WHY THE UK FALLS APART EVERY TIME IT HITS 30°C

The UK just hit 35°C and immediately fell apart. Again. Two Brits in 42°C Vietnam watch the chaos and ask why their home country can't cope with a warm day.

The UK has broken its hottest-ever May record, and Jack and Adam break down the annual ritual: tropical nights, hosepipe bans, cancelled trains, and the genuinely serious cold-water-shock warnings as people get into difficulty in lakes and rivers still at winter temperatures. 

Plus why one third of the country can't swim a length, why Spain copes with 42°C and Britain doesn't, and whether a warmer UK would actually be such a bad thing.

00:00 Why UK heat "hits different" 

00:04 Cold water shock and why people are dying in rivers 

00:05 One third of Brits can't swim a length 

00:08 Why Spain copes and Britain doesn't 

00:12 Would a warmer UK actually be worse?

#UKHeatwave #UKWeather #TemporallyScripted

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Transcript

0:00

It's that time of year again where the UK seems to be breaking records for its weather. But when, Adam, is it ever not breaking records? It seems like this is something that comes up every year. I can't remember ever looking in the newspaper and not seeing it's, like, hotter than Jamaica in Salford today or whatever. It's wild. Yeah, it really is. But it's always something random, and I guess if you take it at, like, random points in the year, you can always say, "Oh, this is, this, this is, like, the warmest October since, uh, 1983," you know? Yeah. Do you think, do you think that's how it works?

