Is it just ME?
Or are shops far too hot?
I REALISE I may be in a minority of one on this, but I do love a cold snap. Not just because it gives me a chance to wear my favourite wool coat, or because even grotty old Wormwood Scrubs looks pretty in the early morning frost when I’m trudging around it with the dogs; but because most of the time everywhere is just too damn hot.
What I consider a comfortable temperature — somewhere around 16 degrees centigrade — is, I’m increasingly starting to realise, by most people’s standards, Arctic.
It’s winter. It’s supposed to be cold. Yet, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve had to break out the boiled wool.
I haven’t needed to because everywhere I go is heated to near tropical temperatures. It’s a shame, really. Modern humans are good at being cold: after all, we evolved during the last ice age. It’s why we’re so efficient (damn it) at laying down fat; and also why we invented jumpers and coats and 40 denier tights.
But instead of reaching for an extra garment when the temperature drops, most people nowadays reach for the thermostat. Shops are the worst. For some mysterious reason most insist on having their doors wide open whatever the weather. This means that either they have to turn the heating up full, or risk their employees freezing to death.
In doorways and entrances they compensate for icy gusts by installing broiling overhead blow-heaters.
As you pass beneath, a blast of desert air singes the ends of your hair, and within seconds you are peeling off layers in a bid to stem the river of sweat that has begun pouring down your back.
As well as potential purchases, you are now also carrying coat, hat and scarf and your face is the colour of a tomato.
By the time you get to the changing rooms the effort of trying things on combined with the searing heat from the overhead spotlights means that any appetite for parting with your hard earned, flies straight out the door, followed swiftly by the rest of you, gasping for air. No wonder the High Street is on its knees.
So please, world, turn down the thermostat and slip on an extra jumper instead. You’ll be doing us all a huge favour.
As you enter, a blast of desert air singes the ends of your hair