AS even the most seasoned Far Northerners are commenting on the humidity, those newer to the tropics are starting to wilt. In fact, last weekend was so sticky, Chris Harrison is still fused to his sofa.

Mind if I have a whinge about the weather? After all, that's why weather was invented. 

Everyone needs an ice-breaker when in the company of strangers at bus stops or in lifts. Americans might talk about the ball game, Italians might bring up food (not literally) and Aussies might have a chin wag about matters meteorological. So pretend you’re stuck in a lift with me for the next few minutes because, well, here goes…

According to official statistics (compiled by the Bureau of Harrison while changing the batteries in my air conditioning remote control) last weekend was the stickiest on record. And I’ll hazard a guess that – as you’re reading this and thinking that if I don’t like it then I should lump it – this weekend will be equally uncomfortable.

I spent most of last weekend slouched on furniture to which I became attached physically rather than emotionally. The Cairns Post welcomed a new editor this week, and I’m looking forward to meeting him just as soon as I’ve had this sofa surgically removed.

It’s not that I don’t like tropical weather. It’s that tropical weather doesn’t appear to like me. I’m new to this region, and while it boasts many an endearing feature I’m finding the current humidity level cause for distress.

My pool has now become so warm that my kids’ aquatic toys floating eerily upon it could best be described as croutons. I’m going to toss some pasta in there soon. It’s being brought to a slow boil, as, it seems, am I.

Keeping cool last weekend was next to impossible. At one point my wife expressed the wish to be in Scandinavia. I told her she was, if only in one of their saunas. In desperation I had a cold shower, but was wetter after drying myself than I was before I started. Trying to dry yourself in the tropics is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge – by the time you get to one end you’ve got to start back at the beginning.

The sky at the moment seems frustrated. I realise that the following comparison will never make the Bureau of Meteorology website, but these constipated clouds remind me of the father figure in Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth’s outrageous appraisal of the tortures of Jewish adolescence. The father is an invisible but menacing presence locked in the bathroom eating prunes. If he managed to unburden his bowels the entire Portnoy family would be relieved. And if this sky released its angst perhaps autumn would feel a step closer for Cairns.

A doctor would prescribe this sky laxatives, an acupuncturist would stick needles in some remote part of it and insist the two were connected, while a homeopathist would suggest Calcarea Carbonica, which has alliterative properties if nothing else. Then the three of them would argue over whose elixir was more effective.

Meanwhile, the sky would still be locked in the loo.

I realise that this is a dangerous place to pray for rain, and on the anniversary of cyclone Yasi I have only allowed myself to sound off about the weather because I’ve heard so many Cairns locals complaining during the week.

A pregnant colleague of mine who’s lived here for seven years trudged in to work on Monday flushed and breathless, her scarlet cheeks suggesting Burke and Wills went on a Sunday stroll in comparison to her trek from a free car park. I can only imagine what being pregnant must be like in the current climate. Fortunately, I can only imagine what being pregnant must be like in any climate. Bless the Gods.

But my wife knows all too well. She was carrying six months of the most welcome excess baggage when I dragged her onto the Australia-bound flight in Frankfurt this time last year. TV screens in the airport were broadcasting Armageddon. In the 10 years I spent in Europe, very little Australian news made mention other than Steve Irwin’s tragic death and Kevin Rudd’s inadvertent porn settings on Twitter. Cyclone Yasi, however, was broadcast across the world.

At the risk of billing Yasi in the same frantic manner, as it crossed the coral coast I was reminded of the early astronauts losing radio contact on the dark side of the moon. The world awaited the return of their voices as I awaited those of my parents after putting down the phone and praying the television was wrong about the intensity of the storm.

When we finally saw the images of the devastation, our mouths fell open and our hearts went out to those communities south of Cairns who’d looked Yasi in the eye. And while the fates of others was foremost in my mind, on a personal level the aftermath wasn’t quite the welcome to her new home I had hoped for my wife.

But on previous, less permanent visits Down Under she had already witnessed how wild our weather can be. We were in a Sydney restaurant when that freak hailstorm hit in ‘99 and destroyed my car in front of our eyes. The hailstones were so big and unrelenting that all we could do was order more wine.

If not quite as severe as what’s on offer in Oz, in Europe we lived in places where the weather also makes its presence felt. In Milan there is a seven-day shiver in January called "the days of the blackbird". Legend has it that a white bird, in an attempt to escape the freezing Siberian winds, sought refuge in a chimney from which it emerged black. While the legend may be questionable, the cold is all too real, particularly when an equally sinister force of nature has removed the first line of defence from the top of my head.

In southern Italy there is a wind called the scirocco (after which Volkswagen named a car) that is hot, wet and a purveyor of Saharan sand particles. When it rains during a scirocco it rains sand. And when it doesn’t rain during a scirocco you wish it would for a little relief, which is kind of how I feel about Cairns at the moment. The scirocco is so annoying that the Italians have coined a phrase in its honour. "Sono sciroccato" means you’re feeling irritable, which would be the Aussie equivalent of saying: "I’m humid."

Hmm, can’t see that catching on anytime soon, unless this weekend is as sticky as last.

Oh, look, they’ve fixed the lift. Rant over. Lucky you.

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