Keeping warm in the Icy North

So you've been waking up with snow up to your belly button...
You're obviously not on this half of the planet, so today we're helping you with some tips on surviving the truly superchilled days. 

• Firstly, set the oven to your preferred heat and pop in your clothes for the next day. Be sure to avoid synthetics if you want to look good. When you get dressed in the morning you'll be ready to face the world like a Viking. (If you've been reading the blog you might have spotted a trend here)

• Find a tanker of high strength alcohol, set it to freeze in blocks on your front yard, or large balcony. Make an igloo out of it all (the exercise will keep you warm) and stand there admiring your work. Then set in on fire. There's nothing quite like fire and ice. Make sure you have a very large glass inside to catch the melting drops & when the spectacle has ended find the glass and warm yourself from the inside. Better still, ensure you have 2 glasses and warm up with company.

• If you don't have a sauna or hot tub, find someone or somewhere who does. It needs to be close to the great outdoors so once you've taken as much heat as you can, you can run outside and roll in the snow. Naked of course - there is no other way. I know of a spot in Sweden where there is a sauna on a frozen lake, you take a dip in the water through a hole made in the ice, then rush back to the sauna and do it all over again. Addictive.

• Exercise, sure you might need skins, jackets, thermonuclear underwear, but get out there and move, and have a lot of fun. Cross country skiing is my personal favourite in the white stuff.

• Create an instant party. Phone up a collection of your friends, ask them to bring along something hot, if it's a hot guy then all the better, hot chillies, roasts, heaters, firewood, hot movies... whatever it takes and have a Superchilled HOT PARTY. If you get snowed in,  keep on partying. 

• Still not warm? Click on this link, or one like it and get yourself out of there. Of course you need to find an airport, train, bus or ocean-liner that's accessible and heading south. Go as far as you can. Australia is pretty cheap to travel right now where you can double your money given our current exchange rates. Oh and with Mardi Gras happening over the next month (or for Mardi Gras in Rio - it's February 21-24) there are lots of hot reasons to getaway from the chill.