30 Nov 2006
Some Inconsequential Nonsense About Keeping Your Head Warm on Winter Nights (and pyjamas).
This is really a post of no particular consequence, apologies in advance. Having been recently voted Britain’s 12th Best Green Blog, I thought I had better check out the competition, and so I have been rooting about among those that also came in the Top 100. Despite being a bit unsure how George Monbiot managed to get a website that isn’t actually a blog in at number 3, I have to say I was fascinated by the diversity of the various sites. I rather enjoyed Camden Kiwi, who somehow manages to simultaneously write about coal fired powerstations and her walk to the charity shop round the corner from her house. Something about the combination of the important and the inconsequential rather appeals to me (as you may have observed). So in the spirit of celebrating the utterly inconsequential, I wanted today to offer some in-depth observations on pyjamas.
I have only recently discovered pyjamas. I was always a ‘just wearing a T-shirt’ kinda guy, but recently I have discovered the joy of being warm all over in bed. My bedroom at the moment can get very cold at night, leading to the problem of getting a cold head in the night, waking up at 3am with a head hurting from the cold (only on cold nights obviously…).
What to do about this? I have tried wearing a hat to bed, but usually this works its way off at about 2am, thereby having little effect when it is actually needed. Sleeping with your head on a hot water bottle isn’t a good idea, you end up sweaty and dehydrated. Of course you could go for the traditional approach and wear a nightcap as apparently modelled by our forefathers and Rip Van Winkle. A number of people have started making these again, but sorry, they are just too ridiculous. For heavens sake they don’t even look good on dogs.
What I tend to do when it is really cold is wear a hoodie, a sweatshirt with a hood. This has the benefit of keeping my head, ears and back of the neck warm, but the actual sweatshirt is too hot, and the rest of me gets too warm. Here is my tip for you to make your first million, make pyjamas (local organic hemp/linen preferably) with a hood! They could look very stylish, be far more practical than the current model, and have the added benefit of being so groovy that people want to sleep with the hood up, thereby turning down their heating so as to have the room cold enough that they don’t get too warm!
The question is often asked as to how we can engage young people in energy descent preparation…. hoodie pyjamas…. you heard it here first. David Cameron’s exhortation to ‘hug a hoodie’ could take on a whole new raft of interesting possibilities. Of course this is now your opportunity to write in and tell me all the people who already make hoodie pyjamas, that you’ve had a pair for years and that you never go anywhere without them. Such are the perils of writing inconsequentially about pyjamas….
P.S. Neither of the above are photos of me. Just thought I’d make that clear… I look nowhere near as stylish in my nighttime apparel.