Hot air

Officially "the hottest July day since records began", today was certainly a hot one (we sat in the garden till the moon was up, enjoying the perfume; and avoided sitting on anything leatherette, like our sofa).

Hot weather in the UK, unusual as it is, brings out many good things - bare-chested buff boys, flowers, dragonflies, a reason to buy ice-cream - and some bad. Principal among the latter is the profusion of shit articles in what laughingly passes for "the media" these days (increasingly run by bored interns who write incessant articles about rubbish they read on Tw*tter). Here are a few examples:

The patronising health advice - see here. We know it's hot. We are sweaty and thirsty. We are also grown-ups. Fuck off.

The panic! drama! meltdown! non-story - a specialism of Mein Kampf and Daily Excuse. They haven't yet blamed hot weather on gays or immigrants, but I am sure they will get round to it.

The "it's hotter than Madrid/India/Miami" cliché - used everywhere, including here. So, on one day every decade we can claim to be hotter than somewhere else? Ho hum.

The dubious link between heat and sport, to please the blokes - like this.

...and some absolute codswallop masquerading as humour and ending up as a pointless, boring waste of time - such as this.

It will inevitably rain tomorrow.

Look out for predictions of Biblical floods, exaggerated delays to sporting events and pictures of young women in wet summer dresses.

And they wonder why the days of "traditional media" are predicted to be under threat...