Near the end of June, I’m going to a conference at the University of Exeter (in England). The information posted about the area notes that “June is generally a warm and pleasant month to visit Exeter. With temperatures ranging from 19° Celsius and lows at around 11°C with temperatures getting higher near the end of the month.”
Converting that to Fahrenheit (the temperature scale to which my intuitions are calibrated in matters of “dressing for the weather”), we’re looking at lows around 53 oF ranging to highs (?) around 66 oF. Maybe that’s warm June weather for England, but in this part of California, that’s chilly.
Indeed, since it was about 66 oF when it was time to retrieve the younger Free-Ride offspring from the afterschool program, I walked over without a jacket or a sweater. I shivered the whole way there and the whole way back.
On that walk back the younger Free-Ride offspring (speaking from the comfort of a fuzzy winter coat) said, “You should get ready for England by spending a lot of time in a room that’s kept at 66 oF. Eating ice cream and drinking ice water.”
“Or I could just dress for the weather,” I countered. “It’s just that packing to dress for the weather might require a bigger piece of luggage than what I originally planned. Probably fewer summer dresses and more trousers and sweaters.”
“But if this is a business trip,” the younger Free-Ride offspring said sternly, “you should be bringing suits. And tights, to keep your legs warm.”
“But this is a meeting of philosophers of science,” I said. “Dressing professionally does not require a suit.”
“For philosophers of science,” said the younger Free-Ride offspring, “I think you should wear a suit, and tights (to keep your legs warm), and a white lab coat over it.”
Dear readers, the sad thing is that I am halfway considering taking this advice. After all, the younger Free-Ride offspring’s fashion sense is better developed than my own, and a lab coat would provide an additional layer of warmth.
The more I hear about who’s going to be at SPSP and Bielefeld this summer, the more frustrated I feel about my university’s stingy summer support for grad students. (No summer stipends -> Dan has to work to pay for both food and car -> Dan has to work while much excellent philosophy happens at Exeter and Bielefeld.)
Anyway, having contributed to my share of excellent (or at least entertaining) philosophy this past weekend, I can report very few suits and even fewer lab coats being worn by fashionable philosophers this season. Henry Richardson, Matt Brown, and Miriam Solomon are notable exceptions, all being very snappy dressers. Tights not being normative for my gender performance, I didn’t take notice of whether they were standard apparel. My lightly stained cords and obviously-bought-at-Goodwill-several-years-ago plaid shirts seemed unremarkable. Perhaps the Younger Free-Ride Offspring has confused philosophers with bench-scientists-at-work? Philosophy conferences would certain be more exciting if they included lab demos.
According to a non-philosopher friend who crashed the conference to watch my talk, philosophers are readily identified by the shoes we wear. This comment was not explained, and produced much consternation among the group of philosophers to whom it was proffered. These philosophers were wearing well-worn loafers and/or tennis shoes at the time.
I have to say, in my experience, lab coats really don’t offer that much in the way of extra warmth. Maybe a lab coat with a fleece underlayer?
19 sounds just about perfect. We keep our homes at around 20 degrees in winter after all, and people find that comfortable. For me, anything over 25 is getting uncomfortably hot; I sleep badly, get headaches and become grumpy(-ier) from the heat.
As a migrated brit I can confirm the UK version of pleasantly warm and breezy is. NOT what I would now call same. Having been in Memphis for 6 years, when I go back to the UK in the summer I pack for a PA/NY fall… and yes, I get mocked :/
My childhood best friend grew up with me around Chicago. She has done moved to Dallas and spawned. Now her husband had to transfer to Atlanta. She was complaining about 66 F as ‘so cold’. It is currently snowing where I am (in @$&**%@ APRIL!). I am… unsympathetic.
Thus proving two things
1) One adapts relatively quickly to a local climate. It’s not just those nutters out in Cali who never knew any better who get this way.
2) Texas ruins everything, even top quality Chicagoan sense of weather.
You think your weather is weird? The weather in Virginia is BIPOLAR this month.
We’ve had weeks where the temperature has roughly alternated between 40F, 60F, and 80F.
Take a good raincoat too. Exeter is on the wetter side of the country.
If you’ll be in Bielefeld, will you be coming through Frankfurt?
Take a good raincoat too. Exeter is on the wetter side of the country.
The UK. Wet and Wetter.
Well … if you want to fit in, don’t forget those summer dresses. As soon as there is sunshine, even at only around 17 degrees C people start wearing shorts and having bbqs in the park. Yes, that happened last week. However, in the sun it is pleasantly warm …
The humidity will be a lot higher than in California. It makes a big difference to the apparent temperature.
I remember someone sending me a Scottish newspaper headline a couple of year ago: “Scotland suffers under 20 degree heatwave”.
Be glad you’re going to the south of England!
I say go with the lab coat set. Life is too short to take it all seriously, all the time.
Ah, the good old game of “guess the English weather”! If we get a high pressure system like the one sitting on us now in June, it could be up into the 30s (with, as noted, high humidity in the muggy estuary that is Exeter). Or, if there’s a freaky cold snap, it could be near freezing (with the possibility of overnight frosts on Dartmoor). Since this is the wet side of the country, it could rain all day every day for the whole trip. Or we may get a drought. Exeter doesn’t get too much bad fog, and snow or sleet is unlikely, but hail is a possibility in the summer, although not enough to be a serious hazard. If it’s early June, it’s just about possible that the buildings you’ll be in won’t have got round to turning off the heating yet (yes, I’ve been in public buildings still heating the rooms 5C above ambient all summer long, because the janitor is ill or on holiday, and no-one else knows where the boiler controls are or how they work). Equally, the air con may be set to 15C in every room. Or there may be no air conditioning at all, and no windows that open, either. Or it’s 12C outside, and the heating is turned /off/. I think we tend to assume that you’re used to dealing with wildly varying and often uncomfortable conditions if you live here.
I suggest layering pieces. Pack lightweight dresses, tights or leggings, and nice cardigans, jackets or shawls. If you’re going outside in the evenings, you may want a proper coat. Waterproofs (especially the sort that folds up small that you can stick in a decent-sized handbag) are a very good idea.