During World War Two a team of scientists (American I think though I’m not certain), studied how long soldiers could walk in the desert without water. They worked out that, if the soldiers were properly hydrated before they started, they could walk 45 miles in 80 degree heat, 15 miles in 100 degree heat, and 7 miles in 120 degree heat. I’m getting this info from Bill Bryson’s forthcoming book The Body: A Guide for Occupants.
Well I’m no soldier but those distances strike me as enormously optimistic. Walking 7 miles in 80 degree heat without any water strikes me as quite bad enough.
Thursday June 25th, was predicted to be the hottest day ever recorded in English meteorology - that would be 38.5 degrees C, 101.3 F. And I do hear most of my American contacts saying, ‘You call that hot?’
So, being the mad dog and Englishman that I am I decided walk around London and see how things looked and felt. I also had a vague plan to plan to see the Cindy Sherman exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
The first think to say is that it felt nothing like a hundred degrees. After my years in the states I’m rather more attuned to Fahrenheit. I mean it was definitely hotand it wasn’t a dry heat, but it didn’t feel, and in fact it wasn’t, as hot as predicted – 37.9 or 100.22 at Kew and Heathrow, which is plenty hot enough, though I was nowhere near either of those places. And although it’s possible to find weather forecasts online for the whole of the world, finding what the temperature was in central London two days ago has defeated me.
Still, as I walked around, camera in hand, it was interesting to see how people coped with the heat
Some managed to look downright icy:
Some tried to sleep through it:
Others were definitely suffering:
And then about 6 o’clock it rained very hard and very briefly. That didn’t seem to make much difference to anything, though I suppose it must have cooled things down at least slightly.
Though not everyone looked any better for it:
Did I walk 7 miles in the course of the day? Yes, I think so, more or less, but I certainly took on a lot of liquid along the way.
And the Cindy Sherman? Oh I dunno. I’m not sure that putting on a bad wig and bad make up is synonymous with exploring ‘identity,’ though I'm sure other views are possible. And as for the clowns …
On the other hand I still love the Untitled Film Stills, and have for a very long time. At least it used to get her of the studio and doing a bit of walking around.
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