Even by the steambath standards of a southern summer, this has been a hot one.

Today the temperature at Audubon Park, which houses the city's zoo, hit a record-breaking 102F (39C). As I write this at 11 pm the mercury is still hovering around 90F (32C), and when I venture gingerly outside the front door of our airconditioned home, I have an inkling of how a chicken leg feels when it's taken out of the freezer and placed on the top shelf of the oven.

Weather is a dominant topic of conversation here at the best of times - we're just approaching the height of the hurricane season and the second anniversary of Katrina, and people are jittery - but the two words on everyone's lips at the moment are 'heat index'. My oven analogy was possibly not wholly appropriate: Arizona may be an oven, but here in the dripping swamps of Louisiana the 60 percent humidity means that on days like today, the temperature feels more like 115F (46C).

'The oppressive heat and humidity make the summer months a misery', opines Lonely Planet's guide to New Orleans. Well, I beg to differ.

When Pam and I went to Paris last month, we had to don sweaters and buy umbrellas - neither of which we'd expected to need in midsummer. Now that's what I call misery.

I like the way the heat here envelops me in its sensual embrace. I like the way it slows everything down, and forces me to allow extra time to leave for appointments so I don't arrive dripping with sweat - though even if I do, no one seems to mind, because they're dripping with sweat too. And I like the fact that the sun never stops shining for very long, and we can grow bananas in our garden.

So there.