AS I write this week’s morally uplifting work of fiction, I feel irritable and uncomfortable. It is too hot. Perhaps, by the time this reaches you at your breakfast bar or in your prison cell, things will have cooled down a little. We have to hope so. For, if they do not, the character of the nation – forged as it is by climate – will have changed forever. And, if I am any reflection of the country (reluctantly, I accept the role), then the whole nation will become irritable and uncomfortable.

To think of it: Scotland irritable. Scotland uncomfortable. Who could imagine such a thing?

The last week has seen all sorts of temperature records broken, and has given added impetus to

the debate about climate change. It is a subject on which I have no strong views. Personally, I view the planet as a pain in the neck and think we would all be better off without it.

Even so, whatever is causing this week’s heatwave, it indicates that something is afoot and that we should prepare for it. The worst short-term consequence we have seen this week has been a general lowering of standards, most notably indicated in the people’s apparel but also clearly evident to the skilled observer in their moral decline.

This week, still photographs taken from the BBC showed broadcasting correspondents in shorts and half-open shirts decorated with garish patterns of tropical foliage. A weatherman was shown looking perfectly respectable from the waist up but, below that, his legs were bare. The man was smirking, clearly amused at the joke he was playing upon an unsuspecting nation, and indicating that, while he may have an HNC in Meteorology and Gender Studies, he is not taking climate change seriously.

If this was the behaviour exhibited by public personalities, you can imagine the depths that were plumbed by the wider electorate. On the London Tube, a vain man was photographed at the ticket barriers wearing only a tiny pair of budgie-smuggler swimming trunks.

In the carriage of another train, an executive sat working on his laptop, completely topless. And he had nothing to be vain about. His body was saggy and verging on the corpulent.

I myself saw an incredibly fat man – honestly, folds and folds of it – standing naked apart from shorts in his front garden. I know there are politically correct debates about fat-shaming – and, seriously, many bloaters do have my sympathy – but this was a grotesque spectacle.

Unable to find a hose with which to soak him and send him indoors, I thought to summon a constable but, unusually, there were none patrolling the streets. And, anyway, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d have turned up in their pants.

This is a serious situation. The heat has been causing us to drop our standards along with our trousers and, if it continues, we could soon become a slovenly Third World country like Spain or Italy.

When the synapses in the cranium start to boil, we run the risk of becoming hot-headed, with dire political consequences. Soon, formerly douce and respectable ratepayers will be protesting in the streets with arms raised to the sky. Our elected representatives will be taking guns and knives into parliament, as I understand they do in many heat-addled European Union countries.

In normally upright and sober places like Glasgow, “taps aff” has become the jingle of summer. However, it has to be conceded that, after winter’s gloom, it may be understandable that the weak-minded will wish to feel warmth on their potato-hued torsi.

Twice, in the blistering heat of the last week, I myself have taken my “jacket aff”, the initial reluctance giving way to a surprisingly delicious feeling of shame which, if not checked, could herald my own rapid descent towards Hell (where I understand “taps aff” is also common).

Scotland’s character has been honed throughout the centuries by sinew-strengthening wind, nose-thickening cold and character-building rain. If these “heatwaves” are to be become more common, then we must prepare for corresponding changes in our character and in our culture.

I am not sanguine about the prospect.

Will any of you join me in setting up a new, idealistic community in Greenland?

++++ IF I were Prime Minister, elected on a popular ticket of banning social media, tourism, baldness, bicycling, shorts, outdoor cafes and baseball caps (backward and forward), I would undoubtedly surround myself with a Cabinet consisting largely of bearded men who held irrational prejudices, listened to prog rock and didn’t get out much.

In other words, people like myself. It’s to new Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s credit that he has surrounded himself with a Cabinet whose members have been chosen solely on the basis of their expertise. Take the new Housing Secretary (for England), Robert Jenrick. He has four homes. How much more experience do you need?

The new Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, reportedly has his own £100,000 plane. Scotland is represented by Alister [checks notes] Jack, a household name in the controversial northern country, where his self-effacing lack of presence has made him hugely popular and respected.

Downtrodden ethnic minorities are represented by Rishi Sunak, the millionaire “Maharaja of the Dales” and, with an average age of 47.7, young people cannot complain that they have no voice.

More importantly, 21 of the 33 Cabinet members were privately educated, so they are not thick, like. Truly, a new Age of Hope is upon us.

++++ OH, Edinburgh, what ails thee? Victim of your own nature-nurtured beauty, built on hills and steeped in history, as Scotia’s capital you attract pointing, gawping crowds who little know that, deep inside, you are crying.

Think I’ve over-egged that bit, but the mutation of parts of the city into a “tourist ghetto” is no yolk, as research by Edinburgh World Heritage reveals fears about the dark grey toon losing its “authenticity”.

The Royal Mile in particular is just one big hullaballoo all summer and, in this heat, becomes a veritable Black Hole of Caledonia. It’s about to get worse when the carnival of awfulness known as “the Festival” kicks in. A couple of years ago on the Mile, being in the vicinity and thinking to check out the street acts, I was subjected to a tirade of abuse by a kilted man on a stage.

He was English, so I’d no idea what he was saying, but I think it was about my hesitating where to go or not laughing raucously. Or something.

It was a deeply unpleasant and enraging experience, though it has no bearing on my belief that the Royal Mile should be demolished and the Festival scrapped.

++++

THE new mood of optimism sweeping the country – at least in somebody’s dreams – was not shared by broadcasters this week after media regulator Ofcom revealed that young persons have abandoned TV news “almost entirely”.

Instead, they get their news from social media and, while the shift has been reported as having serious implications for politics, Ofcom’s research also found that more people were now interested in “news”, throwing in their tuppence worth (and that an over-estimate) online.

Political parties are already having to reorientate themselves away from the idea of getting their message out for the 6pm or 10pm news bulletin.

They’re also making more use of Twitter, inspired by the pioneering example of Donald Trump, who understands that brevity is the soul of wit and has the whole world laughing with him as he skilfully negotiates the controversial medium’s minefield of potential gaffes and political faux-pas.

The democratisation of news has led to a worrying situation in which nearly everyone is interested in politics nowadays. It shouldn’t be allowed. In the old days, politics was purely the passion of cranks, while normal people were interested only in football and soap operas.

As Mr Trump has frequently tweeted, it is very sad.

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