The POMS have always been mad. The heat just makes it worse. Too make it even worse, not only are most British homes not air conditioned, but apparently, they're actually built to RETAIN heat.


"In homes swaddled in velvet curtains and where even the lavatories may be carpeted, where showers can be a challenge to centuries-old pipes, and iced tea is a contradiction in terms -- hot is really horrid.

Welcome to Britain, where this week urban fires spontaneously erupted, the Queen's guards melted under bearskins, trains ground to a halt and Members of Parliament -- grudgingly -- removed their jackets.

As the United Kingdom officially experienced its hottest day ever at 40.3C (104.5F), large swathes of the country fried in the heat, and a population accustomed to such adjectives as "mild," "tepid" and "clement" to describe its weather suffered a blast from the scorching blowtorch that is global warming.

After millennia bemoaning leaden skies and constant drizzle, Britons took to complaining about the heat with aplomb; actually coping with Saharan-like temperatures came less naturally.

The difficulty adjusting is perhaps forgivable. Shakespeare's "other Eden" was always a temperate place, of gentle summers, where the biggest concern was that a passing shower might delay the village cricket match, not that the umpire could expire of sunstroke.

Frankly, we couldn't cope. We were -- literally -- un-cool. As Aussies tweeted "helpful" tips for surviving the heatwave, hospitals canceled operations, teachers cut classes and planes were grounded as the runway melted. As for public transport: no chance.

South Yorkshire's Barnsley -- sodden, dank Barnsley, for heaven's sake, a place with many charms but hardly the Riviera, was hotter than Beirut -- by 20 degrees.

It was all terribly un-British. Sure, there had been forest fires in France all week, and Australia and California seem to spend half the year ablaze these days -- but Wennington in east London (where a sudden inferno consumed a row of terraced houses)? That's freaky stuff.

A kind of madness took over. As the Met Office's first ever Red warning was issued, countless men fired up their barbeques as if they wanted to self-immolate while scorching meat.

Milk-white bodies unused to the sunshine glare roasted to a deep hue of lobster.

We ate ice lollies and complained and sweated and sat in kids' paddling pools and complained and rescued dogs trapped in hot cars and complained and crowded on to beaches and into parks and complained, and it was just a lot and it was very, very hot."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/opinions/uk-britain-heatwave-hot-weather-prince/i...