See why wearing a coat will probably mark you out as an outsider

No blog on the North East of England would be complete without a mention of the weather. Yes, it's colder, wetter and windier than most of the rest of the United Kingdom and definitely more so than the rest of England, although the North West may challenge it on the rain front.

The arctic wind off the North Sea is what changes everything for me. It literally transforms whatever other weather conditions already present. For example, a cold winters day of around 5 or 6 degrees centigrade feels like minus 5 or 6 when the wind factor is added. On a cold wintry day the wind does feel as though it is blowing straight through you. Even in the Summer, when the wind off the North Sea is present it can quickly become coat weather.

But this is where the people of the North East differ from everywhere else I've been  in this country, indeed everywhere else I've been in the world. What you or I would consider cost weather barely raises a jacket in North East England. Walk through the local town centre on one of these minus-5-or-6-feeling days and many of the men will be wearing just a t-shirt and maybe a pair of shorts; the women often in a short-sleeved top. You definitely feel and look like the visitor from Outer Space as you walk around in a coat.

The next level is a trip to a football match for one of the local teams - Sunderland, Middlesbrough or Newcastle United. There will be thousands upon thousands of fans at the stadiums throughout the winter months wearing only the shirt of their favoured team. The weather can be frightful, the fans can have walked miles to get to the match but week in, week out the required outfit is a football shirt.

I went to university in another northern town, North West this time, and in my halls of residence I became friendly with 2 guys from the North East. One was from Newcastle and the other from a small town near Northallerton. We walked a long a cold, rainy and windy January seafront one night, about two miles to a pool bar further into the town centre. Being North Easterners, my friends wore their standard uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. When we got to the pool bar there were bouncers on the door (it was that type of town) and they stopped us.

"Not really dressed for it, are we boys!"

"Oh. We didn't realise there was a dress code."

"There isn't. It's just that it's bloody freezing and you two are wearing t-shirts."

And for me, this exchange sums up the North East, weather and clothing.

Temperature figures

The North East of England is noted for it's weather, usually as some sort of insult from those that live in the South. The temperature figures show a few differences but nothing life-altering. I've taken these figures from the Met Office website (what else have they to do now the BBC won't be using them) and you can search your own UK places here - http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate/

I've used London and Newcastle as being indicative of the South East and the North East, although London figures will always be slightly skewed due to the size of the city and the activity levels.

London

Month	Max. temp (°C)	Min. temp (°C)	Days of air frost (days)	Sunshine (hours)	Rainfall (mm)	Days of rainfall >= 1 mm (days)
Jan	8.1	3.1	6.6	44.7	41.6	11.4
Feb	8.6	2.7	7.6	65.4	36.3	8.5
Mar	11.6	4.6	2.8	101.7	40.3	9.8
Apr	14.6	5.9	0.8	148.3	40.1	9.0
May	18.1	8.9	0.1	170.9	44.9	9.2
Jun	21.0	11.8	0.0	171.4	47.4	7.4
Jul	23.4	13.7	0.0	176.7	34.6	6.3
Aug	23.1	13.8	0.0	186.1	54.3	8.1
Sep	20.0	11.4	0.0	133.9	51.0	8.6
Oct	15.5	8.8	0.4	105.4	61.1	10.9
Nov	11.3	5.8	2.7	59.6	57.5	10.9
Dec	8.4	3.4	7.6	45.8	48.4	9.5
Annual	15.3	7.8	28.6	1410.0	557.4	109.4

Newcastle

Month	Max. temp (°C)	Min. temp (°C)	Days of air frost (days)	Sunshine (hours)	Rainfall (mm)	Days of rainfall >= 1 mm (days)
Jan	7.2	2.2	5.9	61.1	45.5	9.8
Feb	7.3	2.2	6.1	81.6	37.8	7.6
Mar	9.0	3.3	2.6	117.7	43.9	8.7
Apr	10.3	4.8	0.7	149.9	45.4	8.2
May	12.7	7.2	0.1	191.7	43.2	8.3
Jun	15.6	10.0	0.0	183.0	51.9	8.7
Jul	18.1	12.3	0.0	185.7	47.6	8.6
Aug	18.1	12.3	0.0	174.9	59.6	9.2
Sep	16.1	10.4	0.0	141.1	53.0	8.1
Oct	13.2	7.7	0.1	106.2	53.6	10.7
Nov	9.7	4.9	1.7	70.4	62.8	11.6
Dec	7.4	2.5	6.5	51.9	52.9	10.1
Annual	12.1	6.7	23.6	1515.0	597.2	109.5

