So I tear myself away from the powerful Andalucian sun to send this dispatch. Aren’t you lucky? You will not appreciate how much a sacrifice this until I introduce myself. I’m the author of Sunshine: One man’s search for happiness, a book all about why and how we seek the sun, and when we came to be so besotted with it. Extraordinarily, it’s the first book to try to explain this, and I’m in Spain to promote it. A feeble excuse for a quick flit to the sun, and I just hope the tax man buys it when I file my expenses. I’m being interviewed on an English-language radio station called REM (no relation), and, yes, I could have done this by phone from London. But, well, I’m a perfectionist, perhaps something of a method actor, and I’m not sure I could really enter into the spirit of the task without absorbing as much of the atmosphere of southern Spain before I present myself to those lucky people living here, taking this stuff for granted, and not lapping up every drop like yours truly. Yours truly who has just heard the frankly tragic forecast for this summer – that it just may be as bad as last year. Unbelievable, unthinkable and frankly unacceptable. If I explain that I stood as the Sunshine Superman in the recent London mayorial elections – a sort of Citizen Smith of sunshine, slogan ‘Solar Power to the People’ – you will appreciate how indignant this makes me, and see what a daunting prospect lies before me to right these wrongs. We deserve a scorcher after last year, and I will do my utmost to spread some of the golden stuff we crave. The first blow has been struck by publishing, if you will, my manifesto. And if the need to spread the word about this takes me to sunny pastures, then it is all for the greater good. I am your humble, and, truth be told, nicely bronzed servant. Wish you were here (just not all at the same time).