IT’S the time of year when the sun should be out and getting on with its primary job of putting you in a good mood.

This is the time we rediscover all there is to enjoy when warmth returns to the world: flowers, wildlife, attractive people in summer clothes and so on.

For some of us, it also means the first sneezing fit of the hayfever season will happen pretty soon.

But the warm weather also brings terrible danger. Because, as we all know now, the sun is bad for you.

Some of us remember when the sun was good for you.

People used to tell you to go out and enjoy it.

When I was a film-obsessed teenager who wanted to stay indoors all day, people thought I was in the wrong.

But it turns out that the yellow object causing the annoying reflection on the TV screen was trying to kill us. It is, of course, good that we’re all now aware of the danger the sun can pose to our skin, and that most of us know the importance of using plenty of sun cream. But it’s a bit of a hassle, isn’t it?

And if you have children, every trip out entails applying sunscreen to unwilling small people – a process so tiresome that you’re tempted to cut corners by not applying it to yourself.

But the underlying problem is that, for men, skin care is not something we’ve been raised to bother about. It’s just not very rugged.

I’ve never seen a film yet in which John Wayne rounds up a bunch of tough-looking characters for a cattle drive and says something like this: “Listen up, men. We’re going to cross the Rio Grande and forge west.

“So if any of you haven’t brought along your sun lotion, now’s the time to back out.

“There’s gonna be outlaws, there’s gonna be Injuns, there’s gonna be rattlesnakes, and there’s gonna be harmful ultraviolet rays.

“And unless you want your skin to end up drier and craggier than Dead Man’s Gulch, you better slap on that factor 60.”

Of course, the danger from the sun is likely to get worse, so we men had better get used to protecting our skin.

Just a few minutes a day gets you nicely protected and weirdly pasty-looking – just in time for it to rain.

  • I TURNED 42 recently and was discussing this with a friend who’s a few months older. He voiced the thought on my mind before I did. “Elvis,” he said simply. We were both adjusting to the fact that we’ve had as many birthdays as the King. I have little in common with Elvis, except that women often scream when they’re near me. But it’s tempting at any age to measure yourself against great people and find yourself wanting. Tempting, but you shouldn’t. The world needs legions of unspectacular folk, just as it needs rock and roll stars. Most of us won’t know what it’s like to be adored by millions. But neither, hopefully, will we know what it’s like to expire on the toilet at 42, an unhappy, bloated parody of your younger self. Greatness is all very well, but most of us would happily settle for living an ordinary life for a long time.