The tabloid headline of my youth at the top of this article used to be rolled out when we had hot days. We used Fahrenheit then, a more sensitive and large scale way of judging the temperature. We all knew during summer that 70 degrees was pleasant day, 80 was a warm day and 90 was a hot day. As temperatures sometimes soared into the high 90s that was a too hot day. Nonetheless those with money opted to go to the south of Europe in search of the 100 degree fix for a holiday , equipped with sun tan lotion and often then a passion to lie out in the very hot sun. Today we call those temperatures 21.2 Celsius, 26.67, 32.22 and 37.77 which are more difficult to remember and not so clear in the message they send. Maybe we need to unite around 20,25,30 and 35 as benchmarks of how hot it is.
I remember those hot days when young. In August we went to stay with my grandparents who lived in Broadstairs. The long walk to the sea was worth it, and was downhill. On arrival the sand was sometime too hot to walk on in bare feet. You needed to run to the wet sand for relief , or even better plunge into the water. The tarmac on the roads might be melting, and the rails were sometimes bending as they faced the sun. It takes a higher temperature than 100 degrees to do that, but the tarmac and the steel sitting beneath a relentless sun get far hotter than the air temperature used to measure the general warmth.
It is curious that some people complain about the hot days in the UK yet think it relaxing to go to a holiday location where it is that hot most of the time. When in Italy, Spain or Greece they might observe that government and people have adjusted to higher summer temperatures. Many eat outside, but always in the shade. Shops, cars and hotels are air conditioned. Many people have a long break in their working day when the sun is hottest, working into the evening as it cools a bit. The authorities ensure enough water is collected and stored to see them through a long summer with little rain. Evening meals are much later than in the UK. People do not lie around in the hottest sun, and protect themselves from sunburn. Large hats are common. The sombrero is part of the armour against the weather.
If we are to have more of the very hot days in the years ahead as some forecast it reinforces the case I have been making for more reservoirs. It also implies we need to install more air conditioning, as they have in the US. What is clear is even if the UK stopped burning all fossil fuels, importing everything that needs such energy instead, it would not reduce world CO 2 let alone suddenly cool us all off.
August 13, 2026
Back then I still watched or listened to the BBC. I don’t recall any “weather warnings” like they and the Met Office put out now. They assumed people were sensible and intelligent enough to decide for themselves if a certain temperature, rain or wind forecast meant they should take precautions (sun hat, umbrella, raincoat…).
August 13, 2026
I worked for 22 years in Africa and the Middle East. Summer temperatures were often mid to high 40s, occasionally pipping 50 degrees. We were contractors in the power industry. If a machine broke down we were expected to fix it. No account of temperature was given or expected.
The Met Office and the BBC have been captured by the global warming scam and are a disgrace. I’m still waiting for the Maldives to sink below the ocean. I first went in 66 and then again last year. Nothing has changed despite the alarmist predictions.
August 13, 2026
Today wind is 1.5gw. Gas and nuclear 45% if demand and 22% being imported at extortionate prices. When will there be a Cobra meeting to address this.
August 13, 2026
Indeed endless weather porn and climate alarmist propaganda from the BBC.
A record 262,820 UK 18-year-olds have gained places at university or college, representing a 3% increase from last year. Total acceptances for students of all ages reached 446,690.
What % of these degrees are worth the £50k of debt interest at 7% on this and the three+ years loss of earning? Perhaps 25% of them.
August 13, 2026
Lifelogic
They will be lucky if they leave with as little as £50,000 especially if they are living away from home.
Still Government will make a profit out of those who ACTUALLY PAY given the interest rates being charged, and the 30 year term.
They will clearly make a loss if they DO NOT PAY for a whole host of reasons.
Is it worth it, for the majority I would say it is Questionable, but perhaps not in this day and age.
For the few at the very Top, probably yes, but depends upon their work choice and development.
August 13, 2026
Today the head of the Metropolitan police talks of the whole criminal justice system failing.
Law and order were in a “very, very precarious” state because of a wider failure in the criminal justice system
It is an attempt to share blame with other agencies.
So different to Cressida’s days, when it was all about gay flags and cops dancing at Notting Hill Carnival.
As usua,l the solution offered is more money and more staff.
They never suggest the police should actually do their job in a much better way than is currently accepted.
