Under The Weather

It's the British disease, isn't it?  Complaining about the weather, that is.  Having spent the better part of six months moaning about that bone-chillingly freezing and seemingly never-ending Winter, we're now complaining that it is too hot.  We've gone from the Met Office issuing snow warnings to them putting out heatwave alerts.  Weather forecasters are beginning to use the same apologetic tones to tell us of the continuing high temperatures as they did when they were having to forecast snow day after day earlier this year.  Anyone would think that people are eager for this heat to go away.  Personally, I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts - and I'm earnestly hoping that it continues until late August when I take my Summer holidays.  I'll concede that the sweltering hot days can be uncomfortable at times when I'm working.  People always think that if you spend a lot of your work time out of the office, then you must be out 'enjoying the weather' whenever it is sunny.  The reality is that modern cars are like greenhouses and every time you pull up somewhere and  turn of the engine (and consequently the air conditioning and/or fans) the heat quickly becomes stifling. 

But it is the sweltering nights which can be really difficult.  Sleep doesn't come easily in these temperatures.  The other night I ended up watching The Guns of Navarone (with Arabic sub-titles) on YouTube when I couldn't sleep.  Believe me, you haven't lived until you've seen The Guns of Navarone with Arabic sub-titles.  I figured that if anything could send me to sleep it was watching this one-time bank holiday TV favourite -  nearly two and a half hours of various well known actors wandering around various Greek locations and talking a lot, interspersed with the odd scene of them mowing down a few German soldiers with machine guns.  Unfortunately, no sooner does any action start, than it halts again for two or more of the characters to engage in an earnest debate about the morality of war.  Usually its Gregory Peck and David Niven, but occasionally it is Niven and Anthony Quinn.  Either way, it kills the film's momentum dead.  Anyway, it did the trick.  I had to sit through the whole bloody film, but I got off to sleep.  I think that's my main complaint about this weather - it is forcing me to re-watch these pedestrian old movies.