‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.’ The phrase’s origin is somewhat disputed, but it was made famous by Noël Coward’s song of the same name, supposedly written on the drive between Hanoi and Saigon in the early 1930s. Coward was English himself, and the song is a humorous act of national self-flagellation; an explicit dig at a peculiarity deeply embedded in the British culture: our collective inability to behave sensibly in the sun. 

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Spring, by almost anybody’s measure, is upon us. May provides two Bank Holidays and the first reliable warmth of the year. Like clockwork, the country takes leave of its senses. Sun Awareness Week will run from 11 to 17 May, an annual campaign by the British Association of Dermatologists, to remind us that ultraviolet radiation does not, in fact, care whether you are on a beach in Lanzarote or a garden in Crawley. It will get you. 

The British relationship with the sun is certainly an interesting paradox. We are, as a culture, comprehensively obsessed with not ageing. The skincare industry in this country is worth billions. Entire magazine supplements are devoted to the apparently........

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