Many, many years ago.

Many, many years ago I was one of about three million who lived in a typical New Zealand house.

The house was a bungalow-type, single glazed and insulated by an air layer between the bricks and the interior wall linings and between the ceiling and the building paper lining the roof tiles.

The house was heated by the sweat of occupants' brows; coal was delivered by the truckload and had to be brought inside, wood was chopped usually twice, once when first brought to the house for stacking and again to usable size pieces prior to being brought inside.

Like most my age my winter trousers were usually (but not always) purchased and repaired in the home when required and throughout the winter, inside (most of the time) and outside (all the time) we wore hand knitted jerseys.

My only coat until I started work was an old hand-me-down gabardine one that started off as my father's and worked it's way down.

We slept under old blankets in unheated beds, in unheated rooms, getting up early each morning to help prepare breakfast usually of oat or wheatbix with warmed milk.

More often than not cold was worked off, even as a child, by restocking firewood, coal etc. before leaving for school or work.

During the day the home was aired and dried by opening the single-glazed windows.

At the end of the day the cold made you appreciate the hot, home-made soup that made up a significant proportion of the evening meal.

I'm buggered if I know how I (we) survived!

Now global warming has hit.

No longer is it safe to live in single-glazed, uninsulated homes.

Warming is done, not by that global warming but by whinging until someone else fixes it for you.