Chill out this summer
Bright blooms, plucked from the garden, or even your local supermarket, will impart a jaunty, summery feel
Being Scottish, we have an innate inability to deal with rising temperatures. Back home, you see, we’re unaccustomed to thermostatic elevation beyond 20C. And that’s on a really good day.
Which is why, British temperatures currently soaring north of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, we’re jettisoning homesickness and thrilled to be this side of the pond, even though it’s beginning to bake in Canada, too.
To help keep you cool, we’ve collated a hit list of tweaks which, played properly, will drop temps chez vous. From cooling interior colour palettes to minor decorative adjustments, we’ve got your back. So go on, dive into the cool, C&J stylee.
FAN TACTIC
Blades, darlings, are so last year. These days, we suction dust with our trusty Dyson, using the same brand to cool our condo. So how do they work? Well, Dyson fans use air multiplier technology, a system which draws in, then amplifies, surrounding air. An absence of fast-spinning blades negates safety grilles, and the resultant smooth air cools our living room in a jiffy.
FURNITURE
Don’t you just yearn for lighter, airier tones as summer rolls? To preserve funds, try removable jewel-toned slipcovers, decorative throws and pillows (to manage colour temperature) and jaunty ceramics to tempt colder climes from hibernation.
If you prefer neutrals, experiment with white and khaki slipcovers, embellished with jazzy throw pillows for an instant update. Remember: you don’t need to go overboard to effect change — even a simple white lace doily, tablecloth or runner will invite a cool, airy vibe.
SUB IT OUT
As the mercury climbs, stash earthy-hued accessories which can appear heavy at this time of year. To cool our living room, we used yellow ceramics — but you could just as successfully try blue in its myriad guises.
Even a splash of cooling aqua will emotionally balance soaring temperatures. Lighter colours like lilac, delicate pink or pale green are also ideal for summer decoration.
Lime (particularly chartreuse) is a great note to play via ceramics and artworks, a tone that works particularly well as freshening punctuation on grey or black furniture.
CURTAINS FOR YOU?
To freshen your window area, replace traditional drapery with diaphanous fabric panels. Drapery fabric tends to be heavy, whereas sheers are lighter and provide better flexibility during summer months.
Stores such as Bouclair purvey a stellar collection of sheer window panels, and, courtesy of their Melissa Stripe panel, you needn’t worry about overspending. As an alternative, opt for blinds; retailers like Home Depot stock an affordable range, or invest in screens by Hunter Douglas, one of our favourite suppliers.
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS
Another cost-effective route to establish cooling impact is via freshly cut flowers, the foyer, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom being perfect locations to let your artistry gene run wild.
Bright blooms, plucked from the garden or even your local supermarket (where standards have increased in recent years) will impart a jaunty, summery feel. And take a tip; don’t stress about expensive vases. Choose simple glass options and let Mother Nature’s bounty speak for itself.
VIEWS
Max up furniture placement with chairs and sofas positioned to take advantage of lake, pool or garden views. Remember that, for the most part, home enjoyment is based upon your emotions; if throwing open windows to hear nature makes you feel good, then for what, precisely, are you waiting?
Conversely, if you don’t love the view from your window, orientate your furniture accordingly, and invest in a painting or a wall decal that conjures up the essence of the great outdoors.
COFFEE TABLE LIBRARY
OK, so this category might sound bonkers but, as you balance atmospheric temperature, every little helps, right? Here goes; it’s time to shuffle your coffee table books to suit the season.
Pack away wintry titles and display tomes that show dreamy gardens or decor books depicting beach homes or cottages. Psychosomatically, you’ll be reminded of the season every time you glance at your on-table library.
... with the right approach to design — and a smattering of seasonal adjustment — you’ll have a home that, in climatic terms certainly, will be every bit as cool as your perfectly executed decor.
REFLECT ON THIS
Mirrors add sparkle and excitement. In our living room, we used a glass-framed mirror (relocated from our study) instead of the chunky wooden tray that, during colder months, resides on the coffee table.
On the mirror we arranged driftwood, decorative balls and a gently flickering candle, all of which serve to lighten mood.
