After watching the news last night you’d be forgiven for thinking the onset of Armageddon is upon us. Journalists in helicopters reported swirling masses of clouds heaping their icy misery upon Britain’s timid terrain. Meanwhile, brave vigilantes battle the vengeful gods with shovels and grit, praying for an end to this unforeseen, unjust plight.
Erm, hang on – this is mid-winter, isn’t it? Cold and icy weather does have a bit of a habit of appearing at this time of year. And, yes, it’s a lot of snow – in some parts of Britain it has very much brought things to a standstill. But, again, I would argue that snow comes as little surprise to even the most junior weather enthusiast who has noticed that with each of the four seasons comes a change in the skies, and subsequently one on the ground too.
Adverse seasonal weather, once put through the mincers of some newscasters, becomes evil hordes from above shelling us with their flakes of fear. The problem being that this then scares some people into not even venturing out of the house to try to go to work. If even bothering to ring the office (it being a fair assumption that the office has collapsed under the weight of white gloom), the call would simply be to say: “It’s ok, I’m safe – we’ve locked ourselves in and have enough tinned food to last us for two weeks… Now go, save yourselves!” Or, for the more cunning out there, the hyperbole becomes a good excuse to not even try to go to work: “Come in? Are you mad? Have you not seen the news? There’s a ton of frozen water falling from the sky! My sofa seems the safest place, thanks.”
Now, before anyone complains, I do acknowledge that some parts of the country really are in dire straights. And we are not Canada or Finland, or any other country that has a whole infrastructure tailored to extreme winters. Our seasons rarely become so severe. We’re mostly happy if it doesn’t rain too much during Wimbledon fortnight, and our children grow up having known the sight of their local lake/canal/puddle fully frozen over. But my point is that the current weather is not that shocking. And in cities, especially, where there is public transport aplenty, it’s a pretty poor excuse not to make it to work. It was certainly noted in London that while the underground and buses were mostly running fine this morning, many were strangely more empty than usual…