August 13, 2026
@Wanderer
But that’s the thing isn’t it? We get warnings for everything, be careful your tea may be hot; don’t walk or drive in flooded areas; drink plenty in hot weather and don’t forget suncream! We’ve joked about the nanny state for some years, but they’re getting worse!
August 13, 2026
‘ Today we call those temperatures 21.2 Celsius, 26.67, 32.22 and 37.77 which are more difficult to remember and not so clear in the message they send.’
Today South West Rail call those temperatures ‘extreme weather’. It’s another useful excuse for them.
Drinking more water is essential. I have a blood pressure monitor similar to the one my GP uses. At home my blood pressure is usually within the normal range though it rises if it is taken at the surgery which is a common experience. At home it has dropped to low. Water and activity bring it back to normal.
I don’t think sombreros are common in Europe anymore. British tourists in Spain used to buy one decades ago, but not nowadays.
August 13, 2026
Climate Change is a very useful excuse indeed for businesses and governments. Not my fault mate it climate change. An excuse for their serial gross incompetence, for water shortages, for the endless migrants and a justification for ever more taxes and ever more parasitic government.
August 13, 2026
What is clear is even if the UK stopped burning all fossil fuels, importing everything that needs such energy instead, it would not reduce world CO 2 let alone suddenly cool us all off.
I remember very well the summer of 76 in the beer gardens with me mates getting legless and having the time of our lives I also remember floods and getting snowed in the 50s and 60s in the long drawn out winters, as you say Sir John if the UK stopped burning all fossil fuels, importing everything that needs such energy instead, it would not reduce world CO 2 let alone suddenly cool us all off, but then governments wouldn’t have a big fat lie to screw every penny from us, but no doubt someone would think of some other way to screw us
August 13, 2026
The weather has been weaponised by the movement to stop the use of fossil fuels. The brutal truth is the evolution of CO2 from burning oil gas and coal makes no measurable difference to the global temperature.
The climate is in a constant state of change, always was and always will be.
The drivers of that change has nothing to do with mankind or the burning of fossil fuels.
The big hitter when it comes to air temperature and conditions we experience on the ground is cloud cover.
Incredibly, the one feature none of the IPCC climate models can factor into their outputs is cloud formation. Cloud evolution, its movement and complexity simply can’t be modelled.
Lacking that fundamental driver of climate i.e. cloud formation/evolution makes the computer modelling not just incomplete, but completely wrong. Not one of the models running for the past thirty years have come close to the actual measured temperatures we are experiencing. They are all running and reporting outputs hotter thn real world conditions.
No matter, the doom mongers continue on their mission. Guided by the Guardian newspaper whose official duty as declared by them, is to ensure the world press agencies use the most compelling words when advancing climate change and man made influence on climate.
The beautiful summer we are having is perfect but for the lack of rain. We need rain for obvious reasons, but summer is meant to be sunny and warm, we should be celebrating not carping and complaining.
August 13, 2026
Comfort depends upon Humidity as well as Temperature.
Out in the desert of Arizona a few years ago it still felt comfortable when over 100 Degrees F, but humidity was only 2 %.
85 Degrees F can feel uncomfortable when humidity is above 60%, not unusual in the UK at Night.
Sun protection needs to be considered and used whatever the temperature when the skin is exposed to direct sunlight for long periods.
At least sun screen has a numbered factor for guidence now, way back in the 1960’s it was like cooking oil !
August 13, 2026
As JR says “What is clear is even if the UK stopped burning all fossil fuels, importing everything that needs such energy instead, it would not reduce world CO 2 let alone suddenly cool us all off.” It would not prevent wild fires either.
As to Sun Creams the problem is their use obviously tends to encourage people to toast in the sun un-covered by hats and clothing for longer than they could or would do without sun cream. Some evidence that people who use them actually have higher skin cancer rates – but cause and effect is perhaps hard to separate.
August 13, 2026
Indeed do you remember way, way back people in the sun using Aluminium type baking foil type sheets to lie on for reflection to get a tan/burnt on areas not in direct sun after putting on oil “all over”. !!!!!!
Rather like wrapping up a chicken now before putting it in the oven.
No wonder skin Cancer is on the increase years later !.
August 13, 2026
With wild fires all you can do is control when they burn (and have fire breaks) controlled burning or uncontrolled. Sooner or later they will catch alight or be set alight – or you collect the wood and burn it for fuel to heat homes or (at drax perhaps) or you have uncontrolled fires.
REWILDING make things worse still.
