Listening to Radio 5Live in the way home from work consisted of travel and wqeather updates followed by them reading out stacks of emails from people in Canada, people who have family in Russia or people who live in Scandinavia telling us how we are so pathetic because they can cope with snow really well.
Of course they cope well with snow. They are guaranteed to have snow in Canada, Russia, Poland, Scandinavia, etc, and as a result, people know to fit studded tires (which would destroy our roads because they are only suitable for roads that have snow on them), the central and local government can confidently predict that spending hundreds of millions of pounds on snow clearing equipment will not be a pointless investment due to guaranteed snow. In the UK we can go several years without any serious snow. Any such investment in the UK could be one of the most expensive follys ever.
So who don't these people in cold places just keep their opinions on how we deal with snow to their own countries. We deal with snow badly because, to put it simply, we don't have snow very often. We live in a temperate climate that ranges from very warm for small perios of time to very cold for small periods of time with most of our weather simply being mild, miserable and cool.
5 comments:
Now come on NB - you can't have snow! We've passed the prophetic Ice Age years - we've moved on, the new paradigm is Global Warming, you should be having primroses in December soon!!
I always wonder how many of the people who say "We should be like other countries when it comes to dealing with snow" themselves get out and clear the snow from the pavement outside their house. You know, like other countries...
I agree Mark. I cleared part of my road last night. Nobody else bothered.
Greetings from cold (-30 with windchill) Ottawa! Glad to see the snow has brought out your cheerful side.
I agree about the folly of investing huge sums for coping with the infreqency of snow and ice in the UK.
However I cannot remember my schools being closed for a single day in the 1950s and 60s, and we had more snow more frequently then, especially in 1963. Is it because people live so much further from where they work these days, and are not taught how to drive in freezing conditions? Or are younger people lazy and looking for the first excuse to avoid work these days?
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