The Heat Wave in Europe

Some wonder how in the world Paris can be 45°C (or 113°F), but there's a simple explanation.

I ran into an old Bedouin a day or two ago, and he told me how he'd been riding his camel through the desert when he saw something sticking up out of the sand. He wondered what it was, so he had his camel lie down and got off and went to find a bottle covered with writing in a language he could not read (he took a picture on his cellphone, but I couldn't read it, either, and I've never seen writing like that before, and neither had the old man).

He said he began rubbing the sand off the bottle, and somehow broke the seal, and a huge marid (a very powerful kind of jinn) came out.

'What year is this?' asked the marid, I was put in that bottle by King Shlomoh.'

'King Shlomoh?' asked the Bedouin.

'Oh,' said the marid, 'you're Arab, I think you call him King Suleiman. Unless you're a Christian Arab, in which case you'd call him King Solomon.'

'King Suleiman died more than 3,000 years ago,' said the Bedouin.

'For freeing me, I will give you one wish. Ask, and it shall be granted.'

'Well,' said the old man, 'I've heard that the weather in Europe is much nicer than it is here. I wish the weather here was like Europe.'

'That is impossible,' said the marid, 'Europe is 20 degrees of latitude north of here. It cannot be done. Ask me anything else.'

'OK,' said the old man, 'I want to understand women.'

'Your wish is granted,' said the marid, who then disappeared, never to be seen again.

And now Europe is just as hot as the Sahara.