Good evening….I had a fun day, after running to the bank and supermarket today in the sweltering Arizona heat (109f) at noon (mad dogs and englishmen, it’s true) I got home to find the sweltering heat had decided to make it’s way indoors. Naturally in the desert your Air Conditioning is your best friend at this time of year and I must have offended mine this morning. When I got home and back to work I noticed I wasn’t cooling down as rapidly as normal. A quick glance at the thermometer made me realise I wasn’t turning into an old woman but in fact the anticipated 80f reading indoors mockingly showed 88f. Even as I sat and looked at it the readout ticked up to 89f – you bastard!

Looks pretty? Pretty hot!

In school Science was never my strength but my brain still twigged that something was wrong. I checked the A/C vents in the house and though the normal din associated with the ducts was present the air being pushed out was warm at best and hot to someone from a chilly island off the coast of Europe. A quick visit online showed me how to check my roof top A/C unit for possible issues – a hurried print out of instructions followed and armed with a towel, the garden hose, an electric screwdriver and my newly found maintenance guide I headed to the garage to grab the ladder.

I nearly planned this out so well, you may have noticed ‘towel’ in my Arsenal of tools and this was due to me thinking (and wearing shorts) that I’d need to kneel or sit on the roof while I fathomed the issue before me. So after shutting down all the power to the house to avoid electrocution (good thinking) I start to climb metal ladder that’s been waiting in the sun now for 15 minutes (bad thinking). Needless to say the ladder was bloody hot but things get better.

As I reached the top of the ladder I had to get onto *(the fairly steep) roof overhang gently so as not to slip nor crash through. I did this fairly elegantly for my age and shimmied off the ladder into a backwards all fours type (crab) position, again fairly pleased with myself. Then comes the issue.

A typical day round here in August

By now It’s 1pm and the desert sunshine has been working it’s magic for 7+ hours, if it’s 110 degrees at poolside it’s probably 125 on the shingle/tile roof. Wearing shoes was wise but I might have considered gloves. As I scurried away from the overhang toward the safer main part of the roof on all fours it felt as if my hands were being dipped into a frying pan like some sort of pancake with digits. The tiles/shingle things obviously absorb a lot of heat and I could feel it coming through my shorts to my arse also, which briefly was fine I guess. Joking aside it was a cauldron up there. Anyway I had the hose (to clean the A/C unit) but used the cool water initially for a few minutes on my scalded hands which helped quite a bit.

End Result….somehow I fixed the A/C unit, somehow I got off the roof without breaking my neck, somehow I avoided getting an electric current surge through me. However the palm of my right hand is as red as Lenin and stinging like something that stings a lot (a wasp on the razz?). No injury that’s permanent. I had some Clash stuff to mention but this story just flowed!! I had Guns on The Roof in my head all day since.

Sorry about that, later tonight or in the morning

• Some more Clash Art
• Don Letts news
• A great blog by a friend
• Breaking news about a special Clash interview exclusive

Tim

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