I’m going to call her Wimbledon Lady – partly because she does not deserve for this to be the first thing to come up on Google under her real name for ever – and partly because that’s what she is, now. The lady who went to Wimbledon, drank Pimm’s forgetting it had alcohol in it, then drank rosé in the heat, then got kicked off centre court by Nick Kyrgios, who asked the umpire, irritably (but maybe not unreasonably) how he was supposed to serve while being heckled by someone who’d had “700 drinks”. It wasn’t 700, it was two, but let me introduce you to some heatwave maths: every alcoholic drink has the effect of 350 drinks.
The Met Office made a big show last month of launching an extreme heat warning, which should chill us as it is a herald of climate change, but it is very hard, under these conditions, to feel anything but hot. What does the warning actually say, though? Increased risk of water-related injury, as people who don’t know how to swim jump in the sea anyway, caught between that and the devil. And look out for older people, which isn’t a warning, exactly, more of a diplomatic plea to the fit and healthy not to be jerks, for once. I did actually heed it, and asked my mother if she wanted a fan, and she said yes, but unfortunately I can’t go to the shop because I’m too hungover.
If the Met Office really wanted to help, they would say this: in a heatwave, you should forget everything you think you know about your tolerance for rosé; we are all 14 again, trying this pink drink for the very first time, thinking it’s surprisingly nice, actually, unlike amaretto which was the last thing we tried … then wham, lights out. Wimbledon Lady probably thinks hers is the greatest disgrace to ever happen, but she’ll never meet Kyrgios and the umpire again, whereas I have to live with my two teenagers for ages, and let me tell you, they have some pretty strong and self-replenishing views about people who fall asleep in their clothes. Two days running.
The right number of drinks to have in this weather is, of course, 3/350ths, or to do more heatwave maths, 1/117th of a drink. Met Office, compatriots: you’re welcome.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