August 13, 2026
Interestingly there appears no spatial correlation between rewilded areas and areas with wildfires as most of those fires are linked to human activities.
August 13, 2026
Where do you get that data from?
August 13, 2026
Ha ha, the usual statistical trick that you should have been aware of: how do you prove an absence of correlation. That’s statistics.101 something that a distinguished Cambridge BSc should know …
You should be the one telling us where both wild fires and rewilding have occurred.
But maybe it came from Allister H?
August 14, 2026
Cambridge and Oxford awards BAs and MAs even in science subjects not BScs but alas they have hugely devalued the brand with DEI lunacy and some moronic, deluded, fantasy pushing, diversity appointment professors especially (not alas exclusively) in some dubious “subject” areas.
I merely, out of interest, asked where you got your data from to justify your claim and note you have not answered this?
August 14, 2026
There was no rewilding in the New Forest, nor in Conwy (Wales), Glossop (Derbyshire), Stourbridge (West Midlands), Pershore (Worcestershire), … so your comment about a link between rewilding and wildfires cannot be verified.
Only the DT (05/08/2026) and the DM (13/08/2026) make such a link and accuse the present Greens/Labour/left whereas whatever efforts at recent rewilding were started in 2015 (rewildingbritain.org.uk).
August 13, 2026
BA,
In the 1960s most people did not use sun screen. It was a niche beauty product for women. I have fair skin and got badly burnt as a child when sitting on an English beach. That was a standard holiday back in those days.
August 13, 2026
Indeedy Peter
If you didn’t look like a lobster on the first day at the beach then it just wasn’t a proper summer.
August 13, 2026
The climate alarmists are opposed to air conditioning – indeed I think it is banned in new builds ? Even though they promise us abundant cheap energy that could run it. They want us to suffer for our historic climate crimes. More sensible countries I’ve been to – Kuwait for example – have no such guilt and have adapted to the heat.
August 13, 2026
Parts of the world are creating green spaces in a desert areas.China had created a green wall and still planting billions of trees .In this there’s hope.If only we could encourage countries to cease savaging their own and create green beauty and respect for every individual where they are born.
It can’t be so difficult to rid themselves of rituals and actually think what they are doing to their land and people’s.
August 13, 2026
Mr Miliband said you cannot install air-conditioning, because if you do, you will cause an increase in Co2 (an increase so small it couldn’t be measured)
I expect Miatta to follow his lead.
That is the standard of politician that we now live with.
August 13, 2026
Hi OLD ALBION
Just shows what a plonker Miliband is with a statement like you cannot install air-conditioning, because if you do, you will cause an increase in Co2 , the fact is Your air conditioner does not directly create or emit carbon dioxide (CO₂). It is a closed-loop electrical system that only moves heat and moisture from inside your home to the outside, so unless you release the gas inside your system there’s not threat from co2, and that my friends is were these climate change muppets spew there climate change bile down the throats of the uneducated hoping to keep the biggest lie of the 21st century going
August 13, 2026
Seeking the sun on holiday assumes little travelling on public transport and little movement, lying on a sun lounger or by the beach, ample refreshment and access to a pool.
Not the same as a commute on the 7.15 to Euston and a long walk or bus ride to the office thereafter.
The Summer has been glorious (possibly too hot on some days) due the the direction of the winds brining the weather from Africa via Europe. Next year it may be different.
I do like a 25 degree Summer’s day followed by a cool down in the evening. 33 – 35 is a little too hot, especially as the UK tends to be humid.
We need to adapt, the weather is getting warmer due to the sun’s activity. Air con is a must and more shade on the pavements would be useful.
August 13, 2026
Better still why don’t we go back to Fahrenheit, which the Americans still use.
We may have gotten used to Celsius but it still doesn’t feel natural.
Switching to Celsius was another of those things we did to please the Europeans in their craving to make everything the same everywhere. Subtle differences add a little spice to life.
August 13, 2026
I do use Fahrenheit.
A friend in Johannesburg said that the temp was 35 degrees, so I told her it was coincidental that the temp in Northumberland at the very same time was also 35 degrees.
August 13, 2026
Talking of the EU it seems a lot of energy has been put into making Dover fully compliant with France’s digital passport identification with eye scanning a requirement.
I’m not sure if it’s up and running yet after many delays but it’s bound to increase time and tempers when it becomes operational, and it still won’t do anything to keep out the illegals.
