It’s so hot, I’m going to… a crypt, the roof, Wales
Telegraph writers reveal their ingenious ways to keep cool. Moon bathing anyone?
Sit in a crypt
In desperation, I found myself Googling “where London air-con best please help cool air need cold”, sweat dripping from my fingers. Watching multiple films in a cinema or heading to Westfield shopping centre didn’t appeal. On the other hand, with their vaulted ceilings and medieval stonework, churches are ideal – and beautiful – sanctuaries for the lost and sweltering, not least the crypts, where the forever cold are kept. So that’s what my girlfriend and I are doing this weekend: seeking out the nearest open church, having a good look around… then finding its crypt and praying we can squat there with the ghosts until at least dusk.
GUY KELLY
Wear a face mask
There’s a running joke in our house – about the ludicrous things I’ll do, wear and apply to try to look young. Well, husband and child have stopped laughing because as temperatures rose I remembered the Charlotte Tilbury Cryo-Recovery Face Mask I always keep in the freezer (for emergency facial sag blitzing occasions) – and have been wearing it ever since. I may look like Hannibal Lecter, but I’m as cool as him too – and there’s even a little mouth opening, should I fancy some fava beans and a nice chianti.
CELIA WALDEN
Sit on my dog’s mat
Our dog, Betty, has a self-cooling mat. This ingenious invention is a giant gel pad which, via the miracle of science, stays five to 10 degrees cooler than room temperature. We plop it in a shady corner and when she returns home panting from a walk, she laps noisily at her water bowl before sprawling on it like a canine Cleopatra. I have succumbed to temptation and lay on it too. It does the trick, despite leaving me covered in dog hair. Betty looks rather confused by this development.
MICHAEL HOGAN
Go moon bathing
I am a vampire and detest any sort of swelter. We don’t appear to have an ice bar off Regent Street any more, and I don’t reckon I can pass myself off as a science student to gain access to the Cold Labs at Queen Mary’s Blizard Institute, so… where others will be bribing their way to a spot at The Berkeley’s roof-top pool, I will be going nocturnal. In my most Lawrentian moment to date, earlier this month I (super-) moon-bathed naked in a tin tub on the roof of Somerset’s Babington House. Now I aim to create the same effect in a child’s paddling pool in my back garden – less chic, but possibly as chilled. Neighbours, start averting your gaze now.
HANNAH BETTS
Go to Sainsbury’s
Stepping inside my local Sainsbury’s is like leaving the fires of hell and returning to… well, some aisles of own-brand clothing and a display of strawberries. I don’t even need to be in the frozen aisles: the store’s icy breath greets me at the door – just near the newspapers and discounted alcohol. As the heat rises I invent increasingly flimsy reasons to visit. But what fills me with fear is the thought of having to leave: that moment akin to stepping off a plane into the heat of a foreign country. ROSA SILVERMAN
Drink rosé in Spain
I’ve been watching the heat building at Westminster and in the real world from the relative cool of the hills of southern Spain. I recommend regular dips in the pool, a long lunch in the shade, a siesta and plenty of chilled rosé. Thinking of you all sizzling back home… NICK ROBINSON
Go to Wales
I have a cottage near Hay-on-Wye – one of the wettest places in the British Isles. It’s up in the Brecon Beacons so it’s several degrees cooler than it is down in the town. It can be a perfectly normal hot day below, while up on our mountain there will be a raging gale, swirling grey clouds and horizontal rain. So a summer outfit will often involve a rain mac and a pair of Hunters as well as a T-shirt and shorts. And Wales is so beautiful it really doesn’t matter what the weather there is like. DYLAN JONES
Go to the office
At last, they’ve managed it. Found a way to get us back into the office. More than a third of us are apparently still working from home; but by the end of the heatwave, the lure of the aircon will have us all back at our desks. I was supposed to be WFH this weekend, but instead I’ve decided to trek through the city heat towards the cool haven of Telegraph Towers, where I need a hot cup of tea, a cardigan, a scarf and socks to wear under my sandals. MIRANDA LEVY
Take cold showers
I am glad I live out of London, where it is always hotter, and in an old house, with large airy rooms and high ceilings. Its sash windows, aligned front and rear, create a through draft. Downstairs is cooler than up, so I linger there. The north-facing rooms (including my study, where I work) are permanently cool. If I have to go outside I wear a big hat, because being a redhead I am hopeless in the sun. As a last resort, if things get really bad, I put on the Blu-ray of Scott of the Antarctic. And there is always the joy of the cold shower.
SIMON HEFFER
Make gazpacho
To bastardise a popular phrase, Spanish do it better. Take gazpacho – a dish which according to Andalusia’s health chief, Jesús Aguirre, has “everything you need to avoid heat stroke”. There are other soups served cold, but this combination – (one each of) red and green peppers, cucumber, onion, garlic cloves, plus a kilo of ripe tomatoes and some good bread – makes something magical. It is hearty but light, healthy but rich. Chop them, smoosh them together, leave to marinate then blitz in a blender and chill (you and the soup). The secret is in the seasoning, of course – a heavy hand with grassy olive oil, sherry vinegar and salt and pepper. Serve with a few ice cubes in each bowl. I can feel the cooling, vitamin-packed benefits already.
LISA MARKWELL
With their vaulted ceilings and medieval stonework, churches are ideal sanctuaries for the sweltering
Play the age card
As an older person, aged 86½, to keep cool you have to pull rank and make sure everyone gives up their seat on public transport, calls you sir, gets the hose pipe out when you’ve overheated and constantly fills your glass, whether it is empty or not. I have all four granddaughters trained to stand by with a fresh bottle of sauvignon blanc. HUNTER DAVIES
Take a train
The direct train journey from Taunton to Edinburgh takes some seven hours and with lashings of aircon I’ll be in cool, chilled heaven. And with a one-way price tag of £361.70 and the seven-hour journey time (give or take a week with weekend engineering works) I’ll get a carriage to myself because no one else would be rich and stupid enough to do that, right?
WILLIAM SITWELL
Bask in the sun
Personally I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Having spent the first 18 years of my life living in Scotland, I’ll take all the heat I can get, and the more extreme the better. People from the south of England don’t know they’re born. MICHAEL DEACON