Things that happen when it’s hot!

The best time of day to head for our pool is late morning. At that time it’s normally not too busy and so it is possible to swim without too much interruption. After all a swimming pool is meant for swimming, not just for standing in the water to keep cool. Also in the late morning it is still possible to sit around at the poolside without feeling that you are instantly cooking. Which is what happens later in the day. Which is why people stand in the water to keep cool as they chat.

Such are the consequences of heatwaves!

Further north in the planet the consequences of the hot weather are also being felt. The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This is something which has not been recorded before but which has now occurred twice this year. And it’s all down to climate-change and the odd weather conditions that have given the UK a good summer and other parts of Europe some unusually hot weather.

Here’s something I found about this:-

“One meteorologist described the loss of ice as “scary”. Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand warming the longest. The sea off the north coast of Greenland is normally so frozen that it was referred to, until recently, as “the last ice area” because it was assumed that this would be the final northern holdout against the melting effects of a hotter planet. But abnormal temperature spikes in February and earlier this month have left it vulnerable to winds, which have pushed the ice further away from the coast than at any time since satellite records began in the 1970s.”

Nobody expected that!

Or maybe some did but their warnings were ignored.

One way to keep cool in hot weather is to dip your feet in fountains, an activity generally disapproved of by people in authority. In Rome recently two male tourists were filmed skinny dipping in a fountain at the Altare della Patria. This is a monument dedicated to all fallen soldiers and including the tomb of unknown soldier killed in the first world war. Police said in a statement that the tourists’ behaviour was outrageous and that it “seriously offended the national feeling and the memory of the fallen to whom the monument is dedicated”.

And the incident has been filmed and is out there on social media. So the police think they can trace them. They could face fines of at least €400. Rather an expensive frolic in a fountain!

I blame Federico Fellini. Allowing Anita Ekberg to frolic in the Trevi fountain in La Dolce Vita set a precedent!

A police source said the men had yet to be traced but if found would each face a fine of at least €400 (£359). They were identified as English speakers by a tour guide, who captured the incident on video. “This enters into the history of Rome … mamma mia … it’s absurd,” he said while filming.

And now, here’s an art story.

In an art exhibition in Porto, “Works, Thoughts, Experiments”, Anish Kapoor has a series of works, including one called “Descent into Limbo”. The 1992 work is a cube-shaped structure which small numbers of visitors enter. Once inside, they encounter a black hole which they are warned not to go near. That must be tempting fate a little. It gives the impression it could go on forever but is in fact about 2.5 metres (8ft) deep.

One visitor to the exhibition proved that it was not an optical illusion by falling into it! An understandable mistake, I suppose. After all, optical illusions of holes have been used on roads to make drivers slow down. And might it not make more sense to paint on the floor of the exhibition hall something that looks realistically like a hole rather than actually digging one?

 I remember seeing a work of art in the Tate Modern; “Shibboleth” it was called. Basically it was a gigantic crack in the floor of the hall. Impressive! at least ten people fell into it. This was despite warmings.

Such works of art lack permanence. Unlike fountains in Rome. But all of them seem to invite people to enter them.