COOWee Tiger, I'm Sweating Like a P. I. G!

And the big sweat continues... The rich side of the office have a clip on shelf fans for every worker, 3 floor standing fans strategically placed around the office and three medium sized fans placed strategically inbetween (there is a dividing door between the funders and the projects that is locked from their side when they are not there - we feel like second class citizens because we, as tenants are largely told how things will be - therefore last summer during Big Brother 3 the divide became lovingly known as the the rich side/poor side) - a total of about 10 fans between 8 present colleagues. On the poor side we as individual projects have collectively two standing floor fans and two clip on shelf fans between 8 present project colleagues.

I love the heat:

• You get to wear sandals everyday, good sandals make you lengthen your stride and relax into your gait, hips can swing and you feel like you are on holiday.


• Because you are wearing sandals you attend to your feet - slough the dead skin off, cream them, paint their toenails - they therefore look great


• You leave work at a reasonable time every night a. because it is too hot to stay a moment longer and b. because its lovely to spend some time relaxing in the park / pub / bath / garden etc rather than working.


• You get a tan (even slightly) and everyone thinks you look very healthy.


• Gin & tonics and all sorts of great fruit cocktails - and everyone wants to drink them with you.


• You experience the wall of heat thing that ususally signifies being abroad - if you close your eyes you could pretend you were far far away in a distant land.


• Even after dark it is warm enough to wander around with only a teeshirt on, it is such a luxury to be able to go without a coat and not feel cold


• Cold baths and showers are good


• Swimming is doubly good


• The tube is so unbearable that nobody expects you to ride on it (I'm not going to dis it - its a marvellous mode of transport and I loved it until I had to commute using it everyday - I'd rather travel where I can see the world going by)


• Colleagues treat you to ice creams or even more excitingly E number-rich popsicles/ice poles/ice pops - whatever you choose to call them from whichever part of the country you hail from - we had a long discussion about what the real name for these things were during a network breakdown on Monday. The memory of them is that you tear the plastic at the top end with your teeth to allow a small hole - suck the ice pole through this hole - largely you will suck the colour/flavour off the ice itself and be left with a tasteless ice block to crunch up afterwards OR you chew the ice and your hot hand melts the bottom so that you are left with a violently coloured liquid in the bottom of the empty plastic that requires great dexterity to drink without it spilling out the corners of you mouth and without cutting the corners of the mouth with the sharp plastic edges. AND your tongue goes blue - how great is that?


• Thunder storms are really really dramatic.

The downside of the heat:

• Your feet are always filthy at the end of the day.


• Rubbish, dog poo, piss on the streets all stink much worse and don't get washed off by the rain.


• Sweat builds up on the forehead and rolls down into your eyes - particularly when doing even slightly physical work in a very hot office.


• Concentrating requires triple energy.


• London doesn't have any seaside.