单项选择题

Why should the British be so interested in the vagaries of their climate The key lies in its unpredictability. Its swings of mood don’t bear out its dull reputation at all. Far from always having the drizzly, mediocre summers and mild, wet winters of popular misconception, British weather can switch rapidly from drought to flood, damp cold to oppressive heat. Each dramatic change catches Britons on the hop.
The summer of 1976 contained the longest spell of continuous heat, while in August 1990 temperatures reached the highest ever recorded: 98.8°F (37.1℃). Hurricanes in 1987 and 1990 caused several deaths and uprooted thousands of trees, Western film style dust "devils" have blown through the lanes of Surrey, and waves higher than a double-decker bus submerged a seaside town in Wales.
Such violent extremes are made all the harder to bear because national habits, buildings and clothing are simply not designed to cope with them. Few homes or offices have fans or air conditioning to alleviate the summer’s heat. In winter, heating and insulation systems work at half-cock, while road and rail networks inevitably come to a standstill in anything more than an inch of snow (British Rail, brought to a halt by one light snowfall, said it was the "wrong kind" of snow). Unwary motorists, villagers and livestock disappear under mounds of drifting snow in a manner that puzzles Continentals used to handling such seasonal hazards.
The British have a strange pride in describing their childhood bedrooms in winter. These were often of such incredible coldness that parental false teeth and pet goldfish supposedly froze solid in their water overnight. They like to pretend to ignore the weather. They would prefer to pit themselves against the worst the elements can throw at them, rather than make themselves comfortable, which would be wimpish.
So, in summer’s oven heat, they do not hide in tree-shaded piazzas or close their shutters to keep the tiled floor cool. Their cities are designed to ensure that streets become sweltering canyons, while over-furnished homes become more stuffy. In winter, people frequently dress inadequately, as if out of bravado. Women slush through icy pavements to the shops wearing carpet slippers. Men sweat in summer traffic jams in heavyweight synthetic suits, tie only slightly loosened.
How do Britons behave when there is extreme weather