Snow joke
January 28th, 2004It snowed today in much of the country. As it is the first time this has ever happened in Britain, we promptly got travel chaos - from 10-mile tailbacks to massive train cancellations. I had a fun time walking to work this morning as not a single piece of pavement in town was gritted, and by the evening most of the snow had melted and re-froze, making the streets comically lethal.
Not meaning to get into a Daily Mail-style rant about this, but it does seem the British (and especially my local council) can be spectacularly incompetent and lacking in foresight. Three unextraordinary inches of snow results in instant chaos. Why aren’t our footways gritted? Why can’t people drive more carefully? Why can’t we make trains that run below 0°C? Why can’t we work out “Hmm…winter - the weather might be getting a bit colder”? The Swedes and the Canadians seem to function quite well despite the snow, and they get metres of the stuff every year.
Still, I can’t be too grumpy - it is snowing after all! And Cambridge does look especially beautiful under a nice white carpet. If it lasts I’ll borrow the digicam from work and take some pictures…
Followup: Found this amusing take on the whole situation…