Ah, the drowsy bliss of the endless heatwave. In the desert now forming from Southend to Stirling, each fresh day cracks open a chest of treasure. And, oh, those summer nights.

Well, sod that. Britain’s 50-odd-day run of clement weather (which may soon end, at least for a bit) is causing chaos. Let’s count the ways:

• A new study from the US shows that heatwaves nix brainwaves, resulting in a “cognitive function deficit” – a term I no longer understand.

• Ergoflex, a company with a mattress to flog, has been totting up just how bleary we are all becoming. Its conclusion? “Britons have lost as many as 471,249,000 hours of sleep due to the recent warm nights.” Clearly, this is a country that should not be operating any heavy machinery other than aircon units.

• The exhausted may be well advised to find a shady piece of parkland – but that’s soon going to become impossible, because all the trees are wilting. Wandsworth council in south-west London has made an emergency appeal for volunteers to help water them.

• Meanwhile, Northern Ireland – usually the home of constant drizzle – has enforced a hosepipe ban. In the north-west, where Joy Division genuinely needed those trenchcoats, United Water is warning its 7 million customers of the first English hosepipe ban since 2012.

• You would have thought all these sleep-deprived Brits would make ideal audiences for a new Avengers film. Except the sun has pushed everyone out on to the streets. Last weekend, UK cinemas recorded their lowest takings of the year.

The extra vitamin D may help your rickets, sure, but it’s just not worth it if Britain is soon to become a nation of cranky stumblebums desperately pouring Tizer on the last patches of arable vegetation in the country. Which it definitely is.