Sweaty provincial hacks across this sceptred isle have spent the day ferreting around their patches for the most inane and piss-poor hot weather stories they can find. As a result, they have large damp patches under the arms of their rumpled shirts and they smell even worse than usual.

So as a service to you, the loyal Beyond Northern Iraq blog reader, it is my pleasure to present the cream of the nation's "phew, what a scorcher!" news items. By this afternoon they'll be chip paper, except that no one's buying chips because it's too hot.

In ascending order of merit:

We begin in Lancashire, with that hardy perennial...more people are injuring themselves because of the hot weather. It's completely untrue but, hey, it fills a few column inches:
Bolton Evening News: Increase in accidents due to hot weather

Surprise, surprise...more people buy ice creams when it's hot. No shit, sherlock. Couldn't you at least try and come up with something more original, you idle scribbler. This piece of journalistic feculence even has a sidebar listing fascinating facts about ice cream. A quiet news day in Huddersfield, was it?
Huddersfield Daily Examiner: Scooping in the cash thanks to the weather

Over to my hometown of Cardiff now.
Alex, you're a friend of mine, I admire your abilities, but this is just shite. But I think you know that, don't you?
South Wales Echo: Hot chocolate for Christmas

From Blackpool...lemurs sucking on ice lollies, reindeers being hosed down and elephants being slathered with moisturiser; this piece has every hot weather animal story ever written rolled into one:
The Gazette: Good lolly! Lemurs get hot weather licked

But sunning itself at the top of the pile, as predicted earlier, is this tale of pigs doused with suncream from Northamptonshire. They've even managed to squeeze in a reference to roast pork. Geddit? Brilliant.
Northampton Chronicle: Sun cream for roasting pigs