You won't feel the benefit when you go outside

[Captain Muppet]

When it's cold I put my coat on a while before I go out, because I'm capable of plotting a thermal gradient through several layers of insulation and the damage to my back from when it was broken is such that I get crippling pain when cold.

However I keep getting told that I won't feel the benefit of my coat if I wear it indoors. I've had a quick google and people seem to think that it's something to do with how the skin feels temperature, which I'd be willing to discuss if the skin my coat keeps warm was exposed to the cold, which it isn't, because I'm wearing a nice warm coat. There was also talk of core body temperature which made me doubt the people who used the term knew which bits a coat covers.

I've also noticed that within my sample of people who tell me I won't feel the benefit none of them have spent any time in the arctic or even anywhere seriously cold. They are mostly middle aged women with no formal training in science, which may be relevant.

For those in the North of England - in the south and the far North during winter men wear garments with long sleeves which open at the front and are made of thick material called "coats". You may have seen them on tourists.
I used to live in Hull and feel I need to explain that I'm not now a pansy, I'm a cripple.


So: definitive answer please. In keeping with the spirit of the internet I'll not change my actual behavior regardless of the outcome because I've tried it and I don't enjoy crippling pain.

[Captain Muppet]

soad said:

Do you warm up your duvet before you go to bed? Well...

I keep my duvet at room temperature and once under it I stay in the same location. It's not really the same duty cycle as a coat, unless it's normal to go out in a duvet? I don't really follow fashion.

[Captain Muppet]

lufbramatt said:

Captain Muppet said:

I keep my duvet at room temperature and once under it I stay in the same location. It's not really the same duty cycle as a coat, unless it's normal to go out in a duvet? I don't really follow fashion.

My word. Simply everything is on the internet.

[Captain Muppet]

StottyEvo said:

No word of a lie, I'm still in T-shirts I started "grafting" (what we call work in Yorkshire) at 9am this morning, outside in 3degrees in just a T-shirt you wimp.

Not a wimp - a cripple. I used to live just slightly East of the real Yorkshire and was happy in a t-shirt all year long.

[Captain Muppet]

doogz said:

3 degrees in a t-shirt and he thinks that makes him manly.

That's cute.

I went swimming outdoors once when it was -18. My wet hair froze, which apparently looked hilarious. Walking around in the snow in just a wet pair of shorts was a bit chilly. I also walked through Oulu to the bar in just a t-shirt in January. To find Oulu on a map start at the Northern tip of Scotland and move North East until you hit Finland.

I've been to the Arctic, and I've spend winter in Indiana where a warm day was -13, but I wore a coat, because I'm a Southerner.

All of which is beside the point - if you don't fit in in Hull they break your face, so no coats in winter - it's not because I'm manly, it's because I'm a coward.

Thanks mods for moving this to "science" where I assume all the wrong answers in the poll will stop, making the data useless.

[Captain Muppet]

jeff m2 said:

NRS said:

we just started the slightly less than 2 month night a few days ago, :P

A 2 Month eclipse.
That's gotta be strange, I understand alcohol is the usual cure

Suicide is popular too.