Thanks to a surprise bestseller, cloudspotting is on the up, writes Shane Hegarty
'I get told off a lot by my partner for looking up at the sky while driving," admits Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of The Cloudspotter's Guide. "It's not a good combination."
Clouds are the scourge of the sunbather and the enemy of the astronomer. We spend much of the year wishing they would go away. And this summer we have delighted in how few of them there have been. But Pretor-Pinney wants to rehabilitate the humble cloud, and remind people of why several tons of grit and water hanging in amazing shapes high above our heads is a wonder worth getting a sore neck for.
Thanks to the success of his book, which has surprised many in the publishing world (not least the 27 publishers who turned it down) by scudding up the bestsellers list, he will no longer be the only one with his head in the clouds. Witty, whimsical and heaving with fascinating facts, it is the most interesting book about a boring-sounding subject you'll read this year.
"It wasn't obvious to the publishers at first that clouds have mass appeal," he says. "But from my point of view everyone has an embedded interest in clouds. It's almost universal that as children we were captivated by clouds. What are these strange things? What are they made of and why don't they fall out of the sky? Can I sit on top of one? That whole thing about looking for shapes shows how we project our imagination on them. Then as we get older we forget to look up, and we hardly even notice them. I thought I could awaken that dormant interest."
He describes clouds as "the most egalitarian of nature's displays", as it doesn't really matter where you are as long as you have a patch of sky above you. And cloudspotting needs no notepads or pens or timetables or telescopes. It's just a matter of lying back and opening your eyes, quite the perfect hobby for a co-founder of The Idler magazine. And with his book as a guide you too can now ponder whether the stratocumulus really does "look like someone couldn't find the off switch on the candyfloss machine" or how "the nimbostratus won't be winning any cloud beauty contests".
What is Pretor-Pinney's favourite cloud? "I like a cloud that's not one of the 10 main ones, it's a supplementary feature called the pileus. I describe it in the book as being like a cloud haircut." What kind of haircut? "Bouffant. It's amusing and interesting, and almost the essence of clouds, because you notice it only if you're looking for it. And it's momentary, which makes it very special."
This is the evasive nature of cloudspotting, he adds. Clouds being clouds, "every time you've defined one it mocks you by changing into something else altogether".
His favourite fact from a book full of them is how the average cumulus cloud (the white, fluffy one that adorns weather maps and kids' drawings) holds the equivalent weight of 80 elephants. "I like that fact because it's so surprising and it really connects you with the questions you have as a child." He is about to make a TV series, a globe-trotting guide to clouds.
"Interesting and amusing as it is, and whimsical as it can be, its unifying aspect is a very important feature. I like the idea that you can travel the world and meet other people interested in clouds, so the series will very much be about that bridging of cultures." This has been demonstrated by the growing membership of the Cloud Appreciation Society, which he founded in 2004 and now has 5,000 members across 39 countries (including one lone cloudspotter in northern Iraq).
Thanks to the age of the digital camera, its website is filled with pictures of clouds, including plenty of the obligatory "cloud lookalikes" in which, if you squint and hold your head at the right angle, you can see flying pigs and "a man proposing his love to a young woman, from Norway".
The aim, says Pretor-Pinney, is to "fight the banality of blue-sky thinking". Although he's worried that he may be responsible for a few accidents in the meantime. "Be careful crossing the road," he warns novice cloudspotters.