There are differences, but they are subtle. Annual Average Maximum temperatures (daytime) are 3.2 degrees warmer in London, and Average Minimum Temperatures (nighttime) are 1.1 degrees warmer. Over the course of a year, London receives 105 hours more sunshine than Newcastle but only 0.1 days less of rain. One areas of real surprise was that Londoners experience 5 days a year more air frost than the inhabitants of Newcastle-upon-Tyne - which may well explain the t-shirts that Geordies insist on wearing all year round.

Wear what you feel you need to keep warm, but be aware on a visit to the North East of England that if you wear a coat then you'll probably be in the minority.

Road users are ruthless, not reckless

When you get on to the roads of the North East you will notice that the drivers here are ruthless. When I say ruthless, I mean that like many aspects of North East life there are no prisoners taken. It's not particularly dangerous (it's not dangerous at all when you've got used to it) but all the courtesy has been taken out of driving.

I've driven in the South East and on the roads of London and there are some drivers there that I would call reckless rather than ruthless. Some London and South East drivers see every part of the road as a race or contest and will cut you up, undertake you and throw whatever abuse at you think will get themselves to their destination 20 seconds earlier. Every roundabout, every set of lights becomes a duel if you let them get to you. But with that there is sometimes a strange courtesy of not blocking road ends, letting people through and saying thanks with a smile and a wave.

Back to the North East and these things don't exist. As a recent arrival to this part of the World I don't know if these courtesies used to happen and have died out or never happened at all. My thoughts are that it never happened at all. For example, the road end thing really got me when I first moved up here. It happens when you're travelling along a main road where the traffic is slow and frequently stopping. You pass other, smaller roads that have to give way to get into your slow main road. The traffic comes to a half and the car in front of you stops just past the smaller side road. Do you-

A - Stop before the smaller road, leaving a gap so that card can get in and out if the smaller road

B - Stop over the smaller road to ensure that no one gets out of the road in front of you and putting you further back in the queue

Now I can't claim to have driven extensively in all parts of the UK but my experience tells me that if you chose option A then you are a driver from the South East and if you chose option B then you are a driver from the North East.

I'm not here to judge which way is correct or tell people how to drive - I've made it my role to offer guidance to a visitor to the North East from Outer Space. And being pre-warned about any aspects of life here is useful for a visitor.

It's symptomatic of the wider role that courtesy has in our society. I don't think that people from the North East are generally any more spiteful to each other than in any other part of the country. It's just the way of life here. Covering the end of the road, pulling out on someone, not letting people pass through a small gap first are hardly ever followed with the sounding of the horn, tempered voices, swear words and raised fists. It's just accepted that the other person was acting within the rules of the road and was just a bit more ruthless this time.

As an observer from outside the area, I find a lot of this interesting and amusing. As I've said, once you get used to it the danger mostly falls by the wayside - not to say that there's never any dangerous drivers or never any accidents. It's more to say that the initiated can see what's coming.

And I think that this get on with it and accept what others do on the road feels like a healthier attitude than making every road trip a stressful and competitive trial where the most ruthless wins.

But the figures don't really back that up. The only road traffic accident casualty figures I can find that actually break down the figures by Region are these from the BBC website-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720

The figures show deaths on the road in each local authority from 1999-2010. The closest local authorities from North East and South East I can find are Barking & Dagenham and Stockton-on-Tees, with the two being only a couple of thousand residents apart. In the years covered by the figures, Barking & Dagenham had 68 casualties and Stockton-on-Tees had 71. Looking at larger local authorities, there isn't much difference in terms of population size between Lewisham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There isn't much difference in road casualties either, with Lewisham showing 79 for the period and Newcastle-upon-Tyne showing 80.

It all goes to show that maybe the North East England driving style isn't any safer or more dangerous but it feels a lot more relaxed.

My next blog edition will be our next week and I'll take a look at another aspect of North East England life that will be useful for a visitor from Outer Space,