I third these remarks.

Apart from having spent half my growing life in Sweden, I have also lived and worked in the Canadian Arctic. Nobody in these places was ever cold indoors, whatever the temperature outside.

Conversely, I have never anywhere been as cold to the bone as in England and Scotland. Britain is, or has been, notorious for its prehistoric domestic heating conditions. I cannot comment on New Wye, but I'll bet VN experienced many preternaturally chilly days in Cambridge.

What the explanation is for the British penchant for freezing I can only guess at. It may be because the country is constantly damp, and traditionally the cure for this has been to have constant currents of air circulating from room to room. Also the weather is very changeable: when the cold comes; everyone knows it will only last for a day or two, and they just put up with it for these short periods.

Charles

In a message dated 09/11/2006 21:23:07 GMT Standard Time, fet@MARSHALL.EDU writes:

I second Sergey, coming originally even from more colder land (Novosibirsk in West Siberia) if not more morthen than SPb.

We knew how to avoid cold.

Insulation, insulation, insulation - something people have not heard in our coal-rich Appalachia with its cardboard houses and probably 75% of heating money lost in entropy while people shiver behind unsealed windows in winter. Russian/Scandinavian/Zemblan concept of "fortochka" have to be admired; one has to breathe.

Not even talking about Novaya Zemlya.

Victor Fet