THE media absolutely loves unpleasantly hot weather with scary official warnings. Now we’re heading for record temperatures, here’s how they’d like to see the UK suffer:
All the roads melt
Not just a few stretches of tarmac, but Britain’s whole road network. Ambulances unable to move, cars combusting, food shortages inevitable. It will be absolutely fantastic for a Mail headline and could lead to an even better story: cannibalism.
Pets boil and explode
Ideally the heatwave will be so intense that pets’ internal systems rapidly boil and they explode like popcorn. Upsetting and gruesome, but great for sad families in football tops telling local news ‘and then the kids’ hamster went off like a hand grenade’.
A higher warning level is announced
The media are already very excited about the red heat warning, but newsreaders would take savage glee in saying: ‘The warning level has been raised to an unprecedented Code Purple.’
Parts of Britain submerged in ladybirds
The gold standard for heatwaves is summer 1976, when a plague of ladybirds left their jolly corpses piled high on roadsides. It would be even better if this time people were literally drowning in them like quicksand. ‘These ladybirds didn’t fly away home – they killed 16 people,’ Tom Bradby will announce, pleased with himself.
Heathrow becomes a deadly magnifying glass
Heathrow’s massive glass roofs focus sunlight into deadly beams that incinerate people like ants. If this doesn’t happen, any severe heat-related disruption will suffice, so long as viewers can luxuriate in the misery of passengers waiting 12 hours to find out their holiday is f**ked.
Ice cream fatalities
It’s hard to think of circumstances in which an ice cream will kill you, but maybe the contrast between heat and cold will cause those eating them to haemorrhage. Which would allow Alex Jones on The One Show to use the phrase ‘the silent killer in your freezer’ and ‘the chimes of death’.
Shark attacks
The heatwave might warm our coastal waters and lead to shark attacks, great for the media because of the deaths, interesting bites and being able to reference Jaws. Obviously less desirable if you’re the person being eaten, but making local news watchable means your sacrifice was not in vain.
A new low in antisocial behaviour
2020 was very much the year of shitting in a burger box and leaving it on a beach, but it’s declined since. If you’re going to the seaside this weekend, try crapping in the holes of crazy golf courses. The newspapers will have a disgusting new trend to report on and your excrement will be famous.
