The hottest Farm meet so far was 24th June 2026
Posted by Paul Silver
On an extremely hot Wednesday 24th June, ten freelancers met in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar to swap notes about surviving the heat, and the occasional tip about freelancing. This is some of what we talked about:
- Heat heat heat (33°c in the pub garden when we were first there)
- Under-16s being banned from social media and the lack of thought on how to safely age authorise all users
- Normal people whose lives are unaffected by AI/LLMs
- Trains affected by heat
- Wealth and taxes
- The Prisoner’s Dilemma and the strategies tit-for-tat vs tit-tit-for-tat
- Formula 1 and E
- England and Scotland World Cup fans drinking venues dry
- What is in an ice pack
- Family holidays in the ’70s and ’80s
- Should there be a general election when the Prime Minister changes?
Surviving the heat
These suggestions for surviving a heatwave when you don’t have air conditioning came out of conversations over the evening:
- If your place is big enough, open windows at the front and back of it to help cause airflow
- Open the windows at night, close them in the day so you don’t let hot air in (this didn’t work for at least one person whose place has been ultra hot)
- Keep curtains or blinds closed on south facing windows during the day
- Use a coworking space with air conditioning
- Freeze a plastic bottle filled 75% with water, put it in front of a fan blowing in your direction to cool the air down
- Put a freezer block/ice pack in a bowl between your feet under your desk
- Move somewhere cooler, like the Arctic circle