Good morning. Except for those who would laugh maniacally and insist everything was fine even if their beach-based ice-cream burst into flames, it’s been an unsettling couple of days in Britain.
The immediate impact of record 40C temperatures was severe enough in its own right: ask the residents of Wennington, where dozens of houses burned (pictured above) after a fire started on nearby shrubland, what they think of the Daily Mail’s disdain yesterday for “apocalyptic climate change pundits” who act as if “Britain was about to spontaneously combust”. But for most of us, the most alarming thing about the heatwave was the 48-hour preview it provided of what’s coming down the line.
