Our post-heatwave nights will be steamier than ever
I have been swatting away my beloved like some giant, bronzed fly
At long last, the heatwave that has delighted some and dogged others appears about to be at an end, set to culminate in a series of storms. This is bad news for British flamingos who – feeling pinker and plusher than ever in the swelter – have produced their first (and possibly last) eggs for 15 years. However, these are welcome tidings for the country’s online daters, who have found themselves too enervated to sally forth, vanishing off websites quicker than you can say: “It’ll clear up with antibiotics.”
Analysts at the website eharmony reveal that single people are less likely to spend time online dating when the weather is tropical, yet scramble to pair off when the mercury dips. Accordingly, the Beast from the East, which saw snow fall as late as March, witnessed a 25 per cent boom in traffic, while the recent mugginess has led to a 27 per cent plunge. During the great British bake off, the heat has been all at once on, yet very much off.
Well, duh. I have found it impossible merely to lie next to my furnace-like beloved, let alone on top of him. His heat-emitting qualities may be welcome during the winter months, but, since May, I’ve been swatting him away like some great, bronzed fly. My GP inquired as to my sex life the other day and I gazed at her in bewilderment: “My what? In this broil? I can barely bring myself to share the same room.”
It is a myth that torrid weather produces torrid passion. Perhaps for Latin lovers, used to such sultriness. For we blighted of Blighty, a long, hot summer proves the ultimate contraception. I bow to no one in my admiration for LP Hartley’s The
Go-between, with one caveat: it could never have happened. Given the parched, if golden summer of 1900, Marian Maudsley would have ignored Ted Burgess and Hugh Trimingham in favour of sitting in a darkened room with her corsets loosened, feet in a bowl of water. Ditto Ian Mcewan’s
Atonement. Steamy sex in a searing library? I can barely fan myself with a book, lest I expire from the effort.
Indeed, as this massive melt has raged on, I have found myself incapable not merely of country matters, but anything. This I have categorised not as FOMO (fear of missing out), but NOFOMO – a reluctance to move in any way whatsoever. I can just about manage a desultory stagger across the road to purchase two Magnums – praline, obviously – because two’s a meal. However, anything more elaborate has been beyond me. Witness my dear friend’s wedding at which I took refuge under a tree, panting, willing other revellers to ignore me as nuptial roadkill.
Pity the other Hannah Betts – my valiant sister-in-law – who has endured this torture while about to drop a mammoth sprog. T’other Hannah has soldiered on womanfully, despite bearing the world’s biggest bump. Less so my brother, whom she photographed having fallen into a man nap while endeavouring to massage her feet. I received her message while in bed, drooling softly over the summer’s most talkedabout read – Ottessa Moshfegh’s My
Year of Rest and Relaxation – in which its heroine sets out to sleep as much as possible.
Yesterday morning, I experienced a delicious sensation of cold for the first time in months. “Why,” I found myself reflecting, “soon I’ll be back in a cape – cashmere, velvet, fur!” – fabrics more tactile than blistered, lobster skin. Cold-weather dressing has so much more by way of suggestion. The more clothes one puts on, the more can be removed. Even the humble cardigan has its moments, depending on how many buttons one fastens. In the cold, we must seek out activities that foster heat. As eharmony’s British boss confirms: “It only takes a slight drop in temperature to see large numbers of people heading back online” – online, out on the tiles, then back into the sack. It is for that reason, of course, that the digital daters of today have rebranded winter as “cuffing season” – the search for another half to warm you (by any means necessary) during the colder months of the year.
And, cognisant of this, the Beeb is plugging its autumn season with what has winningly been described as “the most X-rated drama the BBC has ever screened” – and this includes my beloved Versailles, in which orgies are mere ambient backdrop. In the forthcoming Wanderlust, we are promised “romping” and “two scenes featuring masturbation” during the first seven minutes.
The corporation’s head of drama confesses to being “terrified” by the potential reaction. Terrified, or laughing all the way to the bank? For, surely, this is just what the autumn calls for: curling up under a blanket, getting it off to the Beeb, before retreating for an early night, in which furnace-like qualities can only be welcome.
Bring on the promised storms, I say. “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks.” I, for one, will not be mourning the end of the damp squib that has been the summer’s hot spot. Without it, we are destined to be so much hotter.