Winter, it’s a wrap

Illustration: Sturt Krygsman  Source:  The Australian

I could never live in Cairns; too summery in Cairns. Don’t get me wrong. I like summer, but I’m not in love with summer. Does that make sense?

Summer’s OK, I suppose, if you like lolling about on a beach. But where’s the fun, the excitement, the joi de vivre in that?

I like everything about winter. I especially like an open fire. I like the sight, the smell, the sound and the pure radiant heat of an open fire. You don’t need a telly if you have an open fire.

I could watch embers glow all night. And as for flames enveloping a log or the adrenalin rush that comes from a stray spark that is projected beyond the hearth? Oh, my. Now that is my kind of excitement.

Why do people who come in from the cold stand with their backs to an open fire?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because God got the human circulatory system wrong. Some parts of the body are always warm. Like the abdomen. Other parts get cold really quick. Like the buttocks.

I hope God doesn’t mind a bit of helpful feedback regarding his human handiwork, but I really think there should have been better blood flow between, say, the stomach and the backside.

In fact, what God should have done is invent an organ that equalises blood flow between hot and cold body bits. It could sit next to the liver if those damned kidneys were prepared to squash up a bit.

Is there no end to the helpful hints we winter-o-philes have for all and sundry, including the Almighty, as to how to stay warm? How about wearing a scarf? Let me say that if you do intend wearing a scarf in Melbourne then you really should read the winter-o-phile dress code and especially the section headed “scarf-wearing protocol”.

Some people – let’s call them summery types – have no idea how to wear a scarf. They loop the lot around their neck like a noose. Gauche!

The correct way (the winter-o-phile way) is to fold it in half, place it around the neck and thread the two end bits through the loop. Pull tight. Team with a tweed jacket, buttons done up and collar turned up.

The wrong way is to wear a scarf out of season. We winter-o-philes rail against the way some people wear long, thin silk scarves in summer. There comes a time when winter-o-philes have to call it as it is. Summery types have remodelled the scarf as a mere decorative item.

The long, thin silk scarf is favoured by the middle-aged, who use it not to keep the neck warm but as camouflage. Wearers think their long, thin silk scarves make them look slender and tall, but in fact because they’re wearing a long, thin silk scarf everyone else is thinking: “Hmmm, you’re trying to hide something; might just check that out; yep, bulges!”

Caught out, summery types, and the charge is misuse of an item of winter clothing – the scarf – for no purpose other than self-ornamentation.

You’d never catch a winter-o-phile misusing a scarf.

Bernard Salt founded the Facebook page Society for Normal People