A Spanish friend of a friend, living in Madrid, was rung up the other day by a Londoner. The Englishman was exasperated by the way in which it had become impossible to work in the heat of the summer. “We’ve had to develop this thing called the power nap,” he said. “You go to sleep for an hour at lunchtime, then you have more energy to confront the afternoon.” “Brilliant,” thought the Spaniard. “One heatwave, and they think they’ve invented the siesta.” But is what we are experiencing at the moment a heatwave, or it the sort of summer we are going to come to expect every year? Is this global warming, or part of a climatic cycle? And if the former is the case, what sort of patterns of behaviour will we have to ‘invent’ in order to cope with hotter summers every year? Will we start getting a holiday for the whole of August, like the French, Spanish and Italians (who all suffer from ‘September depression’ when they have to go back to work)? Will we be expected to work early in the morning and late into the evening, but not in the middle of the day? Will we get aircon, and wear flip-flops in the street? Will we get hotter-tempered, and less inclined to do things in a hurry? Will it make us drink more water, and less beer? Who knows? I love the hot weather, I absolutely love it. Unless I have to do anything serious in it that is. Like a working week, for example. England wasn’t made for such heat between Monday and Friday. We only used to pray for rain when we were losing to the Aussies. Enjoy the week.