It’s hot, no? As journalists reach for words untouched at other times of year – soaring, blistering, searing etc. – we all react like children to the weather being very sunny and very warm. We associate hot weather with holidays, so there’s an unmistakable excitement about the prospect of sandals and sunhats and floaty cotton dresses. Inside, we’re mentally carrying a bucket and spade and thinking ice-cream for tea. And there’s the usual jeering at other countries for being less hot than here. Posh and Becks in Ibiza? Pah! It’s hotter in Kew Gardens.
The last time it was around this temperature for Whit Weekend, it was 32.8 degrees in 1940, which must have made the situation in Dunkirk that bit more disagreeable. But now we’re contemplating this as the permanent condition of England: blistering, scorching, searing summers.
