What keeps couples warm in winter? The battle over the thermostat | Zoe Williams

The UK has suddenly gone from summer heat to shivering cold and across the land the annual arguments have begun

My dad had one weird pocket of chauvinism in an otherwise solid worldview, which was that men and women did not, and could not, like the same films. My sister once told him that she couldn't imagine going out with someone with a completely different taste in cinema, and he said: In that case, you are destined to marry someone who lies to keep you happy, and there are worse people you could end up married to."

Take out the nonsense gender essentialism - indeed, gender altogether - and films, substitute any couple" and central heating", and I'm pretty much with him. There is no such thing as a couple who wants their house the same temperature, and there are definitely couples who lie to keep each other happy.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist