Sweltering? Don’t get hot under the collar about it
EARLIER this week it appeared as though the perfect storm was swirling into the centre of London.
The hottest day of the year – and hottest June day since 1976 – with 34.5C recorded at Heathrow, combined with a promised “Day of Rage” protest meant many feared Wednesday could see rioting.
Certainly after Grenfell Tower and too many terror atrocities to list here, there is plenty to be angry about.
But instead the Day of Rage transpired to be a few hours of marginal irritability from a gaggle of a few hundred protesters. Most people stayed away.
That day I found myself not far from the protest, simply listening to the sounds of summer in the city: the listless rustle of plane trees, bicycles whirring past, people gossiping and laughing over a cold beer after work.
It made me wonder why we so readily equate heat with anger.
The traditional evidence for this is historic studies of crime figures which note that particularly violent incidents tend to rise sharply during summer.
Others point to the fact that the heat raises heart rate and testosterone while psychologists believe the lack of control one feels over regulating body temperature can boil over into anger.
But a US study published last November found the opposite: that the more hours of sun people received on any given day, the less psychological distress they demonstrated.
It is often in the hottest countries where I have encountered the calmest, friendliest people. Rush hour in London in winter, meanwhile, is a portrait of human misery.
The simple explanation for why trouble can occur when the sun shines is simply because more of us spend longer out of our homes. When all human life spills out together there is joy as well as anger – but in these hot days we must celebrate the former.