Editorial: Old flame never loses attraction

Yesterday's East Coast temperatures were "abnormally low".

This weather is bracing stuff.

Great both for one's constitution and for eliciting new "it's as cold as ... " similes.

Yesterday there were plenty bandied about.

"Cold as a cast-iron commode", a retailer wearing a beanie told me.

"Cold as a well digger's ar*se", a colleague suggested.

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".