August 13, 2026
There was a time 98.4 F was the normal body temperature, run a few degrees over 104 F you were ill. Now the new norm is 37C run a couple of degrees over and you are dead.
August 13, 2026
The experts are suggesting the high temperatures are as a result of having a cleaner atmosphere, the sun is now getting through. Of course solar flares also dominate in these scenarios.
That is not the same as global warming, global warming as the zealots explain it gives us more extremes of weather, starting with more storms and rain – natures way of rebalancing
August 13, 2026
Much of it is also urban island effects too and the prevailing wind directions. Millions of things affect the climate (orbits, farming, solar activity, trees, urban living, wind farms (that reduce wind speeds), volcanoes, wind patterns, solar panels that reflect more sun than crops, CO2 is merely one of them and not even the main so called green house gas. THE IDEA that you can predict it for one hundred years when they cannot even give us the climate for next month is absurd.
August 13, 2026
??? Solar panels do not reflect more than crops. They are dark blue or black for a reason, increased absorption of solar radiation.
August 13, 2026
Sir
100° is a much bigger number than 37.77°.
Maybe if the BBC dropped centigrade and went back to fahrenheit, it would have a better chance of convincing us when it is really, really hot 🙂
August 13, 2026
Mechanical ventilation heat recovery systems(MVHR) are a ‘must have’ to save energy and all good modern homes are built with the system in mind and a lot do have it fitted at the outseet. Its becoming a requirement by Building Regulations soon homes wont be allowed to be sold without it. A building Energy Performance Certificate(EPC) a must have to sell a house needs it to achieve a satisfactory performance level.
With MVHR air in the building circulates through a heat exchanger back into the building, it saves energy, it save money. AirCon is the same set up, infrastructure, basically with a similar process but the heat exchanger has an added tweak(it can also cool) in the flow of recirculating air – it looks the same and the mechanisms are interchangeable. Who will ‘police’ and hunt out the difference when they look identical?
The brainless UK Parliament’s contradiction they want to ban every heating method other than air source pumps. Air Source Heat Pumps are actually AirCon they work on the principle of trying to ‘cool’ the whole Planet with just the residual heat being pumped into homes to warm them. Heat Pumps in heating systems are not cheap to run the use vast amounts of energy trying to ‘cool’ the World just to allow the heat exchanger to have some residual heat that warms a few cubic meters of a home. Having one heat pump in one version and not allowing it in the other is not only contradictory it is hypocritical
Those that have found there way into the UK Parliament seem to be of a similar character their mouths are not wired up to thinking brains. It about the personal ideology of ‘self’, not common sense.
August 13, 2026
I have had one in the U.K. since 1988.
The problem is that they cannot be switched off and the heat in the building is recycled, so in summer the house gets hotter and hotter.
I have bought a tiny listed cottage in a very special village. It needs to be refurbished – there is only open fire heating. I have to have an archaeologist on hand before anything is stripped or reinstated (even the lime plaster). They want me to install an ASHP ‘to help the U.K. achieve net zero by 20whatever’.
I have provided evidence that the pump uses more energy than it produces, and I’m refusing. I might well have only open fires for the rest of my life.
August 13, 2026
The alarmist media, especially the BBC, treat the hot summer weather as if we are all going to die of extreme heat.
I lived in Malaya and Borneo for two years in the 1960s and somehow survived! I don’t remember any of this panic about hot weather before this century, despite the UK having very hot weather in the past. But if you believe something- GW/CC/NZ- you will interpret anything that happens as supporting your belief.
Summer 1925 was just as bad for hot weather, although 2026 might be slightly hotter.
August 13, 2026
The metric system was never intended to be used for humanity. It is defined by reference to physical objects and their states and intended for the scientific study of the material world. Sensible countries understand this. It was the EU wot done it to UK. Britain should now revert to the imperial system.
August 13, 2026
01/09/1999 latimes.com ‘Mars probe lost due to simple math error’.
The use of English inches, feet and pounds by a contractor ‘only’ cost the metric Jet Propulsion Lab $125 m …
August 13, 2026
I don’t understand why the usually pro-British Jacob is wedded to a clumsy foreign temperature scale, Fahrenheit, when there is a far more sensible British alternative – Kelvin.
August 13, 2026
GH, Brillant !
