Don’t Forget to Lock the Back Gate

It’s hot. There is really no way of denying this, but I swear to God that the next person who feels the need to tell me that it’s hot, I will punch them. I mean it. I told the wife this earlier and she gave me one of her “yes dear, sure dear” smiles, so I am currently sat in the back garden with the gate shut and padlocked in case some neighbour decides they want to share the fact that it is hot.

I am supposed to be doing a considerable piece of work for someone, but I honestly just couldn’t be arsed today, so I have been rereading Rod Liddle. My God, are we going to miss him. I looked forward to his columns; they could turn a shitty day into a rather splendid one.

The papers aren’t full of good humour today, and that’s for sure. I lived through the times earlier and wondered for a minute if they had hired Apocalyptic John as the new editor. If it’s not AI that is going to get us, it’s wildfires, or Iranian sleeper cells, or full-on civil war; or, if we do somehow survive this summer, we will all freeze and starve to death this winter from the effects of the drought we are currently enduring.

In Oxford, where I live, the drought is serious. Every mention of a fire makes everyone tense. The New Forest is burning. Nearly three-quarters of England is officially in drought. Fire chiefs are talking about a national emergency. None of this is invented. It is plain to see just how dry everything is.

I do wonder if people were as depressed when the Luftwaffe covered the sky over London and Hitler’s legions were poised on the French coast. It’s not that any of these things are untrue. We are clearly suffering. But that is no excuse to bang on about how bloody hot it is.

Now the sun has moved far enough over the yardarm, I can justify making myself and the wife a couple of G&Ts, and we can forget Iranian sleeper cells, small boats, wildfires, and talk about something far more important: whose turn it is to cook.