No. A cold is a virus infection, caught from other people. Being cold may make you a little more vulnerable, but the main reason colds are commoner in winter is that people huddle closer together and ventilate rooms less. If fresh air is blowing through the room, viruses are blown away. If doors and windows are shut, they hang around.

Actually, contrary to popular belief, a new study carried out at Cardiff University's Common Cold Centre has found that being cold (or out in the cold), can actually bring on a common cold. This study contradicts previous studies carried out which ruled out a link between the viral infection and body temperature. However, the study merely indicated that the cold allowed the dormant virus to take hold of the body. Being cold didn't make the virus 'inhabit' the body in the first place. When colds are circulating in the community many people are mildly infected but show no symptoms. If the people become cold this causes a pronounced constriction of the blood vessels in the nose and shuts off the warm blood that supplies the white cells that fight infection. The reduced defences in the nose let the virus strengthen and common cold symptoms develop. During the study, people were asked to sit with their feet in a bowl of ice cold water for 20 minutes. Over the next five days 29 per cent of those with cold feet suffered a cold, while only nine per cent of a control group that put their feet in empty bowls developed the illness. So if you wrap up warm, the cold might not take hold of you and you're less likely to feel any symptoms than you would if you'd been cold...

I don't catch a lot of colds, but I think mine are about evenly divided between summer and winter. So that sort of blows the "being out in cold weather" theory for me. And summer colds feel worse to me.

No