26th August '17: In praise of orange

Welcome to the weekend, folks 🍊🍊🍊🍊
I have a particular affinity to orange, on account of having been born a redhead (or ‘cochen’ in Welsh, maybe from the Latin coccinus, meaning ‘scarlet-colored’). Such is the nature of the redoubtable recessive red hair gene
, my mum came into the world as a redhead amidst a family of dark, swarthy siblings and they would often giggle about her ‘belonging to the milkman’ (a joke because my granddad really WAS a milkman). In one of my new favourite books, The Story of Colour, author Gavin Evans explains that whilst redheads are often the butt of derogatory perceptions (including ‘fiery’…ok, guilty as charged), we’re also at an advantage in the northern hemisphere because, well, quite frankly, we’re built for the weather. Oh, and for those of you who thought that red hair is what happens in other people’s families, whilst only four per cent of Brits have red hair, 28 per cent carry the red hair gene. It’s ok – come on in, the water’s fine 🙂
Martha, The Colour File x
 

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