Middle-aged in a heatwave? I wouldn’t wish it on a dog | Zoe Williams

How is it possible to live so long, and accrue so little weather wisdom? And why do you feel compelled to reminisce about the summer of 1976, although you don’t actually remember it?

This is a complete and unabridged account of the experience of being middle-aged in a heatwave, which you wouldn’t wish upon a dog. Some build-up of brain bacteria over time compels you to mention climate change whenever there is any weather anywhere, but you remember from the 90s that everybody hates that person, so it’s better to just head off weather chat mildly, absent-mindedly – “Hot? I suppose it is” – and this gives you a bumbling, professorial air, as if you don’t notice the world because you’re busy thinking about Frankfurt School Marxists, except what you’re really thinking is: “I am way too hot.”

You can’t wear jeans because it’s like being stitched alive into your own nuclear-resistant shroud, which is the same for everyone except the difference is you don’t have anything but jeans. What happened to all your T-shirt dresses and chiffon? Surely you once owned shorts? For the love of God, even some clamdiggers would help. You must have had a ritualistic bonfire of the fripperies, not planning for this eventuality, even though some kind of summer, realistically, will happen every other year. How is it possible to live so long, and accrue so little basic weather wisdom?

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NoHcs9