Near noon at the Viet by the market the pale old guard with Vans Off the Wall tees for their teens were rather out of place. Spot the Aussie indeed thereabouts lately, as the displaced old crowd complained. Opposite a squatting Viet and standing Ethiopian shared one foot of noonday shade hard against the wall of the shop at the tram & bus stops, the lady needing to keep her shopping bags too behind the line. Meats and even veg would quickly spoil in this heat, especially in the plastic. Record breaking Perth had just clocked five consecutive days above 40, with today another scorcher expected a touch below. Further North in the Pilbara a national record was reached of 50.7. Yesterday in Dudley Street wheeling back from the market the old Singaporean trick was shared with a young, flushed Asian guy holding to the thin shadow of the traffic light. Mecca might exceed low 50s at its peaks. Would the record in the West be broken by the end of the summer? We were only just past the halfway mark after all. And the aircon hold out in Perth & the Pilbara? (Greatest of human inventions, according to Mr LKY in the late 60s, when he was struggling with the bleeding hearts over the Vietnam War in the Harvard Club House.) Nothing but mid-30s thus far in Melbourne, the ceiling fan and open roof windows making sleep still possible. (We were in the midst of a second consecutive La Nina.) In Nicholson Street the Africans protested it was a different heat back home, something to do no doubt with the absorption of tar and concrete. Sleek thighs and calves of young women failed to allure in these conditions, the pandemic no doubt partly responsible. In Perth where there was as little virus as anywhere on the planet the torch alone might have done for the distraction of sex.
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