We've been enjoying the annual farce of (not much) snow on the roads.
Why is it that as soon as two or three snowflakes are gathered together, our friends in the meedger lose what little sense they had? Dire warnings on local radio about traffic chaos and hardship have been a little hard to take when one can look out of the window and see that while the lawn may have half-an-inch of snow on it, the road is clear and wet, not slippery at all, and that traffic is flowing normally.
Our weather forecasters are partly to blame. The promised cold snap turned out to be a damp squib, otherwise the roads might have been worse. I know weather forecasting is still an uncertain science, but you'd think they'd learn, wouldn't you? That as one year follows another and the weather is never as bad as they'd expected, they'd twig that they were getting something not quite right?
And our friends in the police! Naturally enough we've all become inured to the warnings "stay at home unless your journey is really necessary" and largely ignore them. In any case, do they think we all spend our time joyriding round the country just for the fun of it? Don't they know we all have to get to work for God's sake? And when did you last hear a police spokesman saying "Yes, the roads were a bit slippery but drivers realised this and drove accordingly"? No, if you listen to the police we all wait until there's a little snow-fall before leaping into our cars and pretending we're at Brands Hatch, shouting "Whee! Look at me!" because we are all idiots/morons and etc. Seems to me the police would be very happy if the roads carried no traffic at all. I suppose that would make their jobs much easier. Years ago when I was a teacher we used to say to each other in the staffroom that schools would be lovely places to work provided there weren't any pupils.
When are we going to admit to ourselves that in this country we don't get proper snow and ice, not like Scandinavia, Switzerland, Austria etc. and certainly not like we had when I was a boy? We had real snow then. I don't remember people being hysterical about it though. And you don't hear the Swiss police telling drivers to stay off the roads in case they get their cars wet.
Now, in case any of you think I'm overstating the case and that we really do have problems, here are some pictures of real weather from Newfoundland ...
Keep warm (well, hot under the collar, anyway) by reading these news stories ....
What people in other countries think about us
Help, help, more snow on the way! We're all going to die!
Why they close the schools
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