I attempt to buy a draught excluder

"I have never been as cold as I was in England", say Canadians, despite the fact that they live in temperatures of up to -20 80% of the year. This is because Canadians understand for e.g. insulation, central heating etc, for the simple reason that they have to, otherwise they would die.

In London, I lived for over one year with a large hole in my kitchen window. The bedroom window never really shut properly and I have at least two friends who do not have central heating at all. When the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I live and I visit our friends in Blighty, he packs triple-thickness thermals and resigns himself to night after night of dust and draughts, damp, and thin layers of ice on the inside of the window.

But what is this? My otherwise excellently-appointed flat in Montreal is what I call "Old For Canada", i.e. nearly 100 years old. On the whole it is quite warm, fuelled mainly by the anger that our neighbours' yakking dogs generate in our hearts, but there is a draft that comes in from under the balcony doors and that draft is mighty cold. (There is a difference between a draft that comes in from -20 and a draft that comes in from -2, oh yes indeed.)

"We need one of those things", says the increasingly mystifying French-Canadian veterinary research pathologist. "Things?", I say, peering over a first edition of Down with Skool and sipping from a glass of sweet sherry; "what THINGS?". "One of the things that keeps the air out", says the pathologist, who is French-Canadian and 99.99% bilingual. "Long, looks like a dog."

He means a draught excluder!! But I am cynical about his statement that they "look like a dog". Surely they come in other animals? But apparently not. A cursory glance at the results that come up for "draught excluder" offer me a world of canine choice, whether or not the draught excluder is in the form of an actual dog. (The tartan one, you may be interested to know, comes from Mulberry and costs, yes, £115.)























































































But this is not helping me, for I am still draught-excluder-less. Does anyone have any excluder-tips? I would like something effective, attractive, and not featuring the face of Sting. Dogs are OK, but not frightening tapestry Jack Russells that look like Satan, nothing 'cute', and not bloody £115 of Mulberry.  These are rather sweet, looking, as they do, as if they were handmade by an old lady, but they are cats - and cats make me angry.

Yours in the wind,

NWM