THE Brits have a topsy-turvy affection for things we like but that, in certain quantities, are bad for us. Alcohol (what larks to be sickeningly drunk); food (chips, chips with everything); and the sun.

Ah, the sun. The weather is as alive to us as a distant relative.

It's the foundation of small talk both at home and abroad. Anywhere one travels in the world, someone will keep the chat flowing by asking about the Scottish rain, the cold. In turn, we'll joke about being too hot, even in mild foreign climes.

We treat weather as a bit of a caper, which was fine when the worst to worry about was a few odd hot days in August, the mercury rising to 30 degrees briefly, before the rain started up again.

When I was growing up in Australia there was plenty of rain too. Warm, heavy, meaty rain that flooded into storm drains and turned the sky pewter. There was, of course, more sun than anything else.

The sun was an awesome thing, in the true sense of the word. It was glorious but it could kill. The government messaging was insistent: stay out of the sun where you could, cover up, use sunscreen. Skin cancer rates in Australia have risen, despite all this, to the stage now that two in three Australians are expected to have skin cancer by the age of 70.

The summer sun also brought bushfires. Bushfire season has lengthened by almost a month in the past 40 years, lasting for a perilous 130 days.

The sun was beautiful but that beauty was not always pleasurable, it was often too extreme.

The UK now is learning about extreme heat. Newspaper stories were predicting highs of 43 degrees in England this week, a horrifying temperature, and one matched in cities across Europe. The sort of temperature of California's Death Valley or the Saharan desert.

My work inbox is crammed with press releases about the heatwave, from PR companies shoehorning their clients into stories: department stores detailing what gadgets you might buy to stay cool at night; fashion stores telling what to wear; vet surgeries, more worthily, advising on keeping pets comfortable.

Outside, now, it's howling rain. Big glass shards of the stuff, big enough to look through as magnifying glass, if only it wasn't going so fast. I'm annoyed, specifically, because I've just had my hair done, an expensive tri-annual treat, and I don't want it ruined before it's begun.

I fully appreciate what a frippery that sounds but that's the point - we all have our own relationship to the weather, as though it were a difficult friend. We have our preferences. We moan about the rain but when the sun comes, it's too hot.

When it rained so hard that the drops bounced back up in a straight line my grandmother used to say something about soldiers. To my shame, I can't remember the exact expression. "It's raining soldiers", maybe or just "It's soldiers". I've Googled this, thinking it was a Scottish granny saying but nothing useful comes up.

My gran would never have experienced 43 degree heat, would not have countenanced it, but this is the new reality of climate change.

You would hardly know it, though, looking at the press coverage.

There are weather picture conventions in the same way there are exam results conventions. The kids receiving their Higher grades should be in immaculate school uniform, looking delighted and leaping into the air. A realistic depiction, I'm sure, for all of us.

Summer sunshine is illustrated with ladies in limited clothing, wearing sunglasses and with chins tilted upwards. Which always seems a terrible idea, given how bad it is for the old retinas to gaze directly at the sun.

Fun in the sun, is the general message. Yet the temperatures we're experiencing now are not fun, sunny temperatures. They are life-threatening – to the elderly, the very young, people with health conditions.

Certain news programmes in the past week have held vital discussions about the perils of the rising heat. One issue is the unsuitability of our homes to cope with severe heat. When concerns are raised about, say, retro-fitting tenemental housing stock, it's with concern – correctly – about energy efficiency and keeping warm at the front of our minds.

Creating homes that are able to deal with rising summer temperatures is another vital issue not often discussed because we tend to think in terms of our cold, dour climate.

Useful stories should also be talking about correctly applying sunscreen – rates of malignant melanoma have risen dramatically in the past 20 years – and, realistically, avoiding the sun altogether.

As in hot climates, it's of importance to know how to recognise and treat heat stroke. Simple infrastructure like water stations is another sensible idea.

Heatwaves in Europe and Asia are causing mass destruction, destroying crops and feeding forest fires. Our experience of weather is much less problematic but it's going to become so.

None of the UK's coldest years have been recorded this century while the 10 hottest years since 1884 have all happened in the past two decades. England has endured overnight temperatures of 30 degrees, which disrupts sleep patterns and stops people from having adequate rest.

Three years ago Cambridge saw the UK's highest ever temperature at 38.7 degrees. Threats of a 43 degree spike are not fodder for beach weather stories.

The media should not be normalising this type of weather with pictures of ice cream cones and sweet children in water fountains.

Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, was suggesting this week that winter may see heat banks, in the same vein as food banks but for keeping people warm. He spoke of charities providing warm spaces where those who can't afford their rising energy bills can come and spend time.

We are in a time of great extremes, where people are dying from the heat and scared of dying from the cold. It takes a cultural shift to think of summer temperatures – a treat after sharply cold winters and damp springs – as a serious matter.

Yet we need to face that problem, immediately, without sunglasses, chin hardened and looking directly at it.