I don't think I need to remind all good bloggers just how hot the weather has been and indeed still is! Especially darn sarf.

There has been scare mongering from various bloggers concerning speedo sightings in Soho, topless tip-offs in Tunbridge Wells, and cracks exposed in Essex (and I'm aint talking building subsidence here. No Sir!)

I keep expecting my neighbour to drag his dining table out onto the pavement and peg a tablecloth down serving sangria to passers-by.

There is, however, one wasp in my wine spritzer!

The shops down here have SOLD OUT of shorts! Repeat: SOLD OUT!

I thought Bart Simpson had been skateboarding around Primark and eaten the lot.

Or maybe Homer had nuked a surf shop in Springfield. But no, tis true, shorts are in short supply.

Followed swiftly by:

1. Bottled water
2. Fans
3. Pimms*
4. Paddling pools
5. Parasols

*Anyone serving Pimms without mint and cucumber should be shot before dawn. It gets far too hot once the sun comes up!

After the ubiquitous Ugg comes the Flat back Teddy.

He is strictly one dimensional with a squidgy face and made of the finest Aussie sheepskin.

I REALLY WANT ONE OF THESE

Accompanying my friend to the hospital this week, I was available to sit in various waiting rooms adorned in the ever-popular muted shades of misery, sickness and plain ineptitude (colour numbers 36, 42 and 73 on your Dulux chart).

Naturally it was hot and to kill the time I decided to read through more than a couple of papers. Namely The Sun, The Mirror and The Times. The Sun bless it's predictable perky bananas has the norks with solar nipple caps to sell it. The Mirror always does a royal - the Queen no less with a gob-on in the heat! And The Times well it was so dull I just can't remember the front page headline. However (tasteless alert - look away now) I dug out a copy of the Viz from my fake Chloe clown's pocket. That's the name of her new season's clutch bag.
And was enchanted (how could one not be) by the following advertisement:

"THE NOT RACIST GOLLIWOG STAIRLIFT"

My favourite bit by far was the phrase "He plays a medley of ragtime standards and leaves a trail of jam* up your bannister".

Which really makes me think that Viz should be available in all good hospital waiting rooms

* available in strawberry or raspberry

Top tips for keeping cool this week:

1. Don't wear bedsocks in bed or with sandals (in bed)!

2. Try opening a couple of those double-glazed windows in your bedroom five minutes before you go to bed.

3. Ensure your electric fan has a 3 litre petrol engine and can go the maximum wind turbulence factor of 155 rps (rotations per second)

4. Buy a fridge and use it as your wardrobe. Underwear to be placed in the ice box.

5. Never wear a speedo unless queueing in the fast checkout lane of speedway (I mean Sainsbury)

6. Don't use public transport. It will only lead to Tourette's syndrome and possibly murder.

And finally:

Invest in a nose bag filled with Dove deodorant. Don't worry about using it on your armpits. It's obvious nobody else washes or uses deodorant at this time of year especially on the trains.

I have been too lazy to blog lately but that's because the weather is far too good to sit inside.

So a tribute then to sunshine, blue skies and feeling good....

This picture is for all the great people I have met through blogging.

Fatey the sunflowers are for you!

Now that all those low ability drivers have become competent and been given the nod by Churchill to remove those ignominious flags, incidentally all on the same day - 1st July. I'm still pondering the significance.

They were still there at 4pm but vanished by 6.30pm. Must have been one hell of a mass driving proficiency test rather like those cults one reads about. That's correct, "cult" with the letter "l". I wondered if the flags were binned - in a gesture of triumph or a callous act of dismissal.

The odd downtrodden waif appears roadside squashed as mere dust beneath chariot wheels. A scrap of red on white. Love-lorn, rejected. It's a shame. They could all be recycled. I live in the council capital of reycling. And if we don't recycle our tins, glass and papers, we are hung drawn and quartered before molten lead is poured into our armpits - all done and dusted before the 3.30pm school run.

So I had an idea. Why not make those rejected scraps into new nylon t-shirts for all those hairy, paunchy, Phil-and-Grant lookee-likees that shop topless in the supermarkets at the mo' because of our mini-med climate.

Lordy it's enough to put anyone off their John West Pilchards in brine! And I don't even have a cat!