Sunday hit 36.9C at 3.30pm, and the observatory people said that's the hottest reading since anyone started keeping records here, back in 1884. That is 142 years of Hong Kong summers, and this one just beat them all. You felt it if you were outside for more than five minutes.

Here is what that actually means on the street. It means the guy at the fruit stall in Sham Shui Po is icing his produce twice as often. It means the queue for anything with air-con gets longer, and the queue for anything without it disappears. The government will call a press conference about heat stress advice. What you actually need is shade, water, and to not be a hero doing manual work at 2pm this week.