"The sun'll come out Tomorrow,/ Bet your bottom dollar/ That tomorrow there'll be sun!" Ah, if only! Wouldn't the recent relentless rain make you want to yank little orphan Annie's curls?
One of the least discussed aspects of the climate change "crisis" is the inconvenient truth that many Irish people are secretly delighted by the prospect of global warming. After what appears to be 40 days and nights of biblical downpours and unseasonable chills, wouldn't a little warmth and sunshine be welcome?
When the "experts" say there is a "big danger" that the average temperature in Ireland could rise by 20C over the next 50 years, a common unspoken reaction is a forlorn, "Not until then"? or, "Only by two?" But of course you can't say this in polite company. You're supposed to say "How appalling" and pity the poor old penguins and fret about melting ice caps. But really, we'd only love to grow bananas in the back garden and to sit drinking fresh daiquiris after a tough day on the M50.
Yes, most of us long for more sunshine. The glorious April of 2007 might have been due to global warming, but didn't it feel great? The countryside never looked lovelier; Dublin glittered like Honolulu; and, from Thurles to Cavan, the ever-expanding café "terrasses" were filled with people eating their dinner - outdoors, if you don't mind - in the middle of the day. Forget Al Gore. Al fresco was all the rage.
Foolishly, we began preparing for the long hot summer ahead. Garden centres could hardly keep up with the demand for outdoor furniture and barbecue sets while enough decking was installed around Irish homes to make it visible from outer space. And then, alas, it started to rain. But any weekend now (or even tomorrow) the temperature will surely rise again. And we'll be ready, won't we?
Well, there is one area in which we have yet to adapt comfortably to the much-anticipated new climatic order. Dressing for "summer" remains fraught with difficulty and our national sartorial desire to emulate the residents of Miami or the Riviera falls woefully short. Now it is true that cohorts of young women seem to emerge from the chrysalis of St Patrick's Day with copper-gold skin, California-blonde hair, cool cotton sundresses and Coco Chanel sunglasses. But Dundrum Dollies are far outweighed in number by Darndale Dames with Sumo thighs and Mike Tyson-biceps going about in what a Victorian novelist would call "a state of undress".
And men, who really should know better, take to donning three-quarter-length trousers and sandals suitable only for Hobbits and end up resembling reject extras from a budget remake of Jean de Florette on location in Roscommon. Some even believe that saggy cargo pants teamed with an "Italia 90" T-shirt is acceptable "casual wear".
While women are inundated with strictures on "what not to wear" by harridans on television purporting to be "stylists", there is precious little advice on the subject for men. Writer Kate Fox, analysing dress codes in Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, believes that "male casual dress" is a "class indicator" and that there is "an inverse correlation between amounts of visible flesh and position on the social scale".
She claims that "among older males, the higher classes tend to prefer shirts to T-shirts, and would certainly never go out in just vest or singlet, however hot the weather - these are strictly working-class garments", while "bare chests, anywhere other than a beach or swimming pool, are lower working-class". Furthermore, she writes: "On a warm day, lower-class men will roll their shirt-sleeves up to above the elbow, while the higher ranks will roll them to just below". And on the tricky subject of showing a bit of leg? Toffs wear shorts only when "playing sports, hill-walking or perhaps gardening at home", she says, and "only working-class males exhibit their legs in public in their home town".
However, the most topical sartorial advice comes from a most unlikely source. Last week EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy suggested that male eurocrats should dispense with their ties for the summer. He reportedly got the idea while on a trip to Japan, where prime minister Shinzo Abe believes civil servants will be able to withstand hotter offices - and therefore require less "environment-damaging air-conditioning" - if they sport open-neck shirts. But wouldn't that expose their brass necks? Still, it's as sensible a solution to global warming as any of the hot air emanating from Brussels.