Snow

It would appear, if one was to refer only to newspapers and the media, that the whole of the UK is currently in a state of emergency and is completely overwhelmed by snow. That bastion of British media - the good 'ol BBC - kindly informed us on Monday that "Britain has ground to a halt", following a massive extreme weather 'event'. Which made the general observation "It's been snowing" sound like it should have been accompanied by fanfares, ticker-tape, two hours of fireworks, a couple of high-profile performing artists and a sell-out gig complete with merchandising. Naturally, as the event reached its artistic climax, resplendent with an outrageously decadent musical number and a cacophony of fireworks, ITV would, understandably, cut to commercial break and show, oh, a tic tac advert, perhaps...

Of course, England - and when I say England I really mean LONDON, naturally ground to a halt. Because of course, the tube couldn't cope with the masses of snow (hint, guys - it's underground...there's no snow there). And it would appear those city-types that holiday in Val D'Isere every year uhm, well... don't actually know how to deal with snow very well. It would appear the fluffy white stuff is harder to contemplate when one isn't in a five-star chalet surrounded by one's chums, quaffing eggnog.

Britain, on the other hand, didn't technically grind to a halt, because lo, large swathes of oooh, the rest of Britain (y'know, the parts that aren't England) were not actually inundated with snow on Monday. They are largely inundated now. I should add. Just not three days ago. And of course, as the lovely man from Aberdeen pointed out - Scotland didn't actually grind to a halt. People just decided to spend 2 hours getting to work instead of 20 minutes. And wear warmer clothes.