Heatwave leads to real crisis for lone naturist and sweaty travellers

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There were few downsides to the summer heatwave – unless of course you’re not mad about the sun – but one negative for many was that it gave rise to an upsurge in perspiration.

Some of us may love the sun, but we’re not made for it.

Either we strip off and embrace the rays with little or nothing on – which runs the risk of a court appearance as befell 57-year-old Glen Wrather who was fined €200 at Longford District Court after he togged out in his birthday suit on what proved to be the midlands’ hottest day of the year.

Or we keep most of ourselves covered and therefore sweat more than Glen did – although in retrospect he might have worked up a lather in advance of his court appearance anyway.

The body odour problem isn’t uniquely Irish of course; the Austrians, for example, had BO issues during the recent hot spell – not least among frazzled commuters on Vienna’s U-Bahn trains.

The difference is that the authorities took a proactive approach to perspiration; they gave out 14,000 deodorant sprays in the single day as temperatures hit 35 degrees Celsius.

The deodorants were ‘torn out of our hands’, said a spokesman for the Wiener Linien public transport company – adding, as if he needed to, that Viennese commuters were no smellier than those anywhere else.

The BO issue was largely confined to the ageing U6 trains because most of the lines on Vienna’s U-Bahn system are air-conditioned.

But the U6 route has trains run overground for part of the route, heating up under the Viennese sun.

And, obviously, stripping down to your smalls wasn’t an option for Austrians on their way to work – unlike our friend in Longford, who let it all hang out in the communal area of his apartment complex in Ballymahon on July 6.

Longford District Court was told that a woman who was hanging clothes on her clothesline had to pass him and saw he was sunbathing face down, but naked.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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