There are two kinds of sport. One kind helps you to enjoy life more, the other helps you to endure it more easily. It's quite easy to tell them apart: the first kind take place in the summer. Mostly in July. Mostly in July in Britain, for here is the high point -- in space and time -- of the entire sporting year.
Football and rugby are a way of getting through the winter. These sports keep despair at bay. Even in the darkest moments of the year we have the Christmas and New Year fixtures when traditionally, the year and the league table turn and reveal their hidden truths. I wouldn't be without the sports of winter: life and winter would be a great deal darker without them.
But in summer we take off our jackets, roll up our sleeves, pour out another long, long drink and celebrate the pure joy of being alive. In Britain we revel in every nuance of summer sport simply because it's not winter. In summer we learn to kiss every sporting joy as it flies.
While the druids gather at Stonehenge for the summer solstice, so the rest of us brace ourselves for the annual detonation of the British summer of sport. The intensity and the depth of this British tradition brings half the world to look in and share it: and there's room for them all.
You can say what you like about the British, but we know how to put on a show. We know how to make sport matter and yet run smoothly. We know how to cheer, how to wear silly hats and how to queue at the bar and the ice-cream van. At this time of year, all the world's a sporting arena.
Let's start with Wimbledon. Why not? Wimbledon is the best annual sporting event of them all year. It has a global audience, impeccable organisation and a wonderful look. It's an infallible supplier of drama and of partisanship - and perhaps the most reliable celebration of true sporting excellence in the sporting calendar.
The combination of ancient tradition and constant reinvention lies at the heart of Wimbledon. And the best of Britain. I watched Laver in black and white and I've witnessed the Fed for real: and if that had been all Wimbledon ever supplied it would be enough. But Wimbledon has also brought us Billie-Jean and Martina and on Monday another battle between the astounding Williams sisters. You can't top this event outside the Olympic Games.
But that's only one bit of the British Sporting July. Last weekend we had the British Grand Prix, that annual gathering of the clans, and if most of us prefer to watch from beyond the petrol-tainted air around Milton Keynes, it remains an event heavy with wizard-prang history.
The Open golf tournament takes place at St Andrew this July and as ever, it will attract vast attention -- if only from people who want to see how far Tiger Woods has deteriorated since his hydrant-smiting days. I have to confess that the only time I covered an event at St Andrews I sneaked off and went birdwatching.
Golf would be more exciting if the players hurled golf balls at each other... but still, at least the cricketers will get their share of bombardment. Cricket remains the game of Empire, but the old prize of the Ashes matters as much as ever to the two nations who contest it.
The last time an Ashes series was on free-to-air television was 2005, and that was as close a series as could be imagined. It had a nation entranced for six weeks: we could hardly bring ourselves to talk about the weather. The bragging and the sledging mask the true relationship between England and Australia: we are each other's completion. A twisted sort of love lurks behind the Ashes, deeply hidden and profoundly resented, but it's always there and it's gives every Ashes series its peculiar resonance.
July also brings us Henley Regatta. This is no longer must-watch television, but it's a ritual of the summer and it's probably the only time in the year that a man can wear a straw and a striped blazer and shout "come on Jesus" without being arrested.
We've also got the women's Ashes this summer, and that's fab, especially as the England women's team are fairly reliable at winning stuff. There's a two-day Diamond League athletics meeting at the Olympic Stadium. The Davis Cup world group quarter-final between Britain and France will take place at Queens.
"We celebrate the sports of summer so well because winter is so damn long" Simon Barnes
The great artist of sporting July was Raoul Dufy, admittedly a Frenchman. His images of yachting regattas and horse-races are filled with sun, wonderful spectacle and never mind who wins. Rich of colour and a little vague of outline, they look like sport seen after three rather swift glasses of pre-lunch champagne.
The horses of July are the best of the year: in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Cup at Ascot the top three-year-olds of the season race against the older horses and we take the real measure of a champion and a generation. And if you have the stamina, there's Glorious Goodwood following hard upon.
We celebrate the sports of summer so well because winter is so damn long in this country. Sometimes it seems that the Premier League will fulfil its deepest ambition and last a full 52 weeks. I'm sure we'll all love football again by mid-October, but right now it's the time for the sports of joy -- and it remains an eternal truth that the sports of joy are wiser than the sports of endurance. As Roy Wood wishes it could be Christmas every day, so we sporting Brits wish it could be July every month.