Phew, All Britannia

If the Romans hadn't given us enough names already for the months of the year, we'd surely be inventing new ones by now. Two of the Caesars claimed respectively July and August, otherwise Scorchio and Vacancio might well make more appropriate names for the distinguishing marks of this time of year.

July was the hottest on record in the UK, though not quite exceeding the record high of 10th August 2003 when the Fahrenheit century (around 37 degrees Centigrade) was breached for the first time ever in the British Isles at my late mother's birthplace, Faversham in Kent. Now Midsummer has given way to High Summer as we've entered the eighth month of the year, yet already I find moments of melancholy as sunset now gets back to before 9 p.m and the shops are full of Back to School gear hardly a week after the little loves have finished the school year.

August can be a very strange month; even politicians shut their traps for a few weeks -at least in parliament during the recess. The media go all silly, but normally nobody cares as most of Britain breathes a collective sigh of relief to enjoy a few weeks of rest and relaxation and a chance to chill out- literally.

With perfect timing the two-week heatwave came to an end last weekend. Although as I write, it's still a somewhat sticky summer afternoon, the temperatures are at least below the thirty degrees celsius mark again. We Britons are just not made for extremes: we are used to a temperate climate and most of the time that reflects our expressions of our national values too. The rare, but welcome, exceptions are seen in the culture fests of this time of the year here, when Edinburgh brings its Caledonian charm to the largest international arts festival in the world, while Wales celebrates all things Cambrian with the Royal National Eisteddfod, taking place this week around the principality's second city of Swansea.

Here in England, London's Royal Albert Hall plays host to some of the most internationally-renowned orchestras and soloists as the BBC Proms season brings a wealth of music to the nation prior to the Britophile feast which is the Last Night, a tradition much imitated as an evening diversion in August across the land. I love all these events, and wish I could take part in every one in some way.

There's something about summer which is a contradiction: on the one hand, it begs you to slow the pace down to spare the body the fierce heat we are now becoming accustomed to, and yet it's a time where you long to make the most of the great outdoors visiting new places or becoming re-acquainted with ones last seen many years ago. Earlier this week, I was delighted to spend a mini break on the Sussex coast at my "other" home. We tripped through the centuries, taking in Hastings, home of a castle even in Roman times -long before William I launched the last succesful conquest of England- and the next day went to Bodiam, where everybody's idea of a fairy tale castle took me back to my first acquaintance with this heavenly location as a ten-year old.

Children and adults alike love the chance at such places to wind back the film of the imagination to an age before CGI did the imagining for us. It's enlightening and interesting to think back to the times of bold knights, wise kings and fair maidens. But the mind is tricked if it thinks that those times were really so different from the 21st century. Amidst all the chivalry, there was also great brutality, cruel and sudden death, merciless slaughter and pointless destruction of property and persons. Many children did not even live to adulthood.

Sound familiar? Sadly, it's the tale played out this summer not in imagination but in reality on the front pages and the TV screens of the world as the ever-volatile situation in the Middle East approaches a new boiling point. It might not have the outward appearance of the battles and conquests of Roman, Saxon and Medieval Europe, but the net effects are every bit as horrendous for the individual lives war always affects.

Israel is at war once again, not with a sovereign state but with a faction, Hizbullah or the "party of God", seemingly holed up in Beirut, Lebanon. Hence the land of majestic cedar trees is once again tortured by the indiscriminate explosive power of airborne weapons, and the world despairs as both sides make claims about the evil excesses of the other while innocent children and civilians are as ever the powerless victims. Just as the Lebanese capital was once again becoming an attractive holiday destination, the indelible scars of war mar more than facades. They destroy precious human bodies.

Can there ever be an end to all this wretched warfare? Is there a solution to the senseless killing which brings nothing but more tears and bitterness? Politicians will try, and Britain's PM Tony Blair is, somewhat ironically, achieving a measure of redemption amidst the enduring hatred of his part in the troubles of another part of this region, Iran. Britain had a long-standing reputation as an honest broker and peacemaker in the world's warmongering, but such policy now seems to belong to an age long gone.

Nobody can breathe any true sighs of relief while this horror remains. It's about far more than oil and land, it's about man's basic nature. Sadly, we can breathe no sighs of relief or take a holiday from "sin". All three of the religions which have fought over this part of the globe for centuries as "People of the Book", the book being the Hebrew Bible, recognise that "Sin" became an innate part of the human condition long ago. Middle East war is only the most extreme and disturbing part of that within all of us. Normally rapidly cooled down from nothing worse than a hot temper, we're nevertheless all capable of the cold-blooded murder which is the mark of extremism given the right - or wrong- spark. Like a match to parched grass, war brings uncontrollable destruction everywhere in its wake which no firefighter can control for long, it seems.

Yet still there is hope. The Hebrew Bible is an "old" testament, and so often it seems punctuated by violence and hatred. Yet it also speaks of a time when swords will be turned into plougshares- or maybe tracer missiles into tractors. When the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Or when freedom fighting becomes love liberated. There will be no more sickness, no more sadness, no more dying. It's coming, when I do not know, but surely it will. And Israelis, Lebanese, Iraqis, Afghans and all the warring tribes of the world, will lie in green pastures together. Not just all Britain, but all creation, will breathe the biggest sigh of relief ever expired, when that happens. May we see it, one day not for a season, but for all eternity.