Air conditioning (From Stroud News and Journal)

Air conditioning

ISN'T is about time we all stopped being terribly British about the weather and admitted that we really need air conditioning in this country?

I know that moaning about the weather is our favourite pastime but really, air conditioning is no longer something we only need in hot countries.

It's all very well trying to pass the English summer off as two days of sunshine and a thunderstorm but things are definitely hotting up on these shores.

The last few summers have seen temperatures soar to figures easily matched in the Mediterranean.

When we travel abroad we expect air conditioning in our hired cars and apartments because our holiday would just be unbearable without it.

But back here in Blightly we just soldier on trying to work and go about our daily business complaining about the heat and getting very bad tempered about the whole thing.

Last week I felt I was being boiled alive. There was no escaping the heat. My office was hot, my car at the end of the day was hotter than the oven I cooked my fish for supper in and I considered sleeping in the bath because my all weather duvet was obviously designed only for the British market circa 1950.

The amount of drivers getting very hot and bothered as we crawled along in the blistering heat on my way home amidst a sea of shaking fists and irate car horns was staggering - there's nothing like soaring heat to spark off road rage.

A couple of summers ago, children of friends visiting from Dubai were incredulous that my house didn't have air conditioning especially as the temperature outside was hotter than the one they had left at home. They had never been to England before and were half expecting snow, even though it was June.

Air conditioning is no longer a gimmick or a luxury it really ought to be standard in all new houses, offices and cars.

Otherwise if global warming continues we will all have to be scraped off the floor at the end of the day having wilted like delicate English lettuces.