The best time to go running in Doha is 4 in the morning, provided the humidity is down. The city’s stucco’d suburbs are silent; the only other inhabitants you’re likely to run into are construction workers either arriving at the ever-present construction sites or waiting to be picked up by the city’s ubiquitous flatbed trucks and micro buses, scrawny green eyed cats lounging on car roofs, and the dust. As long as the heat is below 40C it is quite comfortable, just mind the jagged rocks that litter any part of the ground not taken over by pavement or what passes for grass (carefully nourished and watered three times a day by roving landscape tracks. Landscape is what Qatar seems to lack, its flatness is discomforting and strange after the dips and rises of Toronto or Ottawa valleys and hills).

The heat hits the head like a horrible hammer. The glasses instantly fog up, sweat erupts from every pore, and every cell in your body is screaming for you to get inside and hide from the hideous glare of the Lidless Eye of the Day Star. Everyone talks about it, everyone warns you about it, but nothing prepares you for it when you first arrive in Doha in the summer. The trick is not to stop. If you stand still you will yield to it, wilt and wither. When you get inside don’t lie down or sit, keep moving or at least standing and keep drinking. A liter or two ought to do (but don’t drink the tap water – it’s not the microbes but whatever they add at the desalination and water processing plant). And don’t drink it at arctic temperatures – room temperature is best.

It's worth it though. Once in a while the city haze might even let you see the sunrise

Damn. Not today.