Just Another F**king Hot Day Here In Downtown Calcutta

Without Prejudice



Following is an Email sent by me to my former Classmates at Thornes House Grammar School during the wild blizzards they are having in the U.K.

The rude ( for me ) title, " Just Another F**king Hot Day Here In Calcutta comes from a hilarious monologue about Richie Benaud, the legend of Aussie Cricket, by Austen Tayshus, an Australian Comedian.

This is MY monologue,

Hi fellow Poms,

Just thought I would share how Melbourne is at the moment, especially as the reports out of the U.K. are that you are having some very nasty weather.

Today, here in Melbourne, it is 41 degrees Celsius. In my unit I have one extremely large air conditioner and fans in every room. We get up way too early when we know it's going to be hot and lethargy and inertia are the buzz-less words of the day.

My grandson has gone off to the beach.

He is red headed. And pale skinned. Bet he has no sunscreen. I will be able to anticipate the sunburned screams after it cools down here, about 10pm tonight.

We may have a severe thunderstorm after that and we plummet down to 20 degrees tomorrow.

This weather changing is why Melbourne is called The City Of Four Seasons In One Day and necessitates the purchasing of at least four seasons worth of clothes.

( Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

The beach on a hot night is just right. The heat of the day is gone and the waves are small as befits a bayside beach. No surfing here. Sand islands appear and the water warmed by the sun all day is warm but still refreshing in the black deeper recesses. 

The sand is grainy and soft, little pippies make their tiny holes and the waves on the receding tide make a sucking noise.

We travel home in the car, covered in sand and sticky from lemonade icy poles and greasy from the fish and chips eaten out of paper. A tradition every Aussie adheres to. It's a mad tradition as is Hot Christmas Dinner eaten on a boiling hot day. It's de rigeur.

And choosing which house to attend on the Lords birth day, is based on whether they have air conditioning or not.  I have attended a " non air conditioned " house,

once. 

It was a cute weatherboard cottage, so quaint and so unbearable. Everyone was drinking copious amounts of alcohol to cope, except little Miss Fussy here. The designated driver.

Dinner was Turkey, Pork, Chicken with all the trimmings. By the Queens Speech I was ready to go nuts in the tiny packed lounge room, that, or explode, sprinkling shards of bone and bits of my brain on the slightly grubby walls. 

I promised Myself right then and there, no more venues NOT chosen by me, the next place I would be on my own, sans partner who drank for Ireland, I would have a car with air conditioning and a dwelling the same. 

Bye bye from the mouth of the furnace. 

Janette