In the hottest week of the year, with temperatures reaching 34 degrees in the capital, many of us have felt miserable. It has been difficult to sleep, and public transport has, on occasion, been capricious, leading us to be crabby (or, in my case, crabbier than usual).
But one thing in particular has raised my ire and it’s linked to my cultural consumption. I have realised that I hate fans. I am not talking about the human variety – the mad dafties who weep over Instagram posts of their favourite pop star’s carefully curated breakfast. I mean fans used for cooling, specifically the handheld paper variety, that have been around for several thousand years and can be traced back, in their current form, to eighth-century Japan.
My latest crusade was actually triggered a couple of weeks ago when I saw LCD Soundsystem at Brixton Academy, a terrific night of anthemic punk dance, musically on point and unlike any gig I have seen. It was a Thursday night, and temperatures in south London were high enough to defeat the air-conditioning inside the 100-year-old Academy building. My friend and I made a pact not to whinge about how hot it was and simply to enjoy the music. Well, I tried. But my intentions were thwarted by the woman in front of me who was intent on flapping her fan throughout the entire two-hour performance.
“Stop being so irritable, Ben,” said my friend as I kept nudging him in indignation.
“But it is really distracting,” I said. “All I can see is this piece of paper wafting around in front of me. And she’s out of time with the music. I’m meant to be watching one of the greatest bands in the world and yet I feel like I am witnessing some really crap aerobics class.”
“Why don’t you have a word, then?” Naturally, being English, I declined to do this, and just kept sighing in a passive-aggressive manner. It nearly ruined my evening.
I really don’t think I am being unreasonable. Fanning yourself at a concert (unless you are in the back row) is an act of pure selfishness, and not simply because of the visual distraction. The act of fanning also has an effect on your neighbour who has to put up with the feeble amount of air that you are circulating, and quite possibly the unpleasant aroma that arises from the physical exertion.
There is also the fact that fanning is ineffective – particularly in humid weather, which was the case on the night of the concert in Brixton. (It’s all to do with the air being saturated with moisture, which means that sweat can’t evaporate and cool the skin).
Electric fans, at rock concerts, are not a problem. Unless you are at a gig by some fey and wispy indie kid, the soft whirring sound that they make will be drowned out by the cacophony of drums, guitars and rasping vocals. But at the theatre – and I have seen this happen – it is another matter. You don’t want a Pinteresque pause or a grand soliloquy to be ruined by a monotonous droning noise. I have also seen paper fans used in theatres and here we go back to the problem of visual distraction, as well as the wretched unnecessariness of it all. These days, unless you are in some fringe flea pit, you will be treated to fairly effective air conditioning.
Fans, of course, are not simply cooling devices. Throughout history they have been used as fashion accessories, to relay secret messages and as a symbol of your social status. The last of these is instructive, I think. I believe that avid fanners want to be seen to be fanning; indeed there is something performative about the whole act. I do wish they would leave such performances to the professionals.