I will never be Irish.

[mizkit]

I will never be Irish. I will never accept the idea that, as an Irish cabbie recently said to us, one keeps one’s house not so much *warm* as ‘not cold’. (This guy has a Lithuanian girlfriend. Only upon visiting her family in Lithuania did he understand why she kept turning the heat up in Ireland. “Of course,” he said, “their houses are insulated

Comments

[bellinghman]

A house is not sufficiently warm unless I can spread butter on a piece of bread without tearing the bread

This is presumably why 'spreadable' butter was invented.

It's also why we (the Brits and the Irish) drink beer at room temperature - because it actually is cold enough.

[mizkit]

...the beer point is an enlightening one which I shall have to point out to fellow Americans in the future. :)

[bellinghman]

Strictly speaking, British/Irish beer (which are much of the same heritage) should, I believe, be considered to be best at cellar temperature, just as a decent wine would be.

It rarely gets so far away from that temperature in Britain, and possibly even more rarely in Ireland, that actual cooling would be required to get your beer back to that temperature. If, however, I were to be drinking, say, Green King Abbot Ale in the Wharf Rat in Baltimore, MD, in August, then I would want it cooled. Not chilled, but cooled.

Warm beer?

[saare_snowqueen]

That's the first explanation of that bizarre practice that actually works.

The thing that amazed me most after leaving London to move 'Up North' (first Finland and now Estonia) is that I was warm most of the time in the winter. Not only are apartments insulated and heated but public transport runs to a schedule. If the tram is supposed to arrive at 09:17, you get to the stop at 09:15 and 2 minutes later - there it is.

[gows]

I too will never be Irish. Or English, for that matter. When I was on student exchange in London, I was completely baffled at their lack of things like, oh, double-paned windows. The family I stayed with had a front door that you could clearly see daylight out from underneath, and all the radiators were constantly covered in "drying" sweaters. I understand from my parents that Australia (or was it NZ?) have much the same "not freezing cold" philosophy. *shakes head*

Regarding pictures--holy cow, Liam and Laura look very much the same they did 15 years ago. I have the *exact* same penguin pajama pants as Liam, only in red. :) Melissa and Pat look fabulous, too, although I've seen them considerably more recently than the Forbes. And when did Lance get (more) gray? (Did you know little Bexley is a teenager now? How dare she?!) Ted looks awesome, and verra distinguished with the wee bit of frost in his hair. I can see the resemblance between he and his gramma. I haven't the foggiest how long it's been since I've had a good

[irishkate]

And people wonder why we tend to assume all American's are rich...

Having a room be just warm enough to be "not cold" in my experience anyway, comes from the price of fuel. It just wasn't feasible to heat the house to the temperatures described as warm. And if you had a fire, you discovered that it was hot where you faced the fire and cold everywhere else so you wore layers. If you were sitting near the fire you took them off, but you'd need them to go down an unheated corridor in a minute.

However to be honest on the subject of insulation, my experience with American buildings has been that they have never heard of it - of course these were in California and NYC.

[mizkit]

It costs about 90 euro a month to keep the damned house warm. I have no idea what it cost when you were a kid, but if 90 euro a month in the modern era constitutes "rich", fine, so be it. That's about what heating costs run in Alaska, too, given the conversion rate, so I'm not particularly inclined to buy into the whole "all Americans are rich" viewpoint.

[irishkate]

no no - it's not that all american's are rich in reality, it is why we tend to assume all american's are rich. When I was growing up, all american's had cars, and tvs in their rooms, kids talked on the phone to each other for hours. American visitors would tell us our houses were cold so we knew they kept their warmer (not something you could see on tv

[mylescorcoran]

It does get ridiculous at times though. I remember a house in Dublin on Whitworth Road shared by a group of student friends while I was getting my doctorate. In winter you had to break the ice in the loo before taking a pee.

[martianmooncrab]

I have adapted far enough that I’ll turn the heat off in the rooms I’m not using

my adaptations from living in Europe, have been to get a new tankless hot water heater (because they dont make them here with switches to turn off when not in use) and the devout mantra that a warm bathroom is the best thing EVAH in the world. One shouldnt freeze ones backside to the seat first thing in the morning.... never. I have central heat and air, and love every minute of it.

[tamago]

Even though I'm three generations away from Ireland at the closest count, I'm apparently much more Irish than you are on the temperature thing. I'm very much of the belief that the heater exists to keep the house from being "not cold", and we always, always turn it off at night.

Of course, here, we rarely get a handful of degrees below 0 C, and that, only in the middle of the night, and we have a nice, nice down duvet on the bed that two adults and a space heater of a toddler share.

Yesterday we went to a party and the house was just Too Darned Hot. I discovered that "excessive" heat turns out to be one of my headache triggers. (I think my body has decided 25 C is excessive. ;-P ) I found myself drinking two tall glasses of iced juice (and I *never* put ice in my drinks normally) because I was so overheated. In December. In the rain.