It's like this hour between 11: 0:34

56 and 12:56 on the 31st of May is the hottest hour we've ever had in the UK. Pretty much. It's like… And cue memes everywhere. So the first thing I always think's hilarious, particularly as we live in Vietnam now, is the thing you see is like, oh, the UK heat's different. It hits different in the UK. And you start to get- Well, in tropical conditions. Yeah. And you start to get- Like 98% humidity. So you open up the news and there's like a four-minute video explaining why it's hotter for British people than it is anywhere else in the world. And then there's always really weird advice like, "Oh, it's gonna be hot. Open a window. Dr- … drink lots of water." It's like, well, I, I was just gonna keep all the windows closed and not drink anything all day, but now you've said that. Thanks, Daily Mail or whatever. Yeah. So apparently, like AP said that London had this tropical night, which means the temperature didn't drop below 20 C. I don't know about you, Adam, but if it's 20 C, I've got trousers on these days. I've probably got a light jumper, you know. It's, it's at that stage. I think as we're- Yeah sat here right now recording, it's 41 degrees, 42 degrees real feel outside. Um, you know, and, and probably 75 to 80% humidity. So yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's interesting, isn't it? I think it's one of these things where the news is just like, "Hey, how can we make headlines look amazing?" And, you know. Yeah. I don't know if they're selling… if the news companies are selling air conditioning or something like that,'cause they're really making people worry. So, do you need a AC? Maybe. Maybe it's time. I've been considering getting into the air conditioning business back in the UK, actually. I think it would be quite a solid route to, you know, start making some money because people, y- th- they are hot for at least three, four days a year. Yeah. It makes sense to go and invest 50 grand in an air conditioning system, doesn't it? I mean. Yeah. Would you ever get your money back in, in any way? I don't know. Um- Yeah. No, I, it, it seems like you'd be cooler at least for those three or four days, um, if you could afford the electricity bill that came with it, presumably. Which, which is part of it. I mean, places like this, it's, it's fairly, fairly cheap to run air conditioning like 24/7 if you want to. Imagine doing it in the UK for, if you were doing it even like a, a, a one-bedroom apartment, I'm sure you'd be in like 2, 300 pounds a month easy on electric. Yeah. Must be that or more. I, I wonder if it's… 'Cause I saw another news story where it said bills are looking to be going up hundreds of pounds in the UK over the next few weeks, basically. I wonder if it's like, um, one of Starmer's policies that the weather will be hot for the next three months so people don't need to turn on their heating and, you know, there, there's not such a concern about gas bills. People, people are cooking on charcoal outside. Right. So there's, you know, there's no need to like prepare so many things in the house. People are going and buying, you know, barbecue packs from Iceland and just putting them straight on the barbecue at home. So there's this, you know, the economy in general is like less strained because there's no heating, there's no cooking, there's no like preparation, any, any of those sort of tools you need in the house to prepare stuff. People are just barbecue packs from Iceland, whack them on the grill outside, you know, disposable barbecue, done. That's it. Get your flip-flops on, holiday shorts and yeah. Nice times. Yeah. Yeah. At my other barbecue. Yeah, assuming that water bills don't go up as well because, you know, I, that, that could also be a problem because clearly in the UK swimming and stuff is not the best idea. I've heard there's loads of like people dying in rivers and lakes and stuff, uh, which I never remember hearing about before. I don't know if it's because it's like such- Yeah … an early heatwave this year, but I don't remember there being so many tragic accidents on rivers and lakes and stuff. But yeah, there's been about 12, I think, in the last few days. And apparently it's because the water is still known as very much winter conditions in the UK right now. Oh, right. So if you go swimming, it's still like 12 degrees in the water. So people are like- Which- … jumping in cardiac arrest, like all of this stuff and yeah, it's, it's proper serious and loads of kids going swimming in lakes and just, yeah, getting into difficulty and tragic accidents and stuff. Um- Wow. I really didn't know. Uh- Yeah … I didn't realize it was that bad. Yeah. And what blew my mind, so check this out, one third of the UK population apparently couldn't swim a length. Really? Yeah. Like that fucking blew my mind. I thought it was like a… I thought it was a big thing, 'cause I remember being a kid and we'd even have swimming lessons at school, and I think everyone got like the 25 or 50 meters or different certificates for some people even 100, but it surprises me that so many can't. I guess maybe there's just not access to pools in certain areas. Yeah. I think maybe they've just had to fill in the pools and turn it into another classroom. Or another prison. We run out of spaces. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, 'cause when I went to school, we, we had a swimming pool. It was cold, right? But there was a swimming pool, um, in an old shed that we used to go swimming in in the summer months, and yeah, we had to do like everyone jumping in their clothes and swim a certain length and all of that kind of stuff, right? It was part of the training of what we did. You know, it's not like with Germany where they'd had to ban swimming in lakes and rivers in the 1800s or whatever because people were just, you know, dying in rivers and lakes. So like they're, you know, they're- Right … n- notoriously known for not being able to swim very well because they just, "Oh, this is causing lots of problems with the population. Let's just ban it." Right. Yeah, let's just- Just blanket ban … let's just ban. