The Cloud Appreciation Society - Proud Admirers of the Fluffy White Stuff

If you love clouds but are laughed out of town when your guilty secret is discovered - now is the time to emerge from the cloud closet and  check out  The Cloud Appreciation Society .

Because you are not alone. In fact there are officially, at the time of writing, 32,107 members of The Cloud Appreciation Society worldwide.  

They can’t all be crazy....can they?

On the contrary - members of The Cloud Appreciation Society hold their heads up high - and gaze at the sky.

The Cloud Appreciation Society was started by Gavin Pretor-Pinney,  who also co-founded The Idler magazine. (You see, he has a welcome bizarre slant on life.)

He studied graphics at Central St Martins in London but it was his time in Rome that really kick-started a serious interest in cloud formations.  Perusing the clouds in the blue Italian sky was partially responsible for his long dormant but newly awakened appreciation, but so also were his visits to galleries where he studied the clouds represented in great works of art. 

He began a serious study of clouds and, on returning to the United Kingdom, gave a presentation at the Port Eliot Literary Festival in Cornwall where he officially launched The Cloud Appreciation Society.  

The launch went viral on the internet with people from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, most of the countries of Europe and even Kurdistan, sending in their photographs.

Pretor-Pinney’s book, The Cloudspotter's Guide, was turned down by 28 publishers - but soon he had the last laugh when, on eventual publication, enthusiastic cloud-lovers rocketed it into the Sunday Times top ten best-sellers list.    

The aim of the book is to overturn the negative connections that people make when referring to clouds.   In an interview for The Guardian in 2006, Pretor-Pinney said:

"People do have a slightly derogatory view of them ...When people say someone's got their head in the clouds, it's about being disengaged from the world. Whereas I say, 'Sod it - what's wrong with having your head in the clouds?' It's a really important thing to do, a reaction to the pressures of modern life. But there are all kinds of negative associations: the idea of someone having a cloud hanging over them, or clouds on the horizon - these very doomy things.”

He goes on to quote an Arab saying which describes someone who is fortunate:  “His sky is always filled with clouds”.   

But clouds are not only objects of wonder and beauty, they are says Pretor-Pinney, providers of rain and shade and  purifiers of pollution.

So cloud-lovers of the world unite and join The Cloud Appreciation Society.  

They will  validate your obsession by sending you a certificate to prove you aren't crazy after all...(please don't be concerned about the word 'certify'...)

And for those who still insist on mocking cloudlovers please be aware that  according to Green Earth Facts, a common cumulus cloud weighs over a billion kilograms of droplets, being close to 2.2 billion pounds which is the weight of 6,300 blue whales!  

RESPECT!!

Further Information:

You can find out more about The Cloud Appreciation from their website. 

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