New UN 'happiness report'

[Jim E]

I think it's because it's much easier to get warm in winter than to get cool in summer. It takes much less effort and organising.... you simply put on woolly clothes.

People who live in perpetual summers, like us here in the semi-tropics, have to take thought for ways to keep our temps down ALL the time, whether we're working or playing. We have to drive long distances to beaches and pools; run air-conditioning 24/7; wear shady hats and avoid over-exertion in the sun; constantly clean ourselves of sweat and grime; fight bugs and flying insects; endure massively destructive summer storms; and face the threat of raging bushfires that destroy and kill almost every year. It's all a damn nuisance.

In cold climates, you can choose to be more active or you can choose to stay indoors, and either way, you can be comfortable. And I think the weather is somewhat more predictable in cold countries. They've had generations to arrange their living styles to allow for the cold. In the tropics, we never know from year to year what we'll get.

That's enough to make anyone "unhappy".

[Janke]

the weather is somewhat more predictable in cold countries.

Yes, we do have two very predictable seasons: a white winter alternating with a green winter...

[Jim E]

Yes, we do have two very predictable seasons: a white winter alternating with a green winter...

And they both sound pretty good to me, Mister J!

[Janke]

And they both sound pretty good to me

I'm sure you'd just loooove finding your car plowed in like this some nice, brisk morning...

carinsnow.jpg

[cgbier]

That picture is exactly the reason why I am VERY happy in the tropics

Our island is in the Guinness Book for the least temperature differences in the world (average 87F +/- 5 degree)

[Janke]

87 F - that's 30 C... Whew! - I get pretty uncomfy already at 25 C, or 77 F...

[cgbier]

A friend of mine told me that fins start to unbutton their shirts once the temperature goes up to 0 degree there.

[Jim E]

I'm sure you'd just loooove finding your car plowed in like this some nice, brisk morning...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]Luverly luverly snow picture[/ATTACH]

Hmm, I dunno, I suppose it could get a bit to be of a nuisance after a while.....

But still, for me, the novelty of being in that much snow would take quite a while to wear off, I think.

I reckon if you North Men spent a couple of summers in a country where the summer temperatures at night make it almost impossible to get to sleep, you'd start to pine for the fiords soon enough! .

While you're lying there, trying to cool down enough to bear the contact of bed sheets, bathed in sweat, you have to listen to the maddening din of cicadas, if the deafening pounding of summer thunder and the roaring of torrential rain doesn't drown that out. Then, when you get up in the morning, you have to go outside to check that the neighbourhood is still there, and hasn't been consumed overnight in a bushfire holocaust....

Yep, give me the cold, the snow, the winter, any day!

[cgbier]

While you're lying there, trying to cool down enough to bear the contact of bed sheets, bathed in sweat, you have to listen to the maddening din of cicadas, if the deafening pounding of summer thunder and the roaring of torrential rain doesn't drown that out.

It all depends on the woman you have next to you