursions in the Scottish countryside, bringing much-needed income to locations struggling to survive the double-whammy of soaring fuel prices and uncertain money markets.

Oban is not alone in cruising to success, though. Invergordon was a pioneer of the trade while the likes of Portree, Loch Ewe, Stornoway, Ullapool, Scrabster, Kirkwall, Lerwick and Peterhead have all seen majestic liners appear on their horizons.

All the visitors need to cap an unforgettable trip is decent weather. There is no more beautiful or memorable destination than Scotland when the climate co-operates.

So haste ye back, cruisers. Next season begins on the first of Sophia.