Years go, well actually decades ago, the chess player David Bronstein came to visit. I don”t remember now he ended up at our house but I do remember his giving Phil the advice that he should always wear a hat in cold weather. Why? Because you lose a lot of heat through your head. He may have been especially convinced of this because he did not have much hair on the top of his own head. Ever since then we make occasional jokes about the need to keep your head warm. And whenever I see someone with a very young baby in a sling type baby carrier, a baby all wrapped up but without a hat (!) I am tempted to rush over and say, “Put a hat on that baby!” I have not yet yielded to that temptation but it may yet happen.
So this morning in one of those newspaper features where they question long standing myths, up popped the question: Is it true that youblose most body heat from your head? Apparently this is a 1970s notion and might possibly have originated in a US army training manual. But it seems there is nothing special about the head for losing heat, except perhaps that it’s a part of the body often left uncovered in cold weather. Grandson Number One, for example, with the vanity of his 20 years, hates to wear a hat as it messes up his carefully coiffed look! An expert tells us: “But if you went to the Arctic in a swimming costume, you’d lose more heat from your legs than your head because their surface area is bigger than your head’s.” Others argue that the head is less insulated than other parts of the body and so might need more protective clothing. The expert finishes off with this: “People probably need to cover their face as well, if they can. You lose quite a lot of heat through your face.”
And after all that information, maybe I am right to be astounded at the young, and sometimes not so young, men I see all wrapped up with a puffer jacket, a hat, gloves, possibly a scarf … and bare legs because they insist on wearing shorts even in January!
One way to walk back from our village takes us through the shared garden of a short row of terraced houses, picturesquely painted in a variety of colours. One of the householders keeps chickens. They have a chicken house for the night time but they roam free during the day. There are warning signs advising dog-owners to keep their animals on a lead as they walk through the garden area - there is a long-standing right of way for walkers - as they lost one of their feathered friends last year. One of the birds is a fine, glossy cockerel, a bird of little brain as he crows at all hours of the day. It cannot be denied though that he is beautiful specimen, seemingly black but with hints of red and green and purple. This morning he stood proudly in the middle of the path I walked on. I fully expected him to move out of the way but, no, he just stood there. So I sidestepped to go past him, at which point he lunged at me, or rather he lunged at my bag of shopping. His owner swore at him and hastened to assure me was swearing at the fowl, not at me. Aggressive poultry on a Monday morning!
Anyway, here’s a link to an article about how human behaviour can affect the lives of large birds.
I think I have expressed before my relief at having visited Venice before it became so tourist-crowded as it is reported to be nowadays. Like many beautiful places it suffers from the mixed blessing of tourism. Now I have found another reason not to visit Venice at present: it seems that celebrity-followers are making a point of visiting the places that were used for the Bezos wedding and therefore frequented by the Kardashians! What is the modern world coming to?
Hey! Ho!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment