Rant #1: Umbrellas

Squelching my leaking Primark heels around King's Cross station today, I knew that summer was well and truly over. The sad sight of discarded Metros sinking into muddy puddles was enough to tell me that my once impressive tan lines were about to enter into “ridiculous” territory, along with the ballerina pumps and skirts that defined a scorcher of a summer. As I mourned the retirement of my flimsy red sandals, I looked around me and remembered the one thing worse than putting away the summer dresses – getting out the umbrellas.

Umbrellas have always been a pet hate of mine. The frustration of the inverted brolly, ducking under doorways and getting ripped off by souvenir shops stocked to the hilt with the things makes you wonder if it would just be better to get wet. Indeed, in a lifetime before hair straighteners and having to look smart for work, I engaged in a liberating brolly boycott – braving the elements a la that famous sequence in Singin’ in the Rain. But Gene Kelly had me fooled. Upon looking in the mirror I realised that, with only Cosmo to protect me against the rain, the freak was not so chic.

So I accepted, albeit begrudgingly, that the umbrella was here to stay. Despite its faults, it promises to keep around 70 percent of you dry (make that 50 percent if you’re sharing with a friend/colleague/random wet person) and wins the style battle with the see-through pac-a-mac hands down. Having made my peace with the parasol though, it became clear that the article itself was only part of the problem.

More frustrating, I soon discovered, are the legions of Londoners who, when given an umbrella, lose all sense of pavement protocol. Armed and dangerous, they make getting to work a challenge on par with running the gauntlet on Gladiators. Back in the Ulrika days.

Weaving in and out of metal spokes, the pedestrian must ward off regular attacks from wayward brollies, uncontrolled by their preoccupied owners as they trundle joylessly to work. Quite why it is beyond us to control an umbrella remains unclear – but I suspect cases of eyeball pokings and head proddings rise considerably in the Autumn months (although I would have to look up the exact statistics to be sure).

But even this can be overlooked. The English have many skills – standing in queues, perfecting a repressed demeanour and baking meat pies – perhaps carrying umbrellas is just not one of the things we’re good at. However, when it comes to umbrellas there is one cardinal sin that cannot be forgiven. A delusion of grandeur so absurd that it cannot be excused. I am of course referring to those people for whom wielding a standard model is just not exciting enough. Owners of golf umbrellas.

The clue is in the title. A golf umbrella on the golf course is one thing. But in central London it is unnecessary, dangerous and, let’s face it, just a little bit pretentious. Striding along with a brolly big enough to shelter the population of Wales, users stay dry by effectively eradicating other pedestrians from the pavement. They belittle us commoners with our fold-up, handbag sized flimsy alternatives. And most annoyingly of all they are the only people that actually stay dry. Damn them.

ecb