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London: How COLD Is It?

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London: How COLD Is It?

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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 09:31 AM
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Does pooch have his tail between his legs? Or is he some kind of tail-less thing?
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 09:56 AM
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Not so sure about "tail-less things".

Working spaniels, it's claimed, genuinely need their tails docking, or they get quite hurt when they're fossicking around in hedges retrieving birds. And we simply don't know whether he was used as a worker before we got him - though the likelihood is the poor sod had it chopped off because one of his dickhead former owners just thought it was cuter that way.

But his little stump's doing its windfarm imitation whenever he goes out right now. We're trying to plug him into the National Grid.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:18 AM
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Buck up you Brits - right before Christmas it was -29 here with a wind chill of -40. Of course, you probably have no idea what "wind chill" means - it means it's cold!!!
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:31 AM
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In some quiet part of Saxony, it went down to almost -28 C yesterday. Now that is cold.

It was -7 C in Basel when I walked to work this morning. I loved it. If only it had been snowing too, that would have been perfect!
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:34 AM
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It was -7 C in Basel when I walked to work this morning. I loved it>

A few days of bitter cold may be a novelty but here the high predicted will be 12 F for the day and it has rarely been above freezing for over a month now.

cold gets old quick.

wonder how the flamingos in St James park are coping?
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:39 AM
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Good point. The lake looked to have quite a bit of ice on it when I went past it last week.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:42 AM
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How bout the Queen's Corgis - are they wearing little royal sweaters?
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:51 AM
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I have been to Buckingham Palace and can therefore confirm that it does have some heating. So the Corgis are fine (actually they live in Windsor and I have no idea about the castle's heating arrangements).

The Flamingos just get on with it. Like the lions in London Zoo. They're probably quite confused though.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:54 AM
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I bet the flamingos have one left up, though (and the other frozen in the ice?)

Birds are often cold resistance and migrate i think mainly for food supplies

We have zillions of Mallard ducks that stay in this arctic-like winter all year, if they have food and open water.

Yet one day in Seattle there was a thin layer of ice on a fountain and the ducks were walking on it. Passersby wondered out loud about the ducks' safety.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:57 AM
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"Buck up you Brits "

Apart from CW and the wooses on Time Out, have you heard any of us complaining?

Us oldsters have actually gone out our way to say how we're NOT discomboobulated.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 10:58 AM
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It takes me back to my schooldays - bloody freezing.

London is rubbish in the cold. It only really works in the rain. We're designed for rain.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 11:11 AM
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"cold get old quick"

Not to some people. When I was younger, where we lived got very cold in winter, routinely below 0 F. And snow all winter.

I loved it then and would love it again now. Too bad my job can't be transferred to someplace in the Alps.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 11:16 AM
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During one winter I lived in London it froze quite often, and being from California, I was really unused to it, and not having much money, I couldn't keep feeding coins into the "electric fire" in my room. The place where I let a room was quite an old manse without central heating, so I used to go to the bathtub down the hall, which was about 10 feet long, and fill it with steaming water and soak in it, just to get the chill out of my bones at the end of the day.

One of my favorite memories of being anywhere in the world was a dry and beautiful but cold February day in St John's Wood when very suddenly a freezing frost swept over everything, and within 5 minutes, the entire scene (including me) was covered with a coat of sparkling ice crystals, and it was painfully cold -- but amazingly pretty. I've never seen anything like it before or since.
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 11:36 AM
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Flanner (if not the tail-less pooch) may love the global warming experts - the ones that predict that the Gulf Stream will change due to global warming and no longer insulate Britain, turning its weather into what you may expect at a latitude higher than what most Canadians live in.

Just imagine the Cotswolds becoming a premier skiing and snow boarding venue and the Lake District a Winter-Waterland

Be careful for which you ask?
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 11:38 AM
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It's been warmer the last day or two - I didn't have to fumble around in the car for a CD case to scrape ice off the windscreen this morning.

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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 01:07 PM
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Come on FlannerUk - I was joking!!!
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 01:10 PM
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When you're freezing your arse off it's hard to have a sense of humor - humoUrless Brits!
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 01:10 PM
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My school history text book had a drawing of the Thames frozen over in days gone by, complete with ice skating urchins, chestnuts being roasted, and catholics being burned to keep everyone warm.

How I would love to see those wondrous sites or yesteryear!
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 01:19 PM
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Yes those were the pictures i was talking about - making London look like an Amsterdam

CW explained why it's not so no more
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Old Jan 8th, 2009, 01:31 PM
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>>Us oldsters have actually gone out our way to say how we're NOT discomboobulated.<<

Oh yes indeedy. Who else remembers waking up to find ice on the inside of the bedroom window, or willing oneself into constipation rather than face the dash up the unheated stairs to the loo (or worse having to go to the outside one), or (the horror!) chilblains?
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