So don’t sweat it; it goes without saying that, with the right approach to design — and a smattering of seasonal adjustment — you’ll have a home that, in climatic terms certainly, will be every bit as cool as your perfectly executed decor. And that really would be a breath of fresh air, n’est ce pas?
Tunisia would seem to have everything going for it. Average salaries are the thirdhighest in all of Africa’s fifty countries, just behind Morocco and South Africa. Literacy is 97 per cent among the under-30s, population growth is only one per cent a year, and it’s a democracy that functions under the rule of law.
Or rather, it was.
The results of Monday’s referendum are in, and the proposal to give dictatorial powers to Tunisia’s usurper president, Kais Saied, got a 94.7 per cent ‘yes’ vote.
It’s true that only one-third of those entitled to vote actually did so, and that most of the opposition parties called for a boycott. But nobody was prevented from voting: the reason the opposition called on their supporters to abstain was that they knew how badly they would lose.
How did it come to this? Eleven years ago, Tunisia was the birthplace of the ‘Arab Spring’, a wave of mostly nonviolent democratic revolutions in the Arab world. Some were drowned in blood (Bahrain, Egypt), some turned into longlasting civil wars (Libya, Syria, Yemen), and some just sputtered out (Algeria, Morocco). But Tunisia’s revolution survived.
However, it did not thrive. Tunisia has had 10 governments in the past 11 years, all of them crippled by the fact that the biggest party, with more than a third of the seats in parliament, was an Islamic party called Ennahda (Renaissance).
The Muslim Brotherhoodlinked group was ‘moderate’ as these things go in Islamic circles, but its leaders had been living in exile until the overthrow of long-ruling dictator Zine al-abidine Ben Ali in 2011. It quickly captured a third of the vote (mostly older people), and became the indispensable core of any coalition hoping to gain a parliamentary majority.
Moderate though it was, Ennahda’s Islamic priorities made collaboration with any of the secular political parties a non-stop tug-of-war, so the coalitions never survived long and very little got done. The economy floundered, unemployment soared, and it was not just the Islamic party but democracy in general that got the blame.
Much the same process happened in Egypt, except a lot faster. The democratic revolution succeeded, the dictator Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011 — and the first free election brought an Islamic party to power.
Unfortunately, the principles of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Freedom and Justice Party’ made cooperation with secular democratic forces impossible, so the army made an alliance with the secular democrats and overthrew it in 2013. Then it betrayed the gullible secular democrats too, and General Abdel Fatah el-sisi has ruled unchallenged ever since.
In Tunisia in 2022, the budding dictator is a former law professor, Kais Saied. He was elected president three years ago in a free election, and he ruled until 2021 as a legitimate and law-abiding chief executive. But as popular anger at the stalemated parliament grew, he spotted an opportunity.
Last July, he dismissed the prime minister, suspended parliament, and began ruling by decree. Two months ago, he gave himself the power to fire judges as will, and promptly sacked 57 of them. And this month, he staged the constitutional referendum that makes all these changes permanent.
The forms and rituals of democracy are observed, but the new reality is an autocratic ruler who can probably arrange his own re-election indefinitely — although to ensure no popular resistance he will eventually have to recreate the old police state as well.
The sad truth is that Kais Saied, a former law professor, has the support of the great majority of Tunisia’s 11 million people for the moment. A recent opinion poll found that 81 per cent of Tunisians prefer a strong leader, and 77 per cent don’t care if that leader is elected or not, so long as the economy creates jobs and delivers a decent standard of living.
The same poll, conducted by ‘Arab Barometer’, a research network based at Princeton University, found that similar majorities in favour of strongman rule exist in almost all the other Arab countries. In only one Arabic-speaking country, Morocco, do most people disagree with the statement that a country needs a leader who can ‘bend the rules’ to get things done.
The Arab world is the least democratic region of the world because Arabs have come to believe that the economy is weak in a democracy. This is a bizarre belief, since almost all of the world’s richest countries are democracies, but it sounds right to Arabs because their democracies don’t work at all well.
The truth is that they don’t work well for Arabs, because Arab democracies are usually sabotaged and often paralysed by the zero-sum competition between two rival revolutionary movements, democratic and Islamist. There’s no shortterm solution to that.
Arab democracies are usually sabotaged and often paralysed by ... competition between two rival ... movements, democratic and Islamist.