How do you feel about me opening the podcast this week with just like the sound of unpleasant panting?

Do I have any choice?

It's just, it's really hot here. I can barely think straight. If you're listening in Europe,

I hope you're managing to stay relatively cool. I'm finding basic tasks quite challenging today.

So apologies, listeners, if we're even less articulate than usual.

45 degrees it was yesterday.

Paris is a mild 35, but yeah, it's been bad.

And actually, I did something bad that was heatwave related this week.

What?

Well, we had a spare fan at home.

So like the terrible person I am, I put it on this website, Le Bonquins,

which is kind of like France's answer to Craigslist. You can just like sell stuff to strangers.

So I posted an ad, like secondhand fan available, 20 euros.

And within 10 minutes, I had literally a dozen replies from desperate Parisians saying like,

please, can I buy your fan? I'll drive all the way across Paris for it.

I need it. Give it to me. So I have personally profited from the heat wave and I feel bad about it.

And I'm sorry. You're a capitalistic monster, Katie. I know. By the way, while I'm apologising

for things, I also feel really bad because I made a mistake on the podcast last week and I accidentally called the Lithuanian president Dalia, Kibuskaya, the Latvian president and some of our sharp-eared Lithuanian listeners

pointed it out and thank you for doing that. It really was just a slip of the tongue but I'm

definitely not the first person to make that mistake and I know that Lithuanians find it very

annoying. You did even have it written right in your notes, didn't you?

I did. It's so annoying.

...