The Heat of the Day

From an unruffled "rather warm," the London Daily Express weather report rose to a blunt "hot," then staunchly maintained: "fine." For the three-day August bank holiday, a million Londoners migrated to the country and the seaside (where this week they were surprised by brief gales and showers). Throughout the heat spell, authorities had kept an eye on a below-normal water supply; the use of hoses and sprinklers was banned five days a week. In the London zoo, a lion decided that the best way to keep cool was to relax.

At the opening of Death of a Salesman at the Phoenix,* which like most London theaters is not air-conditioned, gentlemen sweltered in their heavy dinner jackets, martyrs to the myth that London never really gets hot. In the House of Commons, the Serjeant at Arms permitted newsmen to remove their jackets (although honorable member's had to retain their coats and ties). To Playwright William Douglas Home Princess Margaret granted the privilege of dining with her at a London nightclub in his shirtsleeves. It was hot in other places than England. In West Germany, where the thermometer hovered around 95DEG, businessmen rebelled against the tyranny of male fashions, shed suits and ties, pedaled about town in Lederhosen (leather shorts).

In Brussels, a policeman caught Marcel, a 14-year-old lad, illegally swimming in a canal. A perspiring judge asked the cop: "Did you see him leave the water?" "Yes, sir." "Did you see him enter the water?" "No, sir." "In that case," ruled the humane judge, "the boy is acquitted, for the regulations say that nobody is allowed to enter the canal to bathe; they don't stipulate that it is unlawful to get out of it." In the Paris zoo, penguins squatted on ice cakes. In Madrid, which justified its climatic reputation ("Nueve meses de invierno y tres meses de infierno"--nine months of winter and three months of hell), traffic cops performed their duties beneath specially issued red & white parasols.

Africa was really hard-hit, suffering the worst drought in a century. In many parts of South Africa, once high corn and grazing land looked, after the 14-month drought, like scorched earth. At Mombasa, the game warden for the Kenya coast reported some 5,000 elephants stampeding toward the coast in search of water.

* For more news of that opening, see THEATER.

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