h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I mentioned elsewhere that I've heard that Highland Scots used to wet their woolen kilts (to sleep in?) because it was warmer. Is that true?

Dunno, but it's the kind of mental thing them up north would do

The excuses the sheepshaggers will come up with to justify their toilet habits never cease to amaze me.

Is this a suggestion for an afternoon activity for Towel Day?

I think you'd be BARMY to do that.

Most well made kilts are waterproof, anyway. But wetting your kilt would mean that you'd end up getting COLDER because of the wet. o.o

Where on earth did you hear this, may I ask?

If the story's true, it'd have been a plaid rather than a kilt.

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I think you're confusing us with the Welsh.

>>Is this a suggestion for an afternoon activity for Towel Day? <<

I was thinking more for the next SRG meet


Teuchter, what's the difference between plaid and a kilt? I was meaning the long bit of fabric that was folded and wrapped round the body, held in place with a belt, with a bit that goes over the shoulder. Is that a plaid?


I'm not sure where I heard it but Robyn Hoode has heard the same thing and she's in the UK. Wool does have some interesting insulation properties.

Actually wool, and some fleece material, will still keep you warm while wet so it should be ok. Although I doubt you'd want to do it if you had a nice warm hovel to sleep in.

Ok. it's like this; you're part of an army of 30,000 of the most savage people remaining in Europe.
You're on your way to commit suicidal war against the most advanced people the world has yet seen; are you really going to be able to find a nice warm hovel for your 30,000, or are you going to tough it out, like the savage you are, and hope your Chieftain doesn't have you beheaded for behaving like a wee Southern softie?
It's going to be wet; that's for sure.
But if you can't take a joke you should never have been a Highlander in the first place. Peeing in it in the middle of the night might even give some momentary warmth, but compared to the hell you know you're about to meet, it makes very little difference indeed.

Sure, but I wasn't meaning the ability to tough it out *if the wool got wet. What I'd heard is that when on the move Highlander's intentionally made the kilt wet because it was warmer to sleep in it that way. Now it could be a load of bollix, or it could make sense given the ways in which wool acts as an insulator.

Sorry, pal... too scientific for me. I know, as all Northern European people, and even sheep, know, that wool is a good method for keeping warm. I daresay the sheep don't have many warm hovels to cower in, and most of the time their fleece will be wet to the extreme, but if it works for them...

Just another thought... water has a very high limit for thermal conductivity; 4200 Joules per Kilo springs to mind.As long as it is kept in place, and not travelling across the skin, it will be an insulator rather than a means of loss of heat: so your theory of wet wool's effectiveness in slowing or stopping this relative movement may have some grounding in fact.
I only know that as a 14-year-old boy, I slept every night for 2 weeks on the concrete forecastle deck of a 28-ft fishing boat, with near-freezing water running all night directly beneath me, and in contact with my clothes; perhaps thanks to my mostly-woollen garments, I not only survived, but felt rather invigorated in the mornings, when I had to shovel the snow off the upper deck.
No mention of Kilts, you will have noticed.