To get really annoyed by people who live in hot countries claiming that the UK is not hot

[CheckingOutTheQuantocks]

I have some relatives who are in Australia and I'm friends with some of them on Facebook. Apart from their finding the whole Boris Johnson/Brexit thing awfully amusing, they're generally nice people, but there's one of them in particular who can't bloody leave it alone if I post anything about the weather. The other day, I posted about how it was supposed to be the hottest day on record, and she was straight onto it with comments about "That's not hot, that's like a winter temperature for us, you Poms are so soft". She thinks 18°C is "freezing", btw

I'm only mildly irritated by this, but I just don't get why people do it. I know it's ridiculously hot over there and all the wildlife is venomous and all that, but what is the actual point of telling people that all the time when they're just trying to have a whinge about being too warm?

I don’t give a shit how hot it is in other places, I live in the north of England and I like the cold and I’ll whinge if I want to. If I wanted to live somewhere known for being hot and sweaty I’d have moved there.

I’ve lived in both UK and Australia and can assure you the latter is often not equipped for the weather. Not everyone has aircon. Or heating. And the country is vast with all manner of temperatures and humidity. What is different though, is that Aussies generally tend to just get on with it, whereas their British counterparts generally tend to become “whinging Poms”. Too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry, too windy, too still, too rainy, too clear... Complaints whatever the weather. Isn’t change as good as a holiday?

Do you often comment on the weather, OP? Maybe your Aussie relative wasn’t being competitive. Maybe they were reacting to the whinging.

But surely Aussies are more used to the extreme temperatures because it’s the norm for them @weatherschmeather? Whereas this is absolutely not the norm.

It’s 83% humidity here at the moment. It’s the first time I’ve ever got off a tube and felt worse. The heat at lunchtime in central London was boiling but dry. This evening it rained and now it feels like wading through hot treacle.

Aussies generally tend to just get on with it, whereas their British counterparts generally tend to become “whinging Poms”. Too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry, too windy, too still, too rainy, too clear

AWeatherscmeather the Aussies I know talk about the weather constantly and have very decided views on what's too much, too little. Just like the English.

I work in a hospital and my foreign colleagues were saying that the heat here is worse than the heat back home, even though objectively it is hotter there. That was people from Portugal, Hong Kong, America, Canada, etc.

I went into my (small, shared) office at 7 am and thought "Wow, it's warm, I'll open the window." Nope, window was already open. A tall Dyson fan just pushed warm air around. Pinning the door back achieved nothing.

Wards were having their ancillary lights on to reduce the heat output from the full lights.

It's hot.

Aussies generally tend to just get on with it, whereas their British counterparts generally tend to become “whinging Poms”. Too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry, too windy, too still, too rainy, too clear

The last time I went to Egypt it was 35 degrees and it was absolutely fine because we had aircon, ceiling fans, a place to stay that repelled heat. Here it’s different, our infrastructure isn’t built for hot weather.

It's even more frustrating because in 6 months time there will be a light dusting of snow and the entire country will grind to a halt. What precisely is the 2 degree temperature range that Brits can function in without whinging about the weather?

I have a friend who live in Indiana in the US. I had a whinge about the weather yesterday, and after converting the temp recorded by by car into Fahrenheit, he told me it’s a similar temperature there and us Brits are just being whiny
He soon shut up when I reminded him that we do not have A/C in our homes I don’t even have A/C in my car at the moment.
Britain isn’t prepared for any weather extremes because generally speaking we don’t experience them often. Heatwaves, blizzards etc aren’t the norm. We do grey, drizzly, 5° to 20° very well

Do people really think that everyone in Egypt has air con? The country is absolutely plagued with power cuts anyway.

This is from the NYT: "While 90 percent of American households have air-conditioning, “When we look in fact at the hot countries in the world, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, where about 2.8 billion people live, only about 8 percent of the population owns an air-conditioner,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

So yes, I think people abroad are inclined to be a bit at Brits complaining about three days of heat.

