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

Normal body temperature is 98.6°F. If a liquid is at, or close to, body temperature you shouldn't be able to tell whether it's hot or cold, in fact you can hardly feel it all. The water coming out of the cold water tap in my sink is at 92°F, and it feels hot to me. In fact when I take a shower I have the mixer tap set so low that I honestly don't think there's any hot water coming out of it at all, and it feels comfortable.

I'm a wraith

I'd say that your skin temperature is rarely the same as your core body temperature. Which explains why you measure body temperature in your mouth/ear/butt/armpit.

So, lukewarm doesn't equal core body temperature, but your skin temperature.

However, should you core temperature come down to 92, without you feeling any worse, I'd say you are probably a zombie.

Oh no, anything but a zombie How about a barrow-wight

I'd also guess that your skin/surface temp is a lot differnt to the core body temp, given your climate out there at the moment In the winter here, when its really* 'winter' I can happily shower with very very little, or no cold water from the taps, just teh hot water from the boiler... which is set to about 70 or 65 (can't remember now we've got a new boiler which it is), C... Although I have been known to burn my scalp when I do that, but the rest of me doesn't seem to mind it at all Going the other way though, in the summer, I can only take the temp of the shower down so* far, before I find it uncomfortable
Zombiefication sounds like the other, plausible explination to me... any strange cravings to eat braun or brain?

Maybe it's a northern European reaction to the Texas heat - your body's jonesing for some proper coldness...you're subconsciously pining for the fjords.

And no cravings for brain on toast, devilled brain, chilli con brain, brain madras or anything similar

So, the idea of using your fingers or elbow to judge when a liquid is at 98F is pretty much bumkum then?

I've heard of a couple of men who died of hypothermia in the middle of summer not far from here, just down the coast from Galveston.

It was back in the 80's. There were three people, two men and one woman, on a small sail boat in Christmas bay. It's a pretty shallow bay, like Galveston bay with a few small islets popping up here and there. They approached one of these and the two men hopped off to pull the boat ashore. Unfortunately both thought the other had grabbed the rope apparently and the boat drifted away on the wind with the lady on board. She had no idea how to sail. She was rescued just an hour or two later by a fishing boat. She had no idea how to find the island again so the search was put off until the next day. No one figured the men were in any serious danger. The next day they found both men dead. They had apparently dug holes in the shallows and crouched down in them. What must have happened was that they were trying to escape the swarms of mosquitoes. The water temperature was in the mid 80's but that's still cold enough for hypothermia after being submerged in it for several hours.

Aut who uses their elbow to test that water is 98°F? The elbow in the baby's bath is only to tell if it's too warm for the baby, and again the skin is much cooler than their inner temperature.

Are you sure you're not a zombie? No cravings for faggots, for example, could mean you're a little bit zombified.

I thought it was room temperature you couldn't feel the water? Which would tie in with skin temperature...

Skin temperature is around 33C/91F with slightly lower at your extremities, it's core body temp at 37C/98.6F, so sticking your hand in 92F water will make it feel hotter than your skin.

How's your shower temerature? I can get a nice, cool temp in the shower then when I stick my head under, it feels freezing - lots of blood vessels in the scalp!

Summer has not abated here yet - 38C/100F and 85% humidity today

38C?! I just couldn't cope with that... at all...

I'm not wild about it either, which is why I probably have vitamin D deficiency from not leaving the apartment for three days at a time and getting any currant bun on my skin (which probably means I'm as a pale as a wraith ), but 85% humidity? I guess that's inevitable when you live on an island the size of Cyprus. When it gets up to 100° here the humidity is usually in the 20s or teens per cent.

We're running about 6C above normal temp at the moment, September is normally a gorgeous month but it was horribly overcast and sweaty today, we're about a mile from the coast in one direction, 2 miles in another - seemingly first thunderstorms of the year due Wednesday which will be a welcome relief though no rain forecast, the temp should drop to 33C/91F.

We are in a bit of a valley with fields all around and if we get up as the sun comes up, it is bizarre seeing the thick fog rising from the fields when you know that an hour later the heat will be horrendous.

You can't be any more ghost-like than me, I'm a redhead in a hot country and never leave the house without long sleeves & factor 50!

100F with 85% humidity? Mrs B, you'd feel right at home in the midwest!

Or Houston

I walked out of my apartment this morning before dawn and instantly started sweating.

Since then, it's improved a bit. It's only 92F and the breeze has picked up. I think the humidity must have dropped significantly since 6:00 am.

According to the gubmint, it was 74F and 97% at 6am at Houston International Airport, but 80F and 82% at Houston Hobby. Either way, that's unpleasant.

I'm not sure what our humidity was when I left at 6 am, but I had to grab my flannel shirt out of the hatch when I stopped for gas. Bit nippy overnight here, lately. But we'll have mid 90s back by the end of the week.

It was 80%, broe http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KSTL.html

And 62°F

This could end badly.

I just used up the last of the jar of mayonnaise that I've been working my way through for several months... well, it's probably more than that - you'll understand why in a moment or two.

Any road up. I didn't have quite enough so I went to the pantry where I keep a spare jar and opened it up. As I was spooning a little into the dish I noticed it was a slightly different colour to the mayo I'd already spooned out from the jar that has been in the fridge all this time - a bit darker. Then I noticed that the top eighth of an inch of the jar was the same. I smelled it - not quite right, but not off, although maybe a slight hint of gloss paint. So I scooped the top dark layer off and spooned out some of the, er, good stuff, mixed in my tuna and spread it on my sandwiches.

Then I thought to myself "I wonder what the sell-by date is, because it's been a while since I bought a jar of mayo." May 31st 2013 Which is the same as the jar I just finished, but that one's been in the fridge all this time... and that's just when it occurred to me that the new jar felt slightly warm to the touch when I took it out of the pantry.

My kitchen cupboards get pretty warm during the summer because, as far as I can tell, there's little or no insulation in the loft space and the Texas sun beats down on the roof all summer long. So I think what I have here is no longer mayonnaise, but Homer Simpson's special sauce - "Take a jar of mayonnaise and leave it in the sun for four hours" DISCLAIMER: I may well be remembering that completely wrong but I don't care - it's funny and I can't be arsed to look it up.

So if you don't hear from me for a few days, yes, I probably am dead after all.