Simmering away nicely.

It is a wonder I can type this, really, seeing as all my limbs have melted and my head is the consistency of warm wax.

The city is still scalding to the touch. Hotter, they say, than boiling water. Hotter, I heard, than the sun.

As my American friend said to me this morning, though "Try not to die of heat exhaustion, it's Britain, it won't last long". Everyone knows that this is not the point. The point is to claim imminent death through heat exhaustion, to talk about it incessantly while it's happening, complain about it in various ways, and then mourn it furiously the minute the UK turns back into the UK and stops being Nevada. I, for example, have got some really good things to say about the particular feeling of a stranger's sweaty bare flesh touching your own whilst crammed into the tube, and how well and truly horribly nauseating it is.

Last night Tom and I went to a gig at The Spitz. It was far and away the hottest and most sweaty I have felt in about ever, but it was amazing. It was a woman called Joan As Police Woman. It wasn't, as the name might suggest, any sort of burlesque or cabaret. It was Joan on keys and guitar, a bassist and a drummer, and both Tom and I were completely blown away by her. Her songs were incisive and beautiful, musically and lyrically amazing. Passionate, at times rock and at others so very soulful. The Spitz is a small venue and it was sold out, I think perhaps there were one hundred people there, not more. The stage is shallow, and from our vantage point about three people back from the front we could see her every emotion and facial expression. I love that venue, it's so intimate. I have sung on the stage there once, it's one of those stages that almost doesn't feel like a stage because it is so close to the audience. Go to her website (www.joanaspolicewoman.com)and see what you think.

We were quite drunk and I had a cheese and bacon pasty on the way home, and now I feel guilty. Not, of course, guilty enough not to need something equally deliciously fattening to quell the rolling of a slight hungover sluggishness I am feeling today.

This evening I am going to The British International Motor Show in Docklands. As a VIP. Taking into account the fact that I cannot drive and the most I know about cars is that it's bad to be sick in them and you can't eat crisps in my friend Steve's, I think it is a ticket well spent. I am looking forward to it, because I am going with my Dad and also because VIP implies that there might be Champagne and good canapés. Also celebrities whose names I won't know and who I will have never heard of before, but who I will nevertheless watch with interest.

The heat is making me sleepy, and I am struggling to maintain my usual demeanor of hyper-alert brightness with which I grace each working day. Every time I pick up the phone I forget what I am going to say to the person on the other end. Today is one of long pauses.

I am too tired even to read this post through to check for spelling mistakes or incidences of having accidentally admitted to have six illegitimate children hidden in a cupboard just outside of Basingstoke.

I am also trying to sunbathe through the open window to my right hand side, and typing ruins the angles.