OVER the course of the past week, I've spoken to friends and colleagues down south. They all have only one topic of conversation. "Oh, the heat – it's unbearable," they say, "I don't know how I'm going to cope."
They tell me of how they nearly fainted on the Tube. Of how they sneaked into their boss's office when he was out at lunch and stole his fan. Of how they've dispensed with foundation garments in a bid to keep cool. As for me, my little internal tempe
rature gauge is ready to pop too. I am I am not good with heat either.Much like the littlest nephew who insisted on trying to strip down to his underpants in the middle of Pizza Express yesterday because it was just too hot. I know just how he felt – but it's cute when you're three – slightly less so when you're 43.
When I spoke to Mother on the phone, I told her that we were all hot, sticky and drenched in sweat. I heard the sharp intake of breath. Of course, I should have remembered. Horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow. Well, I had glow running all the way down my back. My clothes were sticking to me with glow.
It's not making me feel any better having to watch news bulletins showing beaches and parks packed full of greased-up sun worshippers. I, like most of the unfortunate adult population, have to sit in an office all day while the loafers, idlers and slackers of the country prance around the public spaces of our fair land clad only in their swimwear. Maybe if they had to stay inside all day long, they wouldn't endlessly moan about the dreadful heat.
We may be melting, but we are still only playing at real heat. We were away in Portugal earlier last week and it was 42 degrees. I'm pretty certain that that's the temperature that bread ovens are set at. It was certainly doing its best to bake us small Scottish whiteys. It was so hot, we couldn't really go outside. Instead, we opted for jumping between an air-conditioned car and the shade of an awning, where we could gulp down chilled drinks. I had had a fake tan applied before we went away in preparation for those lovely skimpy little holiday tops and even (if enough drink had been taken) shorts. But it was too hot to venture outside – even with my comedy hat on. Because I couldn't actually go out in the sun to get any kind of a tan, I came back whiter than I left. But, that's ok, I thought. I'm coming back to a Scottish summer – I'll be completely covered up for the rest of the year. So stepping out into the furnace that is Embra in the sunshine came as quite a shock to the system. Even yet, despite the sweltering heat, I still can't really wear any of those lovely summery clothes. It's one thing exposing your milk-white extremities in a foreign land, quite another to do it to your friends, co-workers and complete strangers. Although Mr Turner does make the point that his blue-white legs on view in shorts will come as less of a shock to the system to similarly melanin-challenged Scots than it does to our olive-skinned European brethren.
I think it best that we all follow the genius advice from the government. If you're concerned about the sun, stay out of it. So let's all just stay indoors, where it's nice and cool and where no-one has to look at our pasty limbs in shorts or vests – until the sun goes away. Which, knowing our luck, shouldn't be too long.
