William Jefferson Hague did take Ffion Llywelyn Jenkins to be his lawful First Lady of Opposition yesterday at 2pm in the chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster. Hibernating animals generally have lower values of coat insulation. While the quality of insulation correlates quite strongly with the thickness of the coat, it is clear this is not the sole determinant of winter warmth. Open-necked shirt, shorts and sandals are 0.2 clo; suit,thick overcoat, warm woolly underwear, hat, lined gloves and sweater, between 3 and 3.5.Laboratory experiments have determined the insulating values of different animals’ coats, as indicated in the table, which show that a sheep is four times as well insulated as a weasel.

A business suit, with cotton underwear and no coat, or a dress with slip, bra, panties and tights, rates about one clo. Animals grow a winter coat or hibernate (when reduced oxygen consumption leads to reduced metabolic activity and a body temperature maintained at survival level) while humans wear clothes.If you want to be scientific about your shopping, the unit you need to specify is the “clo” – defined as the amount of insulation that permits a heat flux from the body through a garment of 1 kcal per square metre per hour with a temperature difference of 0.18C between the inner and outer surface of the fabric. Biometeorology is the science that deals with the effects of the atmosphere on living organisms. Research has even revealed the relative insulating capacities of the winter coats of different animals. I have just come across a charming table of information (see below).

It can be found in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology in the entry on Biometeorology, and it lists the relative insulation quality of the winter coats of selected mammals:
Humans and other warm-blooded animals are in a constant battle to maintain thermal equilibrium. We gain heat from metabolism, but suffer a net loss through heat exchange with the environment. We have had to evolve strategies to cope with changing climate throughout the year. I’m convinced that we’ll return to a situation where interesting repertoire ultimately rules over compilation albums and heavily-marketed artists. Meanwhile, there’s nothing for people like me to do but continue exploring what we are sure is fine music.

The most important thing is to give good live performances to the largest and most enthusiastic audiences possible. And that is worth 10,000 record sales to me.”Stephen Layton conducts: Handel’s `Messiah’, with Ian Bostridge, Catherine Bott, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and MIchael George, 7.30pm tomorrow; with James Bowman, Emma Kirkby, John Mark Ainsley and David Wilson-Johnson, 7.30pm Tues; Bach’s `Christmas Oratorio’, with Bott, Wyn-Rogers, Wilson-Johnson and James Gilchrist, 7.30pm Sun At St John’s Smith Square, London SW1 Booking: 0171-222 1061. “Although I’m as guilty as anybody else in this, the obsession with stitching together a `perfect’ recording is anti-musical. Layton’s discography now includes Grainger’s Jungle Book settings, a disc of obscure yet magnificent Russian and eastern European works, Britten’s Christ’s Nativity, Rutter’s Requiem, memorable Holst and Vaughan Williams recitals, and choral input to Graham Johnson’s complete survey of Schubert songs.”To record is considered as the main sign of success today,” Layton observes, “because you simply need these `calling- cards’, even though the market is flooded with releases.”The number of edits in an average recording is quite frightening,” he adds. Layton worked with both choirs in concert for many years before moving into the recording studio – and, when eventually he did, repertoire was, he says, the key.Ted Perry, boss of Hyperion Records, was convinced by his unbridled passion for the choral music of Percy Grainger and by the strength of Polyphony’s first disc of it for the label, opening the door to future recording projects. Surely a record contract would do wonders for raising the choir’s profile? “I think it’s unwise to record with any group you’ve only just taken on,” he replies, “so I have no plans to record until at least the year 2000.” That’s typical of his festina lente approach, supported by the slow-burn recording careers of Polyphony and the Holst Singers. He has also assimilated the use of authentic instruments, full-throated “Continental” choral tone and a sense of adventurous programme-planning into his own work, which differs sharply from the days when George Thalben- Ball directed the Temple Choir and boy treble Ernest Lough in their classic pre-war recording of O for the Wings of a Dove.Mention of Lough’s best-selling disc leads to an obvious question about Layton’s plans for today’s Temple Church choristers.

“I still remember the vivid impression Tavener’s Ultimos Ritos made on me when we performed it in the 1970s. I was incredibly lucky to have the chance to perform contemporary works and sing with early music orchestras when I was a boy.”Layton smiles when he recalls the pioneering period-instrument players employed for Neary’s Winchester Bach concerts; many have since appeared under his own direction as members of the Brandenburg Consort and Canzona. Neary, who now holds Henry Purcell’s old job at Westminster Abbey, used to spice the Winchester choir’s daily diet of psalm singing with healthy portions of new music by Jonathan Harvey and John Tavener (whose Song for Athene he so poignantly featured in Princess Diana’s funeral servive), as well as “authentic” revivals of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, sung in German and using period instruments.The young Layton’s abiding concerns for choral accuracy and ensemble discipline, confirmed as he passed through Eton and King’s College, were set at Winchester. It’s a piece that is absolutely central to the English choral tradition and to my understanding of it.”Layton “fixed” his first Messiah while still up at King’s, booking James Bowman and Emma Kirkby among his soloists, and repeating the work annually since with Polyphony, first at St Martin-in-the-Fields, now at St John’s, Smith Square.He recalls his time as a chorister at Winchester Cathedral under the direction of Martin Neary.