Take a nap 
James Meek
- Cool Comfort: America’s Romance with Air-Conditioning by M. Ackerman
In June 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Washington. Although the White House had had air-conditioning installed in its offices ten years earlier, family and guest rooms weren’t artificially cooled. Despite this, the King and Queen requested hot-water bottles, heavy-duty bedding and glasses of hot milk before bedtime. Perhaps this was the ostentatious stoicism of the aristocracy. Perhaps they were just bonkers. In Washington in June 1939, the temperature hung in the nineties Fahrenheit, with humidity to match. The Foreign Office rated it as a tropical posting and, until the advent of air-conditioning, the political class had evacuated the former swamp between June and September.
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James Meek’s most recent novel, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, was awarded the Prince Maurice prize.
Other articles by this contributor:
When the Floods Came · England’s Water
Reasons to be Miserable · The Day My Pants Froze
Drowned in the Desert · James Meek writes about A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes by Lee Goff
Crocodile’s Breath · The Tale of the Tube
Sex is best when you lose your head · James Meek writes about Promiscuity by Tim Birkhead
Dead Not Deid · A Great Radical Modernist
Trillion Dollar Disease · Fat
The Original Targets · The Birth of al-Qaida
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