winters

Ford Popular, like the horse, ideal in the snow
Winter, a disaster for some but an opportunity for others? So here we are, not even the New Year yet but the weather has brought us down. In countries with a tradition of very low temperatures there is the concept of 'cabin fever'. This affects people who stay inside from the fall of the first snow until spring and, as a result of their self imposed imprisonment, they go a bit mad. Oh dear I hear you say! Remembering that 'stay inside' is the advice of the 'authorities', of all stripes, who don't wish you to experience their ineptitude first hand. In an age of air travel a larger than ever number of UK residents have had experience of winter in countries where a lot of snow is to be expected. I have watched snow blowers at a small rural airport in Canada clear a runway in a blizzard so a mid-sized Boeing jet could take off. It was -20C and just minutes after take off the runway was again covered. The journey to and from the airport was done in a small Toyota with snow tyres and was both safe and done at a reasonable speed. By contrast we have all seen the pictures of life in the UK, even gritting lorries have gone into ditches; from the top to the bottom of the great pyramid of public servants it seems hard to find anyone able to do it right. Years ago it was deemed reasonable to suggest we have in the UK "the wrong kind of snow". Increasingly it looks as if we have, as a nation, the wrong sort of attitude and the wrong sort of public servant too.