Years ago
a friend in Otago wrote: "Cold as a Dunedin winter's dungeon door".
But the laurels go to Leonard Cohen, who in his lament So Long, Marianne sung: "I'm cold as a new razor blade".
Yesterday was cold enough to freeze flames in non-compliant fireplaces across the Bay - the now scarcity of which is lamentable. Not the compliance, but the rarity of the flame.
I work in an air-conditioned newsroom and my home's warmed by an ambience-free heat pump. I miss the flame.
Years ago on one chilling winter's day in our university hostel we flocked to a friend's room to warm our hands over his four-slice toaster. He was the only one with said appliance and was extremely popular on cold days.
It's a strange, primal male propensity to hover over fire - even if it be a fake flame.
MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths called me yesterday at 5.28pm with the news East Coast temperatures were "abnormally low". That is, Hastings reached a high of only 6.6C, apparently the "second-lowest high" since 1972. Napier reached 7.5C - with only five lower highs recorded.
I asked said meteorologist for a simile to sum up the region's chill, to which she offered: "It's as cold as a wave into the cockpit when sailing around Cape Brett."
Not sure where Cape Brett is, but it sounds cold. Or, as my son said yesterday, "cold as".