August 13, 2026
We should be enjoying a wonderful summer. Instead the Nudge Unit are weaponising the BBC and the Met Office to make us frightened and guilty in order to force through unwanted and impoverishing Net Zero policies based upon the hoax that CO2 controls temperature. Those that believe that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 (3% of total CO2 emissions) can control the planet’s temperature are as deluded as those who a thousand years ago believed in anthropogenic tide control. The history of CO2 shows that CO2 follows temperature, when both are exceptionally low, as evidenced by the Antarctic Vostok ice core data and the real science of Happer & Wijngaarden shows, using the IPCC’s own radiative CO2 warming theory, that there is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to cause all the warming feasible and hence adding more CO2 makes little, if any, difference. They have no explanation as to why 3 million years ago the planet was warmer than today despite lower levels of atmospheric CO2 and methane and how it is that melting glaciers are revealing 7000 year-old tree stumps and 5000 year-old human artefacts, again despite lower levels of CO2 at the time as we exited the last ice age.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2519771-ice-core-reveals-low-co2-during-warm-spell-3-million-years-ago/
August 13, 2026
Agreed. The 1976 heatwave and this summer’s weather both had to do with the jet stream being displaced, and anticyclonic conditions persisting for weeks, pulliing in heat from southern Europe and the Sahara. But the climate zealots want us to believe it’s all our fault, for using fossil fuels. Heigh-ho.
August 13, 2026
weather.metoffice.gov.uk ‘Weather warnings guide’.
One of the very interesting bits of this 10 mn presentation is that those warnings are defined wrt potential impact and probability of occurence and that the information varies between the North, South, East and West of the UK, likely based on the climatology of the area. Snow on the Highlands having less impact and more probability of occurence than snow on London.
They certainly are not defined by 21.20, 26.67, 32.22 or 37.77 C thresholds.
Where were those values coming from, Matt Goodwin?
August 13, 2026
Looking around, I found that in 1668 (ukma.org.uk ‘Metrication timeline’) Bishop John Wilkins in England published a proposal for a universal decimal system of measurement. This idea appears to have been taken over (stealed?) in 1670 by Gabriel Mouton who proposed a similar system for France. It was adopted by France in 1795.
But very interestingly the UK House of Lords in 1904 voted for compulsory change to a metric system but the Bill subsequently failed in the HoC.
So clearly the push for this whole metrication business is nothing new and not really EEC/EU related.
Please read the various defeated efforts between 1904 and practically now, efforts at generalising the metric system.
And here we are, the formaldehyde-smelling imperial heroes continuing time and again the ‘good’ fight.
August 13, 2026
I think Peter G is basically right. The Labour government of the 1960s started the move to metric measurements, culminating in the Units of Measurement Regulations 1995. That was the period in which the powers-that-be wanted the country to belong to the Common Market/EU, and they succeeded in the 1970s, so we had metrication. Btw it’s ‘stolen’, not ‘stealed’. Cute, though. My little grandson says that sort of thing.
August 16, 2026
Metrication was. Forced on France and all countries defeated by Napoleon.
We WERE NOT DEFEATED BY NAPOLEON
He even ordered the destruction of Pascal’s laboratory because it was not metric.
Interestingly the original idea was to divide the circumference of the world into 40,000 and thus deduce the length of all metric measurements including the meter. However they got the calculation wrong and the actual circumference is 40,075 km – therefore the meter is the wrong length!
It stands as the witness to incompetence forever.
On the other hand, the longitude calculated from the meridian at Greenwich is perfect – well until the observatory suffered subsidence and was moved 20 feet to the right.
So the British moved the whole world by 20ft to rectify the subsidence problem.
That’s Mastery!
August 13, 2026
Still many deluded individuals who won’t accept global warming is man-made.
Rather than thinking about AI and ways which do not enrich our lives at this moment in time,it certainly would be sensible to go back to basics.
More reservoirs should be built all over the country.A way of catching all the waste flood water and channeling it for use. More effort into desalination and help for farmers bwhovgrow our food.
August 13, 2026
I have been waiting 50 years for a descent summer. Will this year match the summer of ’76? It started about the same time. In ’76 it started the first Wednesday of Wimbledon. Wimbledon started earlier in those days. Unfortunately, back then to many people’s disappointment the weather broke the Friday before the August Bank Holiday. Will it last another couple of weeks this year?
And the summer of ’59 was pretty good. I remember the cricket outfield at school being parched. Cannot remember the conditions of the square but suspect it was watered, Happy memories!!