Hot and Cold

Historically, the British are no strangers to climatic extremes. They built an empire in the oppressive heat of India, explored the frigid wastelands of Antarctica and hacked roadways and railroads through the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia, yet the infrastructures of their own nation appear to have been built on the assumption that it will always be 60 degrees Fahrenheit. When temperatures stray 30 degrees above or below this mark, the country grinds to a halt.

It went up to 97 this past week. Now, aside from sunscreen manufacturers and ice cream vendors, not a lot of people truly enjoy such temperatures but, in general, you just grumble a bit more than usual, maybe slip an ice-pack down your knickers, and get on with your day. Here, schools closed, road surfaces melted and railroad tracks buckled. Last winter, when the temperature dipped to a frigid 28 degrees and half an inch of snow fell, schools closed, road surfaces iced over and railroad tracks buckled. (Incidentally, the railroads also shut down when it’s too windy or too rainy.)

To be fair, I doubt Reykjavik could cope if they suddenly found themselves in need of air conditioning, and ice on the highways would certainly cause consternation in Riyadh; the British aren’t necessarily architecturally inept, they merely suffer the disadvantages of a mild climate. Consequently, the recent heat waves have caught the nation off guard and exposed the fact that, if this trend continues, they have a lot of catching up to do.

Now, I’m not a screaming hysteric when it comes to climate change* but you don’t need a scientist to tell you it’s getting hotter; you just need to stick your head out the window. And you have to do that here, because air conditioning is still in, what I like to refer to as, the experimental phase.

We nearly froze to death at the cinema last night, but the department store we visited over the weekend appeared to be vying for entry into the Guinness Book under the “world’s largest sauna” category. Cooling down your flat by picking up an air conditioner at your local hardware store is not possible because they don’t have them (air conditioners, that is, we have hardware stores, we just call them DIY shops). And even if you could buy one, it wouldn’t do you much good because windows here tend to swing open from the side, not slide up and down like in the States.

In my flat, due to its being old and outdated, the windows are large and swing freely outward to let in copious amounts of sunlight and fresh air, so it is conceivably possible, given enough scrap plywood, gaffer tape and determination, to fit in an air conditioner, provided it was tilted on its side. The new, modern apartments have windows the size of archers slits fitted with safety latches that allow them to open only an inch or two. The primary purpose of this innovation is probably not to eliminate sunlight and fresh air but to discourage depressed occupants from throwing themselves out the window, presumably when they realize they have just paid the equivalent of half a million US dollars for a cramped and shoddy two-bedroom walk-up.

What you can buy here, in the absence of air conditioning, are water spritzers to help cool you down. The ad I saw for them on the telly showed a chipper looking mom spraying mists of water vapor over her appreciative toddler from what appeared to be an aerosol can. There’s a good idea: Too hot for you? Release some more fluorocarbons into the atmosphere. You couldn’t make this stuff up. (Incidentally, I saw that commercial only once and have never seen the product in the stores, so somewhere along the marketing chain someone, albeit belatedly, must have realized what a boneheaded idea it was.)

In my pre-AC days in America, I used to combat heat stroke by taking a cool shower, but with the drought, you’re not even supposed to do that. (It’s so bad now that, last weekend at the Leisure Center, I saw the local swim team practicing by running back and forth in an empty pool, wind milling their arms.) Right now, all the nation can do is wait for winter so they can complain about it being too cold again.

This isn’t surprising, either. Due to traditionally mild winters, many older dwellings, like mine, have heat only in selected areas and, even there, only of a sporadic nature. This practically guarantees that, no matter where you are on this island, and no matter what the weather, you are always going to be either too hot or too cold.

So until climate change really takes off and provides Britain with 104-degree summers and minus 20-degree winters, central heating and air conditioning are likely to remain spotty, at best. In the mean time, put on a jumper. And, if you need to cool down, go see a movie.

*Global temperatures naturally fluctuate—the Romans used to grow grapes in Britain and, oddly enough, they are growing them here again—but are our activities accelerating or exacerbating this natural rhythm? I can’t say for certain and, no matter what you think, neither can you. (That said—and to stave off the inevitable hate mail—allow me to state that I am in full favor of curtailing the use of fossil fuels, but only because I see no benefit in our headlong race to guzzle the last drop of a non-renewable resource. That, and I hate SUVs.)

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