HAVE to confess to another sneaky pleasure here.
This one, like the other, is harmless: it is looking at the soaring summer temperatures in London and giving myself a congratulatory hug that I no longer live there. Last week provided a particular glee as the mercury hit a record 34.5C at Heathrow. Yuk. Imagine travelling on the Tube in plus-30 temperatures. Pounding the pavements. Trying to sleep at night.
Whenever Scotland experiences warm weather there is a noticeable lift in mood. Freed from having a permanent, personal rain cloud over their heads, people smile and saunter, living la vida soleada.
Who are we kidding though? As the song says, there is such a thing as too darn hot. If it was 34.5C here every day for more than three days there would be mass fainting in the streets; the outbreak of sunburn and consequent peeling would lead to mole hills of dead skin everywhere; and as for the strain of maintaining a constantly sunny disposition to match the weather – intolerable. Rubbish Scottish summers, don’t ever change.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here