Thursday, July 02, 2009

The government can keep you safe from the heatwave zombie apocalypse

So you may have noticed that it is pretty hot today in London. And for those of you who may be overseas and haven’t heard how hot it is, let me tell you. It’s cocking hot. They tell me that it’s 33 degrees out there. And as I have no frame of reference for what 33 degrees even means, then I’m going to assume that it is hotter than Mexico here right now. Get that, hotter than mexico!

Anyway, this unexpected heat wave (seriously, who saw this weather coming in June?) has sent us all into a panic, so I decided to get some advice on how to survive the next couple of weeks until it rains, without letting London degenerate into a sort of desert zombie apocalypse. (Heatwaves turn people into zombies, right?)

The best place to get advice is obviously the Government. Without the government, how would we know how to do anything? So I logged onto the NHS Choice site.

First of all – the Met office have declared a level three heatwave alert. They have also called it Heatwave Red Alert, so I’m not sure how scared to be. The top of the page has a picture of Big Ben melting, so I guess it’s pretty serious. I decide to take off my coat.

High temperatures can be dangerous, especially for:
• the elderly,
• the very young, and
• people with chronic or long-term medical conditions, such as a heart condition or breathing problems.
This initially comes as a relief to me. I am definitely not elderly, and don’t think that I could be described as very young. And if you are going to be facing off hordes of zombies, you’d be hoping they’d be zombie grandmas, or zombie toddlers. The concerning part, however, is the bit about heart conditions or breathing problems. If these are the two groups to turn to zombiedom first, their disabilities won’t matter.

Note to self, remove the head of anyone with asthma.

Listen to alerts on the radio and TV about keeping cool.

Now I have watched daytime TV all day, and I haven’t seen any adverts about keeping cool. Perhaps they are confusing ‘keeping cool’ with ‘consolidating all your debts’ or ‘buying a stairlift’. Although I’m not sure how those will help.

Avoid unnecessary travel.

This one doesn’t seem to make sense, although I guess the government knows best. I would have though that if you are dying from the heat, then travelling somewhere with less heat would be a good idea., but I guess not. Sorry Grandma!.

I have decided to strap myself to the sofa, and barricade all the doors, so I physically cannot travel anywhere.

Stay inside and in the coolest room in your home as much as possible, and splash yourself with cool water.

It looks like my barricading myself indoors was a good idea, but perhaps I was too premature in the choosing of which room to barricade myself into. The living room is fairly warm, even with the window open, and the kitchen, although cool right now is going to heat up once I start cooking that delicious bacon. I think I shall lock myself in the damp closet under the stairs.

Keep rooms cool by using shade or reflective material external to the glass. If that's not possible have pale-coloured curtains, and close them. Metal blinds and dark curtains can make the room hotter.

Improvisation needed! Prefering the darker curtain to allow me to sleep at night for more than 2 hours, I have had to cover all the curtains in my house with tin foil to keep the zombie rays out.

Keep the windows closed while the room is cooler than it is outside. If it's safe, open the windows at night when the air is cooler than the room.

If it is safe? I suppose when the heatwave zombie epidemic is in full swing, the windows will be a valuable point of entry. I think I’ll just stay here in the cupboard under the stairs like a sweaty Harry Potter until this whole thing ends on Saturday.

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