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's weirdly, so with the weather and stuff, it's, it's a, apparently it's a tricky legal angle because if there is a right for a boat or a power boat to go up and down, um, a river or a lake in the UK, then you're allowed to swim in there. There's like a right of way, a right of passage, a right of whatever apparently. So it's like a- Okay … a, a legal gray area to stop people going swimming in lakes and, and rivers. Um- So I guess it's almost like public, like a public place. It's, the river's not really owned by anyone. It would be the same as like a beach or a park or that kind of thing, I would imagine. Yeah. It's a public- Yeah, I mean, I- … rights… I've been busy in, you know, understanding the bylaws of British waterways the last couple of days, 'cause, you know, I thought that would be a really good use of time being- … as I've lived in Vietnam. But should I do any work and support my family? No, no, I'll look into bylaws of the British waterways. What happens if you're swimming and, and you approach a swan? What… I don't know. Yeah. Who has right of way? Yeah. But it is, it, it just going back to what we were saying about the weather and stuff, it is always an interesting thing where in the UK we, we have to, everything has to be bigger or better or, "Oh, well, we did it better. This is, it's, it's harder in the UK. Oh, it's harder because we've got longer days. The days are longer 'cause we're in the northern hemisphere, so much longer days, but, um, it's so much hotter in the UK." Is it? It's bollocks, isn't it? It must be, because like Europe's hot in the summer, right? Like Spain's super hot, France is super hot, Germany gets really hot, and they cope. Yeah. I mean, I've been in Spain when it's been like 42 degrees and things like that. Everything still works. Whereas in the UK it's like,"Oh, it's a bit warm out. Right, cancel the trains." Uh, "Hose pipe ban." All these things start coming in, and it just seems like it's really badly organized and- Yeah … and they haven't adapted for it.'Cause yeah, okay, it's been hotter on this particular day than it was a year ago or two years ago or, or in history. And it's like, yeah, okay, but it's only a little bit higher or around the same as the, the highest temperatures that they've ever had. And so, you know, a country gets that hot. Why don't you just kind of prepare for that? And it's the same… I always found it really bizarre in England how during the winter it's miserable and raining all the time. Then in summertime it doesn't rain for like two weeks and it's like, "Oof, d- don't, don't put any water on your garden. Don't wash your car. Don't," you know? And it's like, is it that difficult to like store it? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, well that's the thing, isn't it? It's like you can't really win. And even in the winter in the UK, everything shuts down. It's like if you get like a millimeter of snow, if you tell a Canadian or an American about like what shuts down our roads and stuff in the winter, they'll laugh at you. Yeah. It's like, "What do you mean? Uh, what do you mean it's snowing? What, you've got like a dusting." And then all the kids are sat listening to the radio waiting for their school to be read out to say the heating's not working so you don't have to go in or whatever. Yeah. Probably not anymore, I guess, but like yeah. Then maybe there are still some kids sat around radios in the mornings. Yeah. Probably not, not so many sat around radios listening. AI or something. Yeah, one of the cool kids at school has done a TikTok. Yeah, there's no school today'cause the heating's broken. You can all stay at home. Skibidi, whatever- six, seven Gangster's Paradise playing in the background or something. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I suppose that, you know, to sort of bring it to that, that end, there is this thing where if something goes out of the natural range by a certain percentage in terms of temperature, people do start dying more. So like if the average temperature in the UK is, say, like 12 degrees, that's probably a bit high, but whatever it is. If it starts- Mm-hmm … to go out of the top end range or below the bottom end, people do start dying. People st- and it's, it's the same in every country. It's just obviously the, the range moves, right? So there is a health aspect to it, and I suppose British people, we don't know how to get… stay out of the sun either. It's like if you ask- Oh, yeah … a British person, they go, "Oh, you know, what, what did we do before sun cream?" It's like, well, we stayed out of the sun, numb nuts. You know? We just like- Like Asian people do, right? They don't go in the sun all day. They just stay out of it. They cover up. They wear clothes to cover themselves. So it's kind of that, you know? I think we're just- Yeah. I mean- … we're so not used to seeing it. I did live in Tenerife, so I know quite a bit about that. You know, you'd sort of take a walk along the beach, and there's like stereotypical British holidaymaker, completely lobster colored from from like the last eight hours of sunbathing. Yeah. If you dropped a bear off there, it would be confused. It'd think it was like salmon mating season at the top of the river or something. It'd just be running down the beach like aah. Pretty much, except all the, all the salmon have got tattoos, and they're holding a pint of unbelievably cheap beer. Love and hate on their knuckles 'cause one of their fingers is missing. No regrets. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I suppose, you know, the, the one thing that everyone can be happy about in the UK is you can guarantee next week you'll all have your heating back on again because it'll probably be back to, you know, frost on the grass, seven degrees, and, you know, potential snowy, snowy weather coming back through. So that is one thing to be said for the UK, right? You know that it's gonna change quickly, and as much as it's only ever really between zero and 20, apart from these extreme times- Mm-hmm … it's gonna go back to close to zero pretty damn soon. So relax, guys. Yeah. And I mean- … if, if the whole temperature on average was moving up in, in the UK, would that be such a bad thing?'Cause, I mean, most of like… one of the main reasons that I don't like it there, it's cold a lot. You know? Yeah. An extra degree or two. And that thing you said when you get to like those extremes in temperature, more pe- well, people do die when it gets too hot, but more people die when it's too cold. And so in fact, it's actually, yeah, if it was going the other direction, that would be more to worry about in terms of the effect on the population. So we do need a, you know, a good few cold spells a year just to kind of keep the population within a decent- To what? Thin out the herds … range. Thin the herd out a little bit, and then a few like super hot days just to weed out the weaklings a little bit, you know? I didn't know you'd been consulting for the, uh, British government again. Uh… Well, I am, you know, I am open to work right now, so yeah. Well, listen, um, ladies and gentlemen, if you've enjoyed this little story, don't forget, give us a like, a subscribe, join us in the next one. We'll be bringing plenty more of these little news segments over the weeks and months to come. You ain't gonna get rid of us that easily, YouTube. We're sticking around. Thank you, Adam. Till the next one. See you next time.