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Speaker 1: This is gem Nation, Queen. You know how hot it

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Speaker 1: is in England at the moment. In Europe with their

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Speaker 1: heat wave, just a whole lot of sort of unusual stories.

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Speaker 1: You don't think about it being affected. Here's what I

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Speaker 1: saw yesterday that the ancient annual tradition of swan upping

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Speaker 1: is being done differently. Do you know what swan uping is?

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Speaker 1: Lovely to do with, Buddy Franklin. The queen is for

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Speaker 1: some reason, this is a tradition that goes back to

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Speaker 1: the twelfth century. Oh, the queen owns all the swans.

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Speaker 1: She owns all the swans. She has the right to

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Speaker 1: claim ownership of unmarked mute swans swimming in open waters

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Speaker 1: whatever that means. But that's big stretches of the Thames

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Speaker 1: blah blah blah, various ponds. This ceremonies, I said, dates

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Speaker 1: back to the twelfth century where once a year the

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Speaker 1: sworn Uppers, the Royal swan Uppers, do an annual census

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Speaker 1: to see the population of the swans on the River Thames,

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Speaker 1: to help to make sure that the signets are well,

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Speaker 1: little baby swans, how they're going. So once a year

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Speaker 1: they put them in a boat take them to the shore,

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Speaker 1: they measure them and they weigh them, then they take

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Speaker 1: them back. That sounds pretty labor intense. Well, they can't

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Speaker 1: this year because of the extreme heat. So the swans.

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Speaker 1: The Queen's swan marker, David Barber, he's been the swan

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Speaker 1: maker for twenty nine years. Marker What did I say, maker?

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Speaker 1: No swan marker. He's been the swan marker for twenty

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Speaker 1: nine years. Accompanied by his team as swan uppers. They

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Speaker 1: took to the water in their traditional rowing skiffs on Monday.

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Speaker 1: But what they did because of the incredible heat wave

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Speaker 1: is they just picked up the baby swans, sort of

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Speaker 1: check them for health and put them back in the water.

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Speaker 1: They didn't take them ashore and measure and wave them.

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Speaker 1: It's largely ceremonial. They're not really doing anything. What's swans

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Speaker 1: don't need them to do it. Well, they kind of do.

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Speaker 1: If someone was poisoning the Thames, if if something had

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Speaker 1: happened and you see a decline in the swan's this

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Speaker 1: is a This is one of those wonderful traditions that

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Speaker 1: the royals have. And also it was so hot for

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Speaker 1: him that normally he has to wear a traditional uniform

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Speaker 1: of a heavy scarlet blazer decorated with embroidered gold thread

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Speaker 1: detail and royal insignia. He said he didn't wear that

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Speaker 1: because it was so hot. He just wore his shirt

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Speaker 1: with the top button done up, a tie and a

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Speaker 1: picked cap, but he did briefly wear the jacket. When

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Speaker 1: they gave a toast to her majesty. He had the

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Speaker 1: jacket on the heavy blazer, but after that he was

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Speaker 1: permitted to take it off because of the forty degree heat. Wow.

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Speaker 1: I know a lot of us in Australia going forty degrees.

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Speaker 1: We deal with that, get over it. But I've been

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Speaker 1: reading some stuff about how extreme that really is for them.

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Speaker 1: It'd be like us being under a foot of snow

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Speaker 1: in our city and wondering why our infrastructure just doesn't cope.

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Speaker 1: It's that bizarre. That's true that the UK is a

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Speaker 1: lot further from the equator than we are, so if

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Speaker 1: the UK was flipped to the equivalent latitude in the

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Speaker 1: southern Hemisphere, it would begin about eight hundred kilometers south

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Speaker 1: of Tasmania. So imagine eight hundred kilometers south of Tasmania

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Speaker 1: having forty degree heat. That's why these temperatures are so extreme. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's why no one's coping. Wow. The only person who's

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Speaker 1: not sweating in England at the moment is Prince Andrew.

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Speaker 1: Oh what a giveaway the sworn uping