Liturgy of The Heat

Archdruid: Behold for the heat is so great that our tongues cleave to our mouths. We long for cool water as does Sylvia Sims long for an ice-cold lager in Alex. And the druids wear not robes. They go about undraped in their druidical drapings.

All: Especially Burton, who has forgotten that his lack of trouserings are no longer covered over by his druidical drapings.

Burton: Oops. Sorry. I'll just borrow the Liturgucal Voile from the Worship Focus.

Archdruid: The Liturgical Voile is long and beautiful, coloured as is the rainbow.

All: But it's still see-through, Burton, you idiot.

Burton may slink from the Moot House.

Archdruid: Theresa May underpants. I ask you.

All: Margaret Thatcher is at least stylish.

Archdruid: And so now we turn back to the heat. The sun burns down like that which scorches the desert of the Negev, and the wadis of Husborne Crawley run dry. We cry out for the blessed rain.

All: I bless the rains down in Africa.

Archdruid: And we cry out under the hot sun, how long must it be so hot?

All: Nah. We remember the long hot summer of '76. The snowflakes of today melting in the sun. In '76 we sat out on the beach, watching England getting hammered by the West Indies, in special tin foil funnels so we got even hotter.

Archdruid: You what?

All: We'd just finished fighting both World Wars. And anybody who'd been through the Blitz and the Somme wasn't going to worry about a bit of sun.

Archdruid: Just how old do you think you're claiming to be?

All: And we were in the Common Market but before Up Yours Delors and his ban on ladybirds so the Germans could sell us their beetles. We had good English ladybirds everywhere. In your hair, on your arms, on the ground, up your nose... And when it was Flying Ants Day we'd smear ourselves in jam and run around seeing who could get the most ant bites.

Archdruid: Are you seriously...

All: And then after a full day in the sun, rubbing each other down in Beef Dripping - none of your poncey extra-virgin olive oil back then - when we were thoroughly crispy, we'd drip eight pints of Ind Coope Best, and pop ourselves into the oven for a couple of hours. We'd be walking back from the pub, just as the bakers opened, and they'd slide us in with the crusty whites. None of your namby-pamby wholemeal gluten-free vegan-friendly sesame-seed-and-halloumi lardy dah bread in '76. Couple of hours in the oven, then back to lay on the melting tarmac on the A5 as the traffic ground to a halt because a Fiat - never a British car, never a Vaxuhall or a Ford or an Austin Allegro or a Hillman Imp - a Fiat had overheated.

Marston Moretaine: Actually, it was normally a Hillman Imp.

All: Heretic! Wash your mouth out with coal-tar soap. The proper stuff made from coal tar. Not the modern day EU-friendly non-carcinogenic coal-tar-scented variety.

Archdruid: Do you think this actually happened? Or have you been out in the sun too long?

All: Then we had the invasion of jellyfish. They swam up the Lea and invaded Luton. Some of them had run market stalls in the Arndale for months before anyone noticed. And when we wanted to cool down we sucked Jubblies. Triangular lollipops so big they were carved out of icebergs and brought into Portsmouth Harbour by tugs. Not Filipono tugs. English tugs. Then we hosed ourselves down - with the hose attached to the hot tap - put a few coals on the fire and settled down to watch the Goodies in black-and-white on a 12" telly, with granny on the roof making sure the aerial was in the right direction. So don't tell us it's a bit hot. When the 1976 heatwave started in 1946, just after we won the war - just us, nobody else - and lasted until 1994. AND we had to watch the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch on the telly. Every day. Till nan fell off the roof.

Archdruid: Go out to spread your delusions to all nations.

All:So don't talk to me about so-called climate change.