Why the sun sends us Brits so barmy
Whenever we have a heatwave like the one Britain is experiencing right now, it’s always the same story.
Some poor Guardsman collapses under the weight of his Busby, roads start melting, there are endless stories of dogs being trapped in hot cars — and the Met Office sends everyone into a blind panic by issuing doom- laden weather warnings and bossing us about as if we’re toddlers.
The truth is, it’s hot — but it’s not that hot.
not as hot as Japan, for example, where its heatwave has been declared a natural disaster, with at least 65 deaths in the past week alone. Or Greece, where more than 70 have died in wildfires.
earlier this month 70 people perished in roasting temperatures in Quebec, Canada; and Africa’s hottest ever recorded temperature — 51.3c — was registered in Algeria on July 5.
By comparison, our 33 degrees seems almost balmy. But when it comes to hot weather and the Brits, barmy would be a far better description.
ThiS
high-summer madness would help explain why people have been spotted risking life and limb dangling off crumbling cliff edges in Dorset and swimming with sharks in Cornwall.
And why Parliament — always a bit swivel-eyed in July and August, more so this year because of Brexit — is in ferment at the idea of sending Jihadi John’s terrorist henchmen to trial in America where there’s a very slim chance they’ll face the death penalty. ( henchmen, remember, who delighted in sawing off heads).
Perhaps it also explains the most preposterous summer story of all: former BBC presenter raymond Snoddy’s claim that the corporation is ‘pro-Brexit’.
All of us go mad in the heat. Part of it is sheer British stubbornness. We hate the thought of the weather — particularly this sultry foreign kind — determining how we lead our lives.
indeed, in times of empire, we made it our business to defy the infernal heat against all the odds. Think of the lush lawns of rajasthan, achieved with no regard to cost, or of Kipling’s observation when in india (later taken up in song by noel Coward) about mad dogs and englishmen going out in the midday sun.
My theory behind our collective insanity is that sunshine is such a rarity in Britain, when it appears it immediately puts us in delirious holiday mode.
Whereas much of the globe lives in baking heat most of the year round and has learned to adopt sensible precautions (siestas, airconditioning on public transport, pretty much taking August off), we go into meltdown.
The world looks on in astonishment as we head to the nearest patch of scorched grass and lie out in headache-inducing temperatures, drinking headacheinducing alcoholic concoctions ( Pimm’s, anyone?) until we get heatstroke.
Men spurn suncream as being effeminate, while women in pursuit of a ‘ sunkissed glow’ turn themselves into lobsters, false eyelashes melting in the heat, bingo wings glistening like halfcooked sausages on a barbecue.
The result of our British diet of carb-based and deep-fried comfort foods, washed down with fizzy drinks, is laid bare (literally).
When the sun shines, we act like we’re on holiday. if you are British that means getting drunk, running around half naked and picking fights. And that’s just the Cabinet!
Something tells me it’s going to be a very long summer . . . Jeremy COrByn said yesterday that he ‘will not tolerate antiSemitism in any form anywhere in our society or in our party’. that’s easy for him to say, now he has decided to subscribe to his own definition of anti-Semitism and reject everyone else’s. Which begs the question: when is anti-Semitism not anti-Semitism? When Jeremy says so, of course.