No, what really drains the joy from the summer breeze is the assumption, and the practice, that this is Man’s Work. All over the UK, probably the world, the barbecue is now one of the last places where even normal blokes become sexist. What we have here is some kind of psychic counterpart to the Paleo diet, a biologically deterministic blizzard of bullshit that sees women as salad-spinners and men as the keepers of the grill, the tenders of the flame, lords and masters of the meat. It’s a sausage-fest out there, and it’s getting ugly.

Where else can women be told so implicitly and explicitly that this is not their place? OK, running a hedge fund, running a bank or presenting a radio programme, just off the top of my head. But in the domestic sphere in 2013, don’t we share stuff such as childcare, cooking and cleaning? This grilled-food gender split is ubiquitous, odd and unacknowledged.

Women, try this trick. At the next barbie you attend, grab the tongs and start cooking, and watch the eyebrows rise and the conversation level drop. Women at most barbecues in the UK, even those in liberal homes – possibly a lot like yours – are relegated to the chopping board. Grilled meat and steaks, the wider culture tells us, aren’t for girls.

No, the mythology of meat is well marbled with machismo.