the times | Thursday August 6 2020 1GT 7
times
free of sand until Easter. Oh well,
maybe you’ll do better next year.Potty train your children
I cannot possibly be the only person
whose first instinct when a heatwave
arrives is to suddenly decide to impart
important toilet information to their
two-year-old. After all, this is the
perfect weather to let them run
around in the garden with their nappy
off, hoping that the sudden breeze
around their genitals will magically
prompt them to get serious aboutusing the potty. Which is great, so
long as a) you don’t mind your garden
becoming drenched in toddler urine
and b) you don’t forget to put their
nappy back on when they come
indoors. This last one is important.
I am speaking from experience here.
Very recent experience. Basically,
I just had to stop writing this to get
the mop out.Immediately take your top off
I don’t really know if this works or not.
But then again who am I to argue with
every single pot-bellied, lobster-red,
Tim Martin-looking middle-aged man
I’ve seen outside these past few days?Eat your annual salad
It’s too hot to cook, and you’re still
feeling slightly iffy about going to a
restaurant, so your only option left is
salad. Your choice here is simple. You
can plump for the sort of tasteless
iceberg, tomato and cucumber
combination that you only managed
to labour through as a child by
drowning it in a lake of salad cream,
or you could opt for something
sophisticated and Ottolenghi-ish that
requires 140 specialist ingredients and
15 hours of intensive assembly. Either
way, at least you can console yourself
with the knowledge that you’ve made
a healthy food choice, so long as you
ignore all the beer, wine and the
family pack of Magnums you’ve
decided to wash it down with.Go on a staycation
Staycations are great for many
reasons. You can drive there. You
don’t need to worry about exchange
rates. And best of all, everyone you
meet will speak the same language as
you, so you’ll be able to understand
what they are saying when they
cluster together and complain
about all the tourists.Abandon all pretence of sleep
Why pretend that you can sleep in
a heatwave? It’s impossible. Use a fan
and the noise will keep you awake.
Don’t use a fan and you’ll be too hot to
sleep. Draw the curtains and you won’t
get any breeze. Leave them open and
you’ll be woken by the cruelty of a
5am sunrise. Keep the duvet and
you’ll feel as though you’re suffocating.
Lose the duvet and you’ll feel weirdly
vulnerable. You can’t sleep in the
living room because you’re scared of
burglars. You can’t sleep in the garden
because you’re scared of foxes. You
can’t sleep in the bath because it
isn’t 20 years ago and you’re not
a hungover student any more.
Just stop trying to sleep and commit
to lurching through the summer
like a particularly crotchety zombie
like everyone else.Ignore the optimists
There will always be in every group of
people one maniac who actively
enjoys the hot weather. These people
are not to be trusted. “You’ll miss this
in the winter!” they will trill, failing to
grasp the innate brilliance of things
such as sweaters, central heating and
jacket potatoes. “Let’s take a picnic
to the park!” they will coo, failing to
acknowledge the existence of wasps.
“Maybe a stroll!” they’ll suggest, not
realising that everyone’s inner thighs
have been stingy and red for the past
six weeks. There is no helping these
people. Just let them have their
moment because they are going to
spend every day between September
and April whining like babies.Feel smug about working
from home
Yes, the hot weather is uncomfortable.
But ask yourself this: how much
worse would it be if there were no
coronavirus? Because at least now
you don’t have to commute. You don’t
have to choose a formal outfit that
will be saturated with sweat by 7.30am.
You don’t have to wedge yourself into
a sweltering Tube carriage where
you’ll be forced to gasp lungfuls of
red-hot carbon dioxide as your face
slowly melts to the floor. You don’t
have to sit in an office by a window
that feels as if it has been scientifically
designed to blind you with the glare
of passing traffic. No, this year you get
to stay at home and work in the nude
while you mainline Mivvis with your
feet in a paddling pool. Truly, you are
the height of sophistication. Thank
you, coronavirus!
Chase the air con wherever you
can find it
That said, the office did have one
thing going for it: its air-conditioning
system. The same cannot be said
for your home, which was built to
withstand this country’s long winters
rather than its three days of sunshine.
However, it seems many offices have
switched off their air con for the
duration of the outbreak for fear that
through. It will not be until you arrive
that you realise what you should have
brought with you. You didn’t check the
tide times, so you’ll spend your day
looking at a mile and a half of mud.
You didn’t bring any suntan lotion or
an umbrella, and the only thing you
have to drink is half a year-old Fruit
Shoot you found in the boot, so you’re
destined to fry, dehydrated, in the full
glare of the sun. Worst of all, you
forgot to dress suitably, so you’re doing
all this in weirdly formal outfits and
dress shoes that won’t be completelyDon’t trust that
one maniac in
your group who
enjoys the heat
TOLGA AKMEN/GETTY IMAGESHow to survive a
British heatwave
Sit in a paddling pool and be grateful you don’t
have to navigate the Tube, says Stuart Heritage
it would simply circulate disease
throughout the building. So where can
you grab a few precious minutes of
cold air? The answer, as if you didn’t
already know, is Tesco Express. My
local branches are always blissfully
freezing in the summer, and I’m
convinced that 90 per cent of their
customers are only there to loiter
purposelessly while they soak up
the frostiness. Tesco Express is my
favourite place right now. Three more
days of this weather and I’m going to
say goodbye to my family and pitch
a tent in the pet food aisle.
Buy air con too late
British people ultimately have two
states of mind. First there is the state
of mind where the temperature is
below 25C, and the thought of
buying a home air-conditioning unit
seems absurd, unnecessary, expensive
and — most of all — like the sort of
thing a foreigner would do. And then
there is the state of mind when the
weather gets too hot, and you spend
your life screaming wild abuse at the
Robert Dyas website because all the
home air-conditioning units have
sold out because everyone had exactly
the same idea as you half an hour
earlier. The smart thing to do would
be to struggle though this heatwave
as best you can, then buy one in
October ready for next year. But
why on earth would you do that?
You’re not a foreigner.
Go on a badly prepared beach trip
Of course you want to go to a beach.
It’s hot, and beaches are where
everyone goes when it’s hot. However,
British people don’t just simply go to
the beach. No, they must go to the
beach without really thinking it