Heat in the city

Text 1: The Hot Summer, by Nathaniel Brook

An original diary written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

July 18th. The eleventh day without rain. The heat lies upon London like a wet blanket that will not be lifted, and the river sends up an odour which has driven the gentlemen of Parliament to hang sheets soaked in lime across their windows. I have not slept above three hours together this week. At night I lie upon the floor, which is a degree cooler than the bed, and listen to the whole street lying awake with me.

Tempers are short everywhere. My clerk, the mildest of men, threw an inkstand at the office cat. Two cabmen fought in the Strand this afternoon over nothing at all, and the crowd watched without interest, too limp to part them. Even the dogs lie in doorways and will not stir.

Every evening the sky turns copper in the west and we look up at it like sailors becalmed, and every evening it comes to nothing. I begin to think that a city which prides itself on governing half the world is a feeble thing after all, if a little want of rain can bring it so low.

Text 2: Forty Degrees, by Rachel Imrie

An original contemporary blog.

Day nine of the heatwave and my flat is an oven with a view. The thermometer on the balcony said forty degrees at four o’clock this afternoon, and the tarmac outside has gone soft enough to take a footprint. I have not had a full night’s sleep since last Wednesday. I have started sleeping on the kitchen floor because the tiles are cool, and through the open window I can hear everyone else in the block awake too, fans whirring, babies crying.

Everybody is cross. On the tram this morning two men nearly came to blows over a seat by the window, and nobody even looked up from their phones to stop them. My lovely gentle neighbour shouted at a delivery driver. The pigeons have stopped bothering to fly.

Every evening the forecast promises storms, and every evening the clouds sit on the horizon and do nothing. It is humbling. We have air conditioning and apps and a train that runs every three minutes, and a few degrees of heat have reduced the entire city to lying on the floor, waiting for rain.

Both writers describe living through a heatwave in a city.

What are the similarities between the writers’ experiences of the heat and its effects?

Draw on evidence from both texts to support your answer.