YOU open just one eye first. Then the world announces itself in great, jagged, painful shards of light. You shut it quickly and a few minutes later you gingerly lift your head a few inches from the pillow. More pain and another retreat into the numbness of denial.

This time, the discomfort comes from another region. Stomach to Control, you should be receiving me loud and clear.

The sickness to the stomach is a two-pronged attack. It's physical and it's mental. You feel sick at what you can only half remember. What did I do? What did I say? Did I disgrace myself in front of all those people?

Oh my God, I was chatting up the next-door neighbour. Worse - we agreed to go on holiday with them and their horrid kids.

Pad to the bathroom through bloodshot slits. Brush the Foster's fur from the teeth then downstairs to survey the damage.

Patio doors still wide open, a stray guest snoring on the settee and the garden an absolute, bloody shambles. The empties. Did we really get through that lot? What will the neighbours think when we clink it into the bin?

Yes, dear reader, it's summer, BST, British Supping Time, Barbecue Slurping Time.

Did you do it this weekend? Did you over-indulge on sun, salmonella and spritzer?

Did you invite friends/family/neighbours round for a barbie and are they still speaking to you? Is your hangover lasting longer than the sunstroke?

It's a fisherman's tale, really, and everyone is involved in the conspiracy.

The groundbait is a weather forecast offering a fine weekend. Then it's off to Superdrug for the Factor 15, by way of Tesco for the charcoal and lighter fluid, steak and sausages.

The supermarket managers are the most sinister conspirators. You walk into their emporium and the charcoal, 'kettle' barbecues and lighters form a mountainous avenue like a welcome committee.

It's sad, though, when the forecasters get it wrong, to see the stuff still there on a Monday, like condoms in the ante-natal clinic.

So... the music's playing, the sun is blazing, the acrid pong of lighter fluid is wafting across every garden for miles around. The wine is flowing, especially for the barbie chef, with burger spatula in one hand and a glass in the other.

It's a natural law of physics. It's called 'balance'. Without a drink to balance the cooking arm, you fall over. When the drink is depleted, it has to be replaced to maintain the fulcrum. The chatter gets louder and sillier, so the music has to go up to compensate. The giggles become witches' cackles, the same old jokes become funnier and the woman from No 21 suddenly becomes strangely attractive. Party on!

What we're doing is bingeing, the British are brilliant at bingeing. It's all down to being deprived. Our licensing laws deprive us of 24-hour drinking so we make up for it when we get abroad - or have a sunny day, or there's a party or there's an 'r' in the month.

You can always tell a Brit abroad. It's not just the Union Jack underpants on his head - he's the one face down in the gutter by 6pm.

We are also deprived of the glories of ultra violet radiation, so the minute the sun shines we binge on sunbathing as if there's no tomorrow. When you wake up in the morning you wish this was no tomorrow.

Blistered skin, memory loss and a banging head, it must have been a great barbecue.

You know who your friends are - they're the ones who don't tell you what you got up to the night before. Everyone else revels in it.

But that's the joy of the British summer, you grab it while you can. Like a butterfly, its life is fleeting. If we had Barbados weather, we Brits would be able to smile and dance at the same time. Stop. The weekend isn't over yet - there's the return to work and the report back to colleagues about what a fantastic time we almost remember.

"By God, we supped some stuff. And look at my sunburn - it's weeping. Can't wait to do it all again next weekend."

Updated: 09:21 Tuesday, June 17, 2003