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?

p.s. rain only at night between 12-0300 to clear the air

Australians are the WORST for this. Actually, sorry, usually Brits who’ve emigrated and no matter how long they’ve been there they cannot get over the hot, sunny weather and how amazing it is compared to Leicester (or wherever) so they talk about it ALL the time and search Facebook for weather related chat so they can say “that’s a nice spring day here”.

🙄

I’m in north west Scotland. It was 29 degrees here today. It is still 21 outside and about 28 inside because of the fucking insulation.

I am dying in this. I’m a northern Scottish, lily white, redhead. 18 degrees is my ideal summer temperature and my heating doesn’t go on until we’re down at 5 degrees in Autumn.

I could totally sneer at Aussie’s for being pathetic about their ideas of what cold weather is - but I’m not a total dick, so I don’t.

I live in the Middle East but I’m back visiting the UK just now. I’m used to temperatures of up to 50C where we live but I’m still finding it pretty uncomfortable in the UK atm - not least because the house we’re staying in is SO WARM at night! I have my ac set to 19C in my own bedroom back home and it’s always lovely. I’m not used to sweating and sleeping with no covers (I hate that!) like I am here.

Having said that, you do notice how obsessed everyone is with the weather in the UK when you come back. Probably just because it’s so changeable, so it’s a more interesting topic than it is in hotter countries. Where we live it’s like ‘oh, the weather is hot, like every other day’ although sometimes you get ‘it’s slightly less hot today’. A few times a year we have ‘OMG rain!! There’s a waterfall in the office! Evacuate the building before the electrics catch fire! The roads, the roads!’ etc. But generally we don’t discuss the weather because it’s boring.

YABU. It hasn't been hot where I am today. I've had my cardigan on for most of the day. If I open two windows at home, it's cool within 10 minutes. I'm fed up of people saying it's 'so hot'.

I'm a Brit in Britain. It's hot. My bedroom is currently 19°c which is warmer than our average summers day. Yuk. I never wear a coat or a cardigan, unless it's minus something then I might wear something with sleeves.

My sister is currently sitting on a reclining chair covered in a blanket in Washington USA b cause her aircon is set too low at 18°c and she can't be bothered to get up and adjust it.

There is no part of 18°c that can be described as cold - anywhere

The weather in OZ can go from mild with a wonderful sea breeze to unbearably hot from one side of Sydney to the other.

I have friends who reside on the Northern Beaches in Sydney . Their DC live in Sydney's western suburbs.

In summer, when temperatures reach 42 degrees, they continually put posts on facebook , "poor DC having to put up with the heat in Western Sydney , feel so sorry for them".

I feel like posting back "get over yourself, you grew up in Western Sydney and you survived".

Isn’t 18oC room temperature? So how can it be cold?

@ElphabaTheGreen i was on a bus today and it was unbearable Believe me you would hum a different tune if a bus driver suffered heat stroke at the wheel or a heart attack and ploughed into your DC

People just do not think these things through.

Tbf, 17/18 degrees can feel really cold when you’re used to constantly sweltering. I spent a year in Oz btw (fairly recently too.)
When I landed back in the U.K. (during the mad summer of last year) I felt the chill at 22 degrees.
In oz though, or at least where I was (all over qld central + south with work but also in Brisbane a lot) town centres had plenty of shade and homes were built with ceiling fans, air con and plenty of features (such as fly screens) to allow for cooling off easily. Shops at high tech air con as well and most people drove so they’d rarely actually be in direct heat much. Was the only way to cope for most.

Don’t worry though I quickly reaclimatized and am now suffering in this heat too

I live in a country that is incredibly hot and humid in summer. We have air con everywhere though and live in stone buildings with hard wood floors designed to keep the heat out. The heat hits much more when you can't keep cool indoors easily so I totally get what you mean.

People slag off the uk climate but i think it is much better than a lot of places. 33 degrees and 90 percent humidity from May to October is not pleasant...

