THE PIG CHILL
I recently caused some controversy on my Facebook page when I stated that I was sitting in my room freezing with no glass in the window while working on the mother of all translations. But I stand by my assertion - I have never been so uncomfortably cold as I have in Brazil.
Now, in terms of absolute temperatures, of course Brazil is not the coldest place I have been, by several packs of frozen produce. Demure debutantes have been known to swoon when gathered around my piano on hearing my tale of when I got off a superheated Soviet train in Moscow one February in the late eighties in a T-shirt, drowsily aware of a bit of a nip in the air, only for the platform display to reveal an ambient temperature hovering around a bracing -20ºC. Here, we rarely get below 10ºC, but with everything geared towards bermuda shorts, sandals and little shame, the stone floors, lack of insulation, tropical humidity and, in our case, shoddy glazing practices all lead me to recall stories of my shirtless great-grandfather breaking the ice on the sink of water in the back garden in order to shave in the deep mid Salisbury Plain winter.
The day in question I was huddled in the west wing dressed in a T-shirt and two sweaters, and still my head was going numb and I lacked embrocation. My fingers struggling to stab computer keys, I resorted to my fingerless cycling gloves, but they proved utterly pointless as my fingers were the coldest part of my anatomy at that juncture. In the end, I slipped my bath robe over my attire, fancying I cut a rather Noel Coward-esque figure. Only when I caught a glimpse of my unshaven face, increasingly white stubble and pallid aspect in the bathroom mirror after snapping off a leak did I realise I was, in fact, the image of Alfred Steptoe.
If you don't believe me, next time it's ten degrees outside, switch off all heating, open a window and only walk around on your bathroom / kitchen lino. You'll soon realise just what I go through for my art.
What is the coldest you've been? Do you have glass in the window of your boudoir, or did a "glazier" come and take it away in March and never return? Are you calling me soft? Would you care to step outside with me to resolve this lik...
Now, in terms of absolute temperatures, of course Brazil is not the coldest place I have been, by several packs of frozen produce. Demure debutantes have been known to swoon when gathered around my piano on hearing my tale of when I got off a superheated Soviet train in Moscow one February in the late eighties in a T-shirt, drowsily aware of a bit of a nip in the air, only for the platform display to reveal an ambient temperature hovering around a bracing -20ºC. Here, we rarely get below 10ºC, but with everything geared towards bermuda shorts, sandals and little shame, the stone floors, lack of insulation, tropical humidity and, in our case, shoddy glazing practices all lead me to recall stories of my shirtless great-grandfather breaking the ice on the sink of water in the back garden in order to shave in the deep mid Salisbury Plain winter.The day in question I was huddled in the west wing dressed in a T-shirt and two sweaters, and still my head was going numb and I lacked embrocation. My fingers struggling to stab computer keys, I resorted to my fingerless cycling gloves, but they proved utterly pointless as my fingers were the coldest part of my anatomy at that juncture. In the end, I slipped my bath robe over my attire, fancying I cut a rather Noel Coward-esque figure. Only when I caught a glimpse of my unshaven face, increasingly white stubble and pallid aspect in the bathroom mirror after snapping off a leak did I realise I was, in fact, the image of Alfred Steptoe.
If you don't believe me, next time it's ten degrees outside, switch off all heating, open a window and only walk around on your bathroom / kitchen lino. You'll soon realise just what I go through for my art.
What is the coldest you've been? Do you have glass in the window of your boudoir, or did a "glazier" come and take it away in March and never return? Are you calling me soft? Would you care to step outside with me to resolve this lik...
Labels: Ice cold in Alex, scriptoria, southern exposure, The Tudors
posted by M C Ward | 10:17
8 Comments:
Eeee, we used to dream of cold kitchen lino and shoddy glazing practices. Coldest I've ever been was in Copenhagen where the wind makes it doubly so, and I lived in a place over a passageway with only a single calor gas bottle for heating. But tell that to young people today and they don't believe you.
Madrid, where they don't even have the excuse of it never being really cold but seem to have swallowed their own PR about Spain being semi-tropical paradise. 4 blankets, 2 duvets, hat, tracksuit bottoms tucked into socks and still too bloody cold to sleep. All that and the school receptionists saying Que Frio for 4 months a year- Of course it's cold, it's cold every bloody year. Why does no one in this city design a house or school who takes that basic piece of information into account???
Gadj, I can imagine the Danish climate is much worse, but like Alex, it's the fact nobody foresaw it that grates. I too used to chuckle when people exclaimed "Nossa, que gelado!" but now I want to hug them for warmth.
This is why God invented spirits. Get a quart of good cachaca, some limes, a gill of rhum, some molasses and a red-hot poker. With these any enterprising and underdressed young lady can prepare you an "Édouard II", that most warming of potations.
Thanks, Boyo, I knew you'd come up trumps with your racy variation on the already blood curdling caipirinha.
Your Eastern European wanderings have clearly endowed you with a wisdom beyond your beers.
"How do you expect me to do my homework when my room is so cold dad?"
"Put another effing sweater on."
God I'm so caring.
Reminds me of when I used to teach Siberian Air traffic controllers who moaned about how cold it was during typical UK autumns for Chrissake! However I suspect that the measures that Brazilian architects take to insulate their houses are much the same as the Victorian builders in London did when building my effing house......you want cold... stay here a few nights in winter you big blouse!!!! (ps growing a beard has helped insulate a bit more)
I completely agree with you about Brazil being the coldest place ever! I got stuck in north-eastern part of it and you bet I suffer. Outside the heat, indoors the freezing blow from the AC. How can you feel comfortable while staying the whole day in air conditioned environment wearing clothes you use in 40 degrees heat outside? Brazil is a country of contrast in every possible aspect...
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