Winter warmers? No thanks

It appears that winter is well and truly here. The most inaccessible season of all looks like it’s hitched up for the foreseeable, condemning us to weeks of slipping and sliding about, while pretending to passers-by that that’s actually how we always do things.

For me, though, this time of year poses its own problems. No, not the ice. Nor is it the fact that small children begin mistaking me for a “funny elf”.

My winter gripe is that I get hassled by Jacket Wardens. You’ve probably never heard of them. After all, I just made them up. But these are people – usually middle-aged women (although, like the devil, they can take many forms) – who find it incomprehen­sible that someone would even think about stepping into the inner-city tundra without wearing at least six layers of clothing, three of which are thermal.

These people see fit to accost me in the street. “Aren’t you cold?” they coo. “You must be freezing.” “Haven’t you got a coat?” As if these questions will flick the switch of realisation and I’ll suddenly discover the onset of hypothermia.

You see, I’ve never felt the cold. My body temperature seems to operate around three degrees higher than everyone else’s. (A quick look at Wikipedia informs me that if that were true I’d be medically dead, but it is true that I could defrost a walk-in freezer.)

Now as far as I’m aware, north London isn’t prone to being struck down by sub-Arctic blizzards. Hell, I’m not even sure if the Arctic is prone to sub-Arctic blizzards these days. Al Gore’s probably up there now having a barbecue in a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops.

I was actually double-teamed the other day. There I was, minding my own business, on my way to the supermarket to look all metrosexual and self-important by mooching over some organic Hungarian cress, when a mother and daughter ambushed me. I thought I was about to be dragged into the nearest C&A and smothered in some ill-fitting, garish cagoule. I don’t know if C&A even exists anymore, but I could see in their eyes that they would have found one.
Can you imagine if this became normal? Umbrella Wardens on every street corner and fixed penalty notices for anyone setting foot inside the borough of Westminster without immediate access to a scarf.

It must be the fact that I’m small that brings out this strange habit in people, like some sort of perverse maternal instinct. Either that or the fact that I tend not to shave from one week to the next makes me look like some sort of hobo Ewok, who has fallen on hard times.

I usually just laugh politely at these people. The kind of laugh you do in a lift when someone you barely know says something just to break the actually-in-no-way-awkward silence, but despite the fact that you find it crushingly unfunny and you want to assault them with the nearest blunt object because you haven’t had your first three cups of coffee yet, you chuckle anyway out of politeness. That laugh.

On that note, I’ll wish you all a merry Christmas. Make sure you wrap up warm now.