On the bloody weather...

Posted August 9, 2003 11:33 PM.

The English talk about nothing but the weather. We do this to avoid talking about ritual goat sodomy, which would otherwise be the first thing on our minds, I think. This is my honest belief. It would decimate my world-view if it was demonstrated to be untrue. At the moment there's more weather to talk about than normal. A couple of days ago we got within a degree (centigrade) of the hottest temperature ever recorded in the UK. It is - bluntly - stinkingly uncomfortably depressingly miserably oppressively hot.

Now - before you even start - everyone who lives in places that actually get much hotter than this (say in Africa example or - maybe - on the Sun) is bound to find the whole idea of it being really hot in the UK kind of funny. "Ha ha," they're almost certainly thinking as they pump out another two or three pints of blood-heavy sweat, "These English people will complain about even the smallest of heat-waves. Once when I was strapped in an oven in the Sahara for ten weeks with cayenne pepper inserted into my rectum, I complained less than this weakling English pigdog."

Well screw you buster! First things first - compare and contrast the BBC's current European weather map with the one for North America. We're stomping all over your weather. I think London's currently beaten only by Texas and certain particularly gay areas around Miami. Next - bear in mind that English homes are - at best - designed to keep the rain off and the heat in. They are not designed to be cool and refreshing idylls amid the melting pavements. No - British homes are apparently designed for a country with a climate so temperate that any weather that strays from a ten degree range between 'moist and chilly' and 'moist and fresh' is considered almost insanely avante garde. Thirdly, as a people - we're just not bloody used to it!

I can feel this post just kind of petering out as I run out of body salts (should I lick my own arm, would that help?) and my brain shuts down forever. No doubt I'll return for another stab at completing it in one of my many many nightly trips back to the computer that I take when I get bored of lying in my own sweat. Writhing in discomfort isn't as fun as it sounds. My only other option would be to cave my own head in with a spade in a vain attempt to get some crapping sleep already...

Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

I thought you had central air conditioning everywhere, so what are you complaining about? In Karachi when the temp drops down to 30C its considered good weather. Right now its the middle of the night and its exactly 30. You would be hard pressed to imagine what its like in the day. You did say - before you even start- well what the hell I thought might as well.

→ Posted by: KO at August 9, 2003 11:59 PM

Apparently cavemen coped better with extreme weather than modern Britons. Strangely enough, it doesn't make me feel any better--or cooler for that matter.

I've even had to resort to digging out shorts. That's right, shorts! I had to dig them out of the back of my wardrobe where they had been peacefully resting for the past umpteen years.

Opening windows and putting fans on only seems to circulate the universally present warm air rather than provide any relief. Give me grey skies and rain-beaten flagstones any day.

→ Posted by: mudge at August 10, 2003 12:31 AM

No, there's precious little central air conditioning around here.

As a matter of fact, my partner and I spent all day trying to find a place cool enough to spend a few hours. We ended up going to the Serpentine Gallery (nice choice, by the way, especially if you haven't seen the Cindy Sherman exhibit), since we figured that paintings and prints had to be kept at least a little cool and dry in the summer.

But where to go tomorrow? It's meant to be as hot tomorrow as it was today.

→ Posted by: Andrew at August 10, 2003 1:11 AM

Shorts?! Dear God. At work some of my colleagues wear shorts. I keep pointing out to them how wrong and immoral that is - how profoundly un-English - but they won't listen to me. They keep on gurning through their sick filthy short-weating pantomime. The world's shot to hell...

→ Posted by: Tom Coates at August 10, 2003 10:22 AM

A good place to beat the heat is the GNER first-class carriage. I took the train down from Edinburgh yesterday, and didn't realise until I stepped out of the carriage precisely how stinkingly hot it is at the moment. It's hotter here, now, than it is in the tropical island on which I was born. On the plus side, though, it means all the fit men in London are wondering around wearing as little as they can get away with, which can only be a good thing.

On a completely unrelated note, Tom, is your BBC job on Great Portland Street? I start work at another office on that street tomorrow...

→ Posted by: Seldo at August 10, 2003 12:00 PM

It's not the heat so much, as it is the humidity. It's like the opposite of wind chill factor, it makes everything seem oppressively hotter. Granted, here in Dublin it's a few degrees cooler than in Britain, but it's still sweltering by our standards. I've got a fan running behind me, but it's just moving hot air around...

→ Posted by: MacDara at August 10, 2003 12:20 PM

It's pissing hot in Pennsylvania right now, and horrible outside, mostly down to the humidity, 90%+ all the time. Barely breathable.

I'd still rather be here than back in London though, simply because everywhere has air conditioning. I was trying to explain the difference to a local and suddenly realised how stupid it sounded. I had to stop trying to come up with anything convincing and just finish off by saying "...basically, English buildings are rubbish".

→ Posted by: fridgemagnet at August 10, 2003 2:32 PM

Here in Canada (southern Ontario to be specific) we regularly go from 40C (104F) in the summer to -40C (-40F) in the winter. During the summer you lie on the bed in a deluge of sweat, and the winter you lie under so many blankets you can't move. Relationships tend to be much better in the winter, as you can't stay in the same bed in the summer without a meltdown. Just for you information using the phrase "It's not the heat, it's the humidity" is a shooting offence.

→ Posted by: archdata at August 10, 2003 6:13 PM

Darling, I am Italian and should be used to hot weather but no, here in London, it IS bloody hot and thanks for confirming that the british overcarpeted wooden houses are just not built for this! air conditioning? what's that?! mind you, in Milan is much worse and the humidity in London is actually too low at the moment... I can't even sweat! :(

→ Posted by: Poopsie at August 10, 2003 6:25 PM

Shhh! The goat sodomy thing is supposed to be a secret, Tom!

But seriously, yes -- it's been hot. We here in England have the most changeable weather of anywhere I've ever heard about.

The reason this heatwave is significant is because we rarely have hot summers. But when they're hot... damn they're hot!

→ Posted by: Jacob Martin at August 10, 2003 11:27 PM

I come from Sydney, and we have a little joke which I shall relay for you now. Q: How do you know when a plane load of people from England has arrived at the airport? A: When they turn the engines off, you can still hear the whining. Honestly, enough bitching and complaining! I *thought* you were having a heatwave until I read that the hottest it had reached was 36C (or almost that). You should try coming down under next summer! BTW It is currently a pleasant 14C - and this is Winter at 8pm! Harharhar.... You Poms will never learn!! BWARHARHARHAR..

→ Posted by: maddy at August 14, 2003 11:03 AM

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