Today marks the official opening of the silly season in the newspaper industry. There is no news and no one to report the news. As I look around the office, those of us still here are wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses, the sounded of lilos being inflated is clearly audible, and the editor has a beach towel tucked under his arm as he heads off for his annual jaunt to Butlins.
This means that those left at the JC nerve centre in Central London have a challenging time finding stuff to report on while everyone else is lying by the pool.
For me, however, this is undoubtedly the best month to be at work. At other times of year, my column is an island of silliness in a sea of earnest words. But, for August only, everyone catches up with the knockabout stuff.
The week's best silly story has to be the inflatable church which has been set up on the beach in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia, so that worshippers can catch some rays and an ice cream and still get to confession. It ticks all the silly season boxes - it's bouncy, it happens on the beach and it has made people without a sense of humour quite angry.
Hopefully by next year we will be reporting on the world's first inflatable shul on the sands at Bournemouth. Will it be the flexible kind favoured by the Reform or the more rigid structure associated with the United Synagogue? Perhaps the Lubavitch could be on hand with mitzvah dinghies (I see them as an auxiliary lifeguard service with those amusing hats and vests, out there in the surf, saving souls).
The kiddush could also be fun, as long as you don't get sand in your kichels. The herring could be pickled straight from the sea and the Palwin would have to be served with a little umbrella and a wedge of lime.
Come to think of it, there is something intrinscally amusing about Jews on holiday. You would think that we should be well suited for summer, but despite the fact that our forebears were Mediterranean, this has been cancelled out by hundreds of years spent in the chillier corners of Eastern Europe. Thus, while we seem to have a kind of atavistic yearning for the sun, we don't quite know what to do when it comes out.
Some northern European peoples adapt well to sunny climates. One thinks of Australia, where, until recently, the culture was basically working-class British. But now they have thrown away the knotted hankies and spend most of their time tossing shrimps on the barbie and running headlong into the surf.
We, on the other hand, don't really do summer very well. There is no tradition of throwing a fliegel on to the barbie, and the foods we have brought up with don't really translate to al fresco eating. Pickled brisket with a pineapple salsa, anyone?
There is also the conundrum of how many of us got such pale skin. Does the fact of living in Poland for a few hundred years make you go freckly? Maybe the redundant tanning gene just phased itself out.
Thankfully, I have bucked the trend and adapted to summer more successfully than most, so next week while you all swelter in the city, I shall be sitting on a deck chair, trousers rolled up to my knees eating my worsht sandwich and taking sips from my thermos of lemon tea. Bliss.
Let's hope I remember to pack my inflatable kneidl.