Summer is officially over: it’s cold, dark, wet and windy again. Schools are starting back, pretty much everybody’s home from their holidays and all students will be enrolled in college by the end of the month. But how will Ireland remember the summer of 2013? A lot of memorable stuff happened, but here’s a list of the most noteworthy features of the last three months.
The HEAT
You know, as Irish people we love to moan about the weather. Usually it’s raining too much, or it’s snowing, or there’s a hurricane forming. But this year we enjoyed a summer so warm and sunny that any such naysayers were too busy relaxing at the beach or throwing a barbecue to complain. Highs of 28.4 degrees meant that Ireland was hotter than Lanzarote at one point, which marked this year’s summer as the longest period of prolonged nice weather since 2006. Contrary to popular belief, it didn’t break the record for temperature – it was 33.3 degrees in 1887. Apparently.
Prince George of Cambridge
“Who’s that?” you might be wondering. Here’s his more well-known nickname: ROYAL BABY! Halfway through summer, the only child of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge popped into the world in a blaze of media frenzy, internet speculation and a grand fanfare fit for a future king. He is third in line to succeed his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, and therefore has much more power, money and influence than you’ll probably ever have. Oh, and who could forget this awesome dude?
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Blockbuster Movies that Blew
We’ve already written about how Hollywood has been struggling to garner the public’s attention. But seriously, a month later and the situation has only gotten worse. Aside from the odd exception (Fast 6, anyone?), summer 2013 has consisted of disappointments: from After Earth to Monsters University, The Lone Ranger to Planes, 2 Guns to Grown-Ups 2 and so on. Usually epic popcorn movies fill the cinemas this time of year – the closest we got this time was Pacific Rim. Movie-wise, the summer of 2013 was a bad one... Although Sharknado was released, and there was much rejoicing.
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Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney died, and the outpouring of national sympathy demonstrated the respect he clearly commanded. His death sent legions of former school kids and current students into a spiralling nostalgia trip; his already-established place on the Leaving Cert poetry curriculum has been guaranteed for years to come now. It also made us re-examine our appreciation of the humble bog – if such a genius could appreciate the boglands, then there must be more to them than mere corpse preservation. Who knew?
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The Return of Daft Punk
Music-wise, the summer of 2013 undoubtedly belonged to Daft Punk. Having remained relatively quiet following their successful work on Tron: Legacy in 2010, their release of the 80’s-inspired Random Access Memories provided the soundtrack to those long sunny days. You couldn’t (and probably still can’t) go a day without hearing “Get Lucky” on the radio, and although it’s a total earworm that burrows its way into your brain, you don’t mind because it’s just so damn good.
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Electric Picnic vs Oxegen
For many, this year’s Oxegen lineup was more than a bit disappointing. With seemingly as many laptops performing as people, the festival appears to have completely shied away from its roots in more conventional rock and pop music. Electric Picnic reaped the benefits, having sold 100% of its tickets well in advance. Stradbally provided the casual listener with much more variety than Punchestown, from Arctic Monkeys to Wu-Tang Clan via a host of other musical, comedic and spoken-word acts. Who'll win next year?
Electric Picnic POV from Cinemanable on Vimeo.
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The Rise of Netflix
Everybody and their granny now has a Netflix account, and the summer holidays acted as the perfect excuse for many to sign up. The worldwide obsession with Breaking Bad is mostly to blame, though the sheer amount of other content on offer is attractive too. I also think that people were starting to feel guilty about downloading movies and TV episodes without paying for them, although that could just be me…
The Fall of Miley Cyrus
Things aren’t going very well for the former teen idol turned horrific twerker Miley Cyrus. Sure, she’s currently dating Liam Hemsworth. But her baffling and kind of scary performance at this year’s MTV Music Awards, in which foam fingers and Robin Thicke’s crotch sort of melded into one, generated an understandable amount of negative press. To top it all off, the video for her latest choon “Wrecking Ball” is a deeply uncomfortable affair. I’m expecting a Twitter meltdown by Halloween.
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