Australians seem to be fixated with the weather! I can understand it as they do have to deal with extreme heat but as others have said their lifestyles are set up to help deal with it - a/c, shady verandas etc. The "call that a knife?" mentality.

Not really. I'm a member on plenty of Aus forums and it's only the UK ones that have multiple threads about weather! I also find it no different to my UK family and friends commenting when I mention how cold it is or how many days of rain we've had that I don't know what I'm talking about!

By the way, it's currently 23 degrees and I have a jacket on.

Yanbu, pisses me off too. I wouldn't moan if I had air con, if my bedrooms weren't carpeted and the room temperature at night was a temp I could sleep in. I'd enjoy this hot weather if my house was set up for it.

I would be sympathetic if a country like Australia had an unseasonably cold winter in the minuses, as I doubt their houses could cope with that, being inadequately insulated and presumably not having gas central heating, probably just aircon that blows out hot air.

People just make themselves look ill informed when they laugh at us from abroad. Obviously you can cope with heat if you can just turn your airvon down. But I know people who are from hot countries (eg Italy, India, the US) who are struggling as much as I am.

It just depends what you're used to. I'm from northern England originally but I've lived in various countries around the world. Been in tropical Australia for a few years now and it still amuses me that people here put on jeans and a jumper when it drops below 25°c. I'm not sure if I've ever really acclimatised because I still wear summery clothes during our "winter", but my DH has joined the jeans and jumper wearers for our cooler months! So I think if depends on the person as well.

I think, in regards to your Facebook post, surely this person is just having a joke and making conversation? Isn't that what people do on FB, especially if you have friends from very different backgrounds who will have a different view on things. It's true that the UK's heatwave sounds pathetic compared to an Australian heatwave, just like when Aussies complain about the cold winter here people from the UK find it hilarious because they'd all be out sunbathing. I don't think it's anything to get upset about.

Oh also everyone keeps going on about aircon - not everyone in hot countries has aircon. A lot of people are just acclimatised.

Im a Brit that's lived in the Caribbean for over 11 years and right now it's near 34oc and it's 9.30pm.

I watch the UK moaning about hot weather with mild amusement, but I remember only too well the awful "close" feeling of being inside on a boiling hot day and being absolutely sweltering because the houses trap the heat even with the windows wide open.

Yes it's boiling here, with summer humidity hovering around 88%, hotter than the devils arsehole as we kindly refer to it. But come January when a US nor-Easter blows cool air down to us and our night time temp dips to 21oc, you can bet your arse I'm out walking my dogs in a warm hoody and jeans whilst my family back in the uk laugh at us.

We adapt to the climate we live in, and for the few freak weeks that the uk heats up, its impossible to adapt so quickly.

That said, I do have to roll my eyes that the same people bemoaning lack of summer, last a day before moaning about the heat.

I live in Florida, it's hot and humid a lot of the year. It's often unpleasant to be outdoors for any length of time. AC makes all the difference, the UK is just not set up for extremes of weather.

I do like feeling the warm on my skin every day and then scurrying back into the cool whenever needed. I'm seriously considering installing ceiling fans and ac when I get home to England in a couple of years as I think I'll miss both (imagine the cost may be prohibitive though!)

I mean tbh... im having this conversation with myself daily.

I’m pregnant and unable to function due to the heat. Properly dreading sun rising because it gets too hot at home and outside that I don’t know what to do aside from sit in a cool bath to cool down. It’s properlu brothering me...

And that’s at 34 degrees...

Mind you I grew up in a country where 34 degrees was not even that bad... And we didn’t have AC... I used to run around and not feel bothered...

So I’m actually unsure why but I’m suffering more in the uk at a temperature I would actually consider normal.

I'm Australian and have to say sorry. I was in London during a heatwave of 35°+ and it was awful without AC.

