All week, my social media feeds have been overflowing with content imploring me to take life advice from Erling Haaland. Erling’s philosophy of success and failure, Erling’s mindfulness routine, Erling’s skincare regimen, Erling’s handbag recommendations. It’s the making of a modern guru. But what has been missing is Erling’s approach to handling heatwaves – and, actually, that’s what i really need right now, not thoughts on how to choose the nicest Hermès Birkin 35.

So, let’s get into it. If Erling won’t share his secrets, these sports scientists will. We mere mortals can train to cope with hot weather just like World Cup players train for extreme conditions. When our legs get heavy, our brains foggy and our bodies generally uncomfortable, our judgment can be clouded and our tempers short. So we need to learn how to “judge when effort is useful, when it is costly and when it becomes unsafe”. That includes recognising when you are trying to do more than your body can handle in the heat, and when you’re heading for a metaphorical red card.

We also learned this week that if you want to learn a language, you could follow the example of another leading footballer. Anthony Gordon recently revealed that he decided to study Spanish because he had a dream of playing for Barcelona. An expert in motivation reveals that having this kind of “intrinsic goal” is a powerful motivator when trying to pick up a new skill. Gordon wanted something and he needed language skills to serve that wider ambition. We can, again, all learn something from that, even if we’re slightly less likely to land a contract with one of the world’s best teams as a result.

Meanwhile, our summer reading recommendations continue with a rundown of the best non-fiction books. They include Arundhati Roy’s memoir and Sathnam Sanghera’s meditation on the meaning of George Michael.

And find out what experts made of Nigel Farage’s decision to resign as MP for Clacton so that he could stand in a by-election to become MP for Clacton. As you might expect, they were not impressed by the ploy.

Also this week, how hummingbirds gave us the pineapple, why you might benefit from reading The Tempest as a parable about artificial intelligence, and what to do if you see a bumblebee in distress this summer.