A lot of people have their identity wrapped up in how late they can leave it before they put the heating on. If they can wait until November, they are restrained, stoical, masculine in all its best senses. If they can push it to Christmas Day, they are all those things plus they could probably live through a blitz without complaining, if only someone would give them the chance. If you are living with a person of this ilk, all I can tell you is that I once heard of a man whose Christmas present to his wife was heating vouchers that she could trade for warmth, until they ran out. So it could be worse, in other words.
I don’t have a dog in that fight, living under a tyranny of teenagers, who sometimes want it tropical and other times are so swayed by a 15-second energy-conservation video they saw on TikTok that they are prepared to wear gloves in the house. But I’m in profound denial about the outdoors. I honestly believe that if I can leave the house without a coat on, that means it’s not yet autumn. It’s an almost Truss-esque rebuttal of external realities.
I spend a lot of time scuttling to the tube, where it’s summer all year round, then settle myself proudly on the Victoria line, thinking: “Who’s laughing now, people in coats? I bet you wish you could feel this muggy tube breeze of recirculated farts on your bare elbows.”
Around now, the thermals come out, in ever more abstruse variations (they certainly didn’t make polo neck onesies when I were a nipper). You can look and feel as though you’re in a single layer, some kind of early June uniform, whereas in fact you’re in two layers, and one of them was devised by 70 years of continuous Japanese innovation for use in a snow festival.
For at least a fortnight, when the weather can take no more of this nonsense and answers every argument with a biting wind, I just stop going out. Finally, I’ll cave in to a coat, at around the same time as all the real men are setting their thermostats to 18.5C – Christmas Day.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
