Monday<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been in New York<\/a> for two weeks, where the unthinkable has happened. Even for a city accustomed to extremes, it is so hot, so humid, so reminiscent of Mobile in Alabama, or Mumbai that, all over New York, people have been forced to break persona to talk about the weather. \u201cWas it always like this?\u201d (No.) \u201cCan you believe this?\u201d (No.) \u201cAre you having a stroke?\u201d (Possibly.)<\/p>\n Received wisdom has it that heatwaves in Britain and Europe are worse than in the US because we don\u2019t have air conditioning, but as I write this, on my first day back in heatwave London, it\u2019s a tough one to call.<\/p>\n If the south of England<\/a> feels like Riyadh, with its oven-blast of dry heat, New York comes with total humidity. It is so dense, so impenetrable, so vastly more furnace-like than any previous summer that it makes you angry just walking down the street.<\/p>\n Air conditioning takes the edge off, but it\u2019s like trying to disguise medicine with a mouthful of Coke; it only goes so far. Meanwhile, the sweat pours down your back and the sky burns white.<\/p>\n New Yorkers are about as keen to complain about the weather as they are to point out a celebrity, but in these conditions you can\u2019t not talk about it. While the mayor\u2019s office discusses plans to extend cooling systems to subway platforms, individuals devise strategies to be outside for as little time as possible \u2013 like Minnesotans planning a trip across town in a snowstorm.<\/p>\n At least the hospitals are temperature-controlled. In Britain, where nurses keel over<\/a> with heat exhaustion, it can feel, at times, as if the single adequately air-conditioned space is the Apple Store; only the iPhones stay cool.<\/p>\n TuesdayThe cast of Cats: The Jellicle Ball perform at the Tony awards in New York City. Photograph: CBS Photo Archive\/Getty<\/p>\n Current trends in New York that may or may not make it over here: frozen yoghurt is having a resurgence but it\u2019s the posh kind \u2013 Greek, not Pinkberry. The newest snack craze is \u201cdot cake\u201d, an $11 cube of dry sponge topped with icing and hundreds and thousands and served in a cup, which, according to<\/a> the New York Times, New Yorkers have been lining up at 6am all summer to buy. Not at our local Gourmet Garage, I will say).<\/p>\n Beyond food, two things worth mentioning: \u201cdog Crocs\u201d, seen on several pets in the street to protect their paws from the punishing heat of the pavement and, as the name implies, tiny canine versions of their owner\u2019s shoes, only these come in a four-pack.<\/p>\n And on Broadway, Cats: The Jellicle Ball<\/a>, a heartbreakingly brilliant interpretation of the original show in which a tired-seeming vehicle, badly damaged by the terrible film version, gets a radical makeover. Jellicle Ball is set in the Black and Latino drag pageants of the 1980s ballroom scene and is led by two legendary performers, Andr\u00e9 De Shields, who at 80 still brings it, and Junior LaBeija, who many will recognise from the classic 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning<\/a>. The costumes, by Qween Jean, and choreography by Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons, all rightfully won Tony\u2019s.<\/p>\n As Andrew Lloyd Webber says<\/a>, it\u2019s criminal the show closed early last week. It\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve seen for years. Anyway we went, we screamed, we clacked the massive Jellicle Ball fans and at intermission, the theatre played DJ Murphy\u2019s ballroom remixes of Lloyd Webber\u2019s songs while people lost their minds. Pray it comes to London.<\/p>\n Wednesday<\/p>\n How did you eclipse<\/a>? We were circling Heathrow in the air with the sun behind us when the sky became marginally less sunny. I will add it to the drawer of memories of other, underwhelming eclipse experiences, including that big one in 1999, when I was stuck on a motorway in France and everyone pulled over, looked up at the sky, then got back into their cars. And the Great American Eclipse of two years ago<\/a>, when I stood in a big crowd and everyone turned to one another and said: \u201cIs that it?\u201d It\u2019s worse than bird watching.<\/p>\n After it\u2019s all over, there is a lot of anticlimactic posting on social media, although a friend in Spain sends a video and they seem to have enjoyed the real thing. As with so many things, I think the enjoyment is chiefly in the anticipation and the pretext it gives everyone to hang out, however briefly, in a single, unifying experience \u2013 and the opportunity to do crafts.<\/p>\n Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath. The eclipse was a chance to hang out and do crafts. Photograph: Denise Baker\/GettyThursday<\/p>\n My summer reading is haphazard but heartfelt, and I\u2019m flipping between Playworld, Adam Ross\u2019s excellent, coming-of-age novel set in Great Neck, New York; Once the Deed Is Done<\/a> by Rachel Seiffert, a brilliant examination of camps for displaced people in Germany after the second world war; and Caroline Fraser\u2019s biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder<\/a>. The book I\u2019ve loved most so far this summer, however, is a reread of Elizabeth Jane Howard<\/a>\u2019s memoir, Slipstream, and now I\u2019ve gone down the wormhole and want to read everything she ever wrote.<\/p>\n The writer died in 2014, at the age of 90, and is best known for the Cazalet Chronicles, but Slipstream is a piece of social and literary history it\u2019s hard to match. Given how a great central theme of the book is Howard\u2019s low self-esteem, what\u2019s interesting is how bold she was, insisting on a life that met none of the requirements of her time and class; despite a very well-to-do background which ensures the book is stuffed with cameos by people called Minky and dinner-party guests who, she might add casually, \u201cwas home secretary at the time\u201d, Howard bolted out of three marriages, left her child in the care of others, and lived for many years a rackety, bohemian existence characterised by lack of funds and adventurous, penniless travel. Quite apart from her writing talent, it\u2019s a study in courage and resolve.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Jane Howard in 1962. Photograph: Ronald Dumont\/GettyFriday<\/p>\n