By Olly O’Connor, qualified man for 42 years

THE current heatwave is much worse for women, they’re saying, to the surprise of nobody. I haven’t bothered to listen why obviously but I’ll have a guess: 

Body fat

They’re allowed to bring it up. God forbid I should even hint at it, but the minute a case for air conditioning needs to be made they’re allowed to claim it’s because they’ve got big arses? Yeah, well if the GP can tell me to lay off the lager and that attendance at Curry Club isn’t compulsory, they can slim down a bit at well.

Hormones

It’s always bloody hormones. In a bad mood, hormones, wants to have a baby, hormones, and now it’s hormones making them too hot. You know who else has got hormones? My system’s flooded with testosterone, heightening my aggressive instincts, but does that stand up in magistrates’ court? It does not. I speak from recent experience.

Periods

No idea if these are affected by heat, but it doesn’t matter, they’ll say they are. It’s the catch-all excuse; everything from burning the chicken nuggets to scraping the car to crying during Scam Interceptors. 

Menopause

And just in case you thought once the periods stop you’ll get a break, the menopause comes along and makes everything worse. It does cause hot flushes though. My ex used to heat up like a three-bar fire. Got asked to leave Curry Club because she was putting off punters.

Being paid less, or whatever

In my experience whenever you’ve dismissed all the other arguments this one comes up. Pay gaps, sexism, the biological clock, blokes lying on Tinder, all the other stuff that isn’t strictly relevant to the subject at hand. And if it doesn’t come up now, it’ll come up in January as the reason why cold weather’s harder for her.