Peter Rhodes on a thundery drama, chilled sheets and the coolest character on the seafront

Beer, Devon. Life can be unfair. Here I am in Devon, plucking words from the great lexicon of summer similes, pretty much to my own agenda, while absorbing a chilled lager.

Meanwhile, in newsrooms across England, some poor devils have been given the poisoned chalice of summer journalism which goes with headlines such as 'How to Survive Boiling Britain'.

You know the sort of thing; a dozen tips for keeping your cool, including that old chestnut about putting your bedsheets in the fridge. Seriously, in the time that humankind has shared this planet with sheets and fridges, has anyone ever put the former in the latter to get a cool night’s slumber?

I doubt it. By the time the temperatures get serious, there is no room in the fridge for anything, for it is stuffed with burgers, bangers and six-packs of pina colada (We live well at Chateau Rhodes). In any case, it is a fact of journalism that by the time you can rustle up all your stay-cool tips, things will have changed on the weather front.

I recall a summer long past when I was just about to embark on a column about summer coolers when thunderclaps erupted . The feature was hastily changed from 'Is Britain Blazing?' to 'Will Britain Drown?'.

Which reminds me. News from home in the Midlands is that a bolt of lightning has knocked out my broadband router. We have trod this path before. A few years back, a BT/Openreach engineer installed a new router after a thunderstorm, and BT billed us for it, which seemed mean-spirited. It is their wiring that brings the lightning into my house and their router which can’t cope with the pulse. There is, alas, no appeals process.

Meanwhile, for a real lesson in summer cool, I salute the gigantic herring gull we saw lazily winging over Axmouth with its breakfast in its bill - a large slice of toast. Imagine possessing the gift of flight coupled with absolutely no sense of guilt. How cool would that be?

Sign outside a beachside restaurant: 'Were open tonight', which prompts the question: 'Were you?' Tomorrow’s column is mostly about commas.