I have often complained about how hot my flat gets in the summer. I do it so frequently that I can't recall whether I've grumbled about it here before, but I have recently had a revelation. You see, my reaction to the blazing fury of the sun has so far been a series of attempts to block it. There have been blackout curtains, blinds and finally Velcroed reflective insulation. The heat is so intense that it destroys the adhesive backing on the Velcro every year. I have also bought a portable air conditioning unit which has definitely improved matters, but at a price. It's not cheap to run, and I now spend summer at home in a blacked-out box. It may as well be winter outside.
Was my trip to Antarctica a couple of years ago an attempt to escape my environment? I don't think so, as it was a dream I'd had since long before I moved into this cursed flat. So no, this wasn't some Ballardian drive implanted by my altered state of existence.
That said, I've been a reader of JG Ballard since I was a teenager, and if his characters striking out into a bewildering new world have taught me anything, it's that I'm doing it all wrong. Fighting the heat is futile. My home is hot, and so heat is my home. Instead of blocking out the sun I should be letting it in. I should take down the insulation and curtains. I should unplug the AC. I could go further and keep the windows closed. Really steep myself in the abundance of energy pouring into my flat, my gift from 93 million miles away.
How could I be so arrogant as to think I could defeat something as old and as vast as the sun? People used to worship it and perhaps they were right to do so. I should be encouraging it. I would replace the Astroturf on my balcony with the reflective insulation removed from the windows to direct more light, more heat, into my flat. With the money saved by not using the AC, I could turn the central heating on.
These are all tantalising possibilities, but if I'm really going the full Ballard, I need to go on a quest. A mission into the unknown that reflects my dramatically changed state of mind. Whatever it is, wherever it is, I should take the tube to get there. One of the really deep lines that brushes past Hell, like the Central or Victoria lines. I should wear my woolliest Antarctic gear while doing it too.
Do you know why the London Underground is so hot? It's because it's mostly tunnelled through clay, and clay retains heat exceedingly well. So well in fact that its temperature is steadily rising year-on-year from the heat generated by the underground network. There, then, is my answer. My quest.
I will travel to the deepest parts of the underground and stake out the stations until I can gain access to some disused room or service tunnel. I will take a pickaxe and a shovel, and hack away at the floor until I have exposed the elemental reservoir of heat that is thick, sticky London clay. And I will keep digging down, getting ever hotter, ever closer to my destination, which is the point at which being too hot transcends mere discomfort and becomes a new way of being alive.
A visionary, in sync with the warming world, I will be existing in a bold future while everyone else struggles with their inevitable defeat. Mired in the past instead of the clay beneath their feet.
I mean, I could do all that, but in some ways it would be easier to sprawl on my sofa while holding a cold can of beer to my forehead.
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