Do people really think that everyone in Egypt has air con? The country is absolutely plagued with power cuts anyway.

Yes, that's like the place I used to live. My house was nicely built for heat but we were lucky if we had power for the fan.

Do people really think that everyone in Egypt has air con? The country is absolutely plagued with power cuts anyway

Where did I say that? I was talking specifically about my experience.

Funnily enough one of my Australian friends is the opposite - she complains about the heat in the UK (even prior to the last 2 years' insane summers) she says it's a different kind of heat! Humid grey days rather than a dry sunny heat I guess

My mum grew up in Italy and she bloody hates this shit we are getting now

I live in Australia and it’s hot in summer, obviously. However most people where I live have swimming pools, the houses can be easily opened in the heat with lots of sliding doors and air conditioning and fans are everywhere.

A big difference though is that people have leaned to accommodate. People don’t go out in the hottest parts of the day unnecessarily and they dress for the weather. People seen outside, shirtless (males) in the hot times of the day are usually tourists!

until you've suffered the indignity of not being able to get dry after your shower, and having to put talc on your underboob, you just can't understand! Roll on deod is better. You are wrong in thinking no one understands, just because you need talc under your boobs.

I'm in Australia and have BOTH those problems. However, my main issue is not being able to get dressed without working up a sweat for several weeks of the year, not just a day here and there. And I am by no means running around getting dressed.

We also have seasons here, to who ever commented on that. We are in the middle of a wet winter, so hopefully we will have nice green grass for while and not dry dirt in the gardens!!

Oh & you do know that NOT every building, every school, every home etc has air con, right? Or that on a packed bus/train the air is ineffective.

In the same way your elderly/lower income earners don't use heaters in winter (cost) our elderly/lower income earners don't use their air con (if they even have it) because of cost.

Plus, when it's 40c for days, the air con doesn't do actually do much, older systems struggle quite a bit. Then there are rolling power outages, where the grids are actually SHUT OFF for an hour+ at a time in order not to overload them.

So yeah, you're hot for a day or so.

Actually it doesn't have to reach 40 for days before rolling outages are applied, but not being able to do ANYTHING when it's hot because the grid is off is pretty shitty.

I live in Australia and yes, houses are designed to accommodate the heat. A lot of houses have pools, and a lot of people have air conditioning or at least fans in every room.

If the hot summers are going to become then norm in the UK, it's going to be necessary for people to change the way they live. I've noticed quite a few posts on MN asking "how to keep a baby cool with no fan" or similar. Time to get educated about the heat and allow for it.

I live in Australia and yes, houses are designed to accommodate the heat. A lot of houses have pools, and a lot of people have air conditioning or at least fans in every room

I'd disagree and say that many if not most are not designed for heat. Houses should have wide eaves to shade the walls, trees nearby to shade the house. A single storey is easier to cool. What is happening in Australia now is houses are being built, more often two-strayed and open plan, with little attention to passive cooling; narrow eaves, flat roofs, so reliant on interventions such as air conditioning as the main source of cooling

I'm not anti ceiling fans and air-con, I have them, but they 're the last line of cooling: first exterior blinds and indoor curtains, opening and closing windows and doors, then the fans, and lastly the aircon.

I live in Australia and yes, houses are designed to accommodate the heat. A lot of houses have pools, and a lot of people have air conditioning or at least fans in every room

A lot of houses do not have pools and those that do, most are unusable in the morning to mid-day sun.

I lived in a flat in Sydney

No air con, we bought a fan

It was horrendously hot in the summer

But we poms were wittering on about the weather the most 😆😆

Have travelled and stayed in lots of countries that have very very hot weather (45+ for weeks) of course buildings tend to be designed to suit the climate but that doesn’t mean it always keeps out heat or they have aircon

They always keep shutters/curtains closed

Well it lovely and cool out now thank god for that