ISN’T this absolutely miserable? It isn’t just the sweaty offices, the relentless public transport filled with dripping commuters, the rising smog, the browning of our green and pleasant land, and the sight of people enjoying themselves frolicking in the sea.

Even if you are not Victor Meldrew, there are plenty of reasons to hate the heatwave. The higher the mercury, the more the misery.

As temperatures rise, so do people’s tempers. Home Office research shows that there is more violence in the heat. In London, the murder rate peaks in the summer months.

There’s nothing a wannabe rioter likes more than a long hot summer. Notting Hill riots were in August 1976, Toxteth in July 1981, Brixton in September 1985. In the 1967 summer of riots in America, most started when the temperature was more than 80F (26.6C).

Staying at home may not help: police logs show that summer months are the peak for domestic violence. Indeed, women are particularly vulnerable, with sexual offences rising sharply; rates for such offences were 5 to 15 per cent higher than normal in July and August of the unusually warm years of 1976, 1989 and 1990.

The violence is not because people hate the heat. Psychologists blame the hot weather for increasing levels of seratonin in the brain, which can make people aggressive. Spending hours outside pubs quenching thirst with lager probably does not help.

If you are not beaten up, you might get sick. Nothing likes hot weather more than a breeding bacterium, and for every degree centigrade rise in temperature, there are 4,000 more cases of food poisoning.

The death rate shoots up at the start of a heatwave, doubling or even trebling in the first 24 hours as the weak and sick are picked off.

Heart attacks, thromboses and strokes thrive as a change in body chemistry makes blood clots more likely. If your heart holds out, heat stroke or heat exhaustion may take their toll. On the South Coast, the elderly retired are collapsing particularly frequently.

It’s not just human beings. Snow-white Millie the cat from Cheltenham had her ears amputated because of sunburn, which can cause cancer. Edinburgh Zoo penguins had to have showers to stop them overheating.

Even healthy people do not escape the sun’s curse. If sunburn does not get them, accidents do. “When the weather’s hot, you get more drownings, especially of young people, who jump into ponds and rivers,” according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, which also says that barbecue accidents become horrifyingly common and paddling pools become death traps for toddlers.

At least two boys have drowned in the past two days, with several others having narrow escapes. More seem determined to follow, as gangs of children, desperate to escape the heat, jump from a 50ft-high helter-skelter on Brighton Pier into the sea.

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