First of all, temperature is relative, and humidity, as others have said makes a massive difference. I live in Western Australia where it can get very hot but we have very low humidity. We usually have about 5 days of over 40 each summer, but months on end of 30 degrees plus. Its very pleasant and feels nothing like the same temperature in the UK. I lived in London for years and anything over 30 was pure hell! I reckon it feels 7 to 10 degrees 'cooler' here than the headline temp, so 32 here feels to me like 25 in the UK. On the flip side of that, as others have pointed out, 18 here is cold, and definite jeans and jumper weather, whereas in Ireland I remember going to the beach in similar temperatures!

Anyway, I have been accused of bragging about the weather on FB when I put up a photo of us having a barbeque in the garden! Err. its sunny in summer, its not bragging just fact! And my friends and family delight in sending me beach pics when its scorching in the UK and we are shivering through an Aussie winter, so I reckon we are evens'.And on that subject, PLEASE can people stop saying smugly 'Oh well, at least we get proper seasons in the UK' We do too! In fact, the Noongar aboriginal people in my area point out that there are in fact six distinct seasons here, not four. Winter here may not be that cold compared to the UK, but it rains a lot! It has to, as it hardly rains at all for the rest of the year. And that's just Western Australia, other regions have entirely different climates, so to say we don't have seasons here is just wrong.

Anyway, people everywhere talk about weather, FB is just an extension of that. I wouldn't take it personally.

Yes it's hot but it gets hotter where I come from (Mexico) and houses in my area have no aircon. I'm pregnant and not complaining at all!

On the flip side, I live in the very north of Ireland and I am always bemused by English people talking about how terrible the weather is and how 'we don't get a proper summer' etc. Not this year or last year obviously, but in general. The weather in England is positively beautiful compared to here, with warm summer days and mild evenings a lot of the time. I'm always struck by what a lovely climate it is - not too hot, not too cold. With exceptions of course when it's outside the norm.

My office is sitting at about 27 degrees at the moment during the day, with no air con and no windows that open and it's horrible, but there are still rows of coats on the coat hangers because the weather changes so quickly that someone can go out at lunchtime and it's sunglasses and ice creams outside, then someone else takes their lunch an hour later and comes in soaked to the skin because it's now dark and pouring with rain. It's the unpredictability that drives me nuts, rather than the actual weather. As a friend from mainland Europe once said to me 'at home, if it's a sunny day in the morning, it's a sunny day. Not sunny for an hour, raining for an hour, hailstones for ten minutes, sun again, more rain on repeat all day long'.

I grew up in Australia (Melbourne) where it's often said there can be four seasons in one day. The heat was awful in summer. We had no aircon back then (I'm talking 40 yrs ago). It was a case of draw the curtains and put the fan on (not a ceiling fan, just a free standing one), which circulated hot air! It was debilitating. At school you'd go to the bathroom between lessons to run cold water over your wrists to cool down. No aircon there, either! We also have a hot, dry northerly wind that blows from central Australia just to make life even more unbearable in the heat. I imagine there's more widespread aircon there, now, though - they really need it.

During winter it could go down to around 8-10'C, which does feel cold after you've had a hot summer. When I tell people I emigrated from Australia, they are surprised because I left that nice hot weather! I far prefer the UK climate to that of Australia's (at least where I was from, other regions are quite different).

So no matter how hot it gets in the UK, it doesn't go on for as long as Aussie summers do, but city heat is always unpleasant, hot pavements, crowded public transport, etc. I've lived in London during heat waves (to mid 30s) and it's pretty ghastly.

Agree with alwayscrashing above, we do get proper seasons in Australia! Melbourne has glorious autumn colours and delightful Spring days before it gets too hot, with lush green grass that later dries out in December and turns brown in summer.

OP - you sound like a bit of a whinger. First you whinge about the heat on a public forum and them you whinge because someone has the audacity to make a comment that you didn't like.

Some of these comments are ridiculous. Yes we do have fences, good ones, good fences make good neighbours, as the saying goes. We do not have a/c at our house and yes sometimes it is darn hot.

Wonder what your thoughts would be across the pond if aussie people posted that it was freezing cold at 5 degrees celcius.... cos trust me that it really cold here but you would probably be thinking that it's quite a mild day.