Monday, February 02, 2009

Snow

Ah yes the pictures from London showing the heaps of snow, the non-cleared roads and the buses being taking out of service. Let's turn to Claire on GMTV and find out why this is happening - oo wait I know this um is it - 'Because it's Winter'?

Yes once again snow has fallen on this country and everything has seized up; admittedly it's the worst we've had in two decades apparently, but still we can't say it's unexpected as the forecasters have been predicting it since last week.

Kudos to Wyre Forest though as the main roads through Stourport were all cleared, driving down the Worcester Road I left Wyre Forest and entered Wychavon and that section was uncleared.

Snow was trying to fall as I drove, but has stopped now. It's expected later, but as I've mentioned before it's always been a bit odd around here due to the shielding hill ranges.

[Update - Okay it's falling much more rapidly now, by no means blizzard conditions although the wind is pushing it to one side; in the lee it's just big fat flakes gently falling to the ground. It has yet to even fill in the tracks from this morning]

One last amusement from GMTV a reporter in Walsall trying to make out that the teeny amount of snow was something to be worried about had to report on things in Yorkshire and Manchester 'But here in the North we've been used to snow over the last year' only a Londoner could be in Walsall and with a straight-face describe it as 'the North'.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hehehehe… it tickles!

“Why is that happening? Ooo, maybe because it's winter?” — Commedy gold, right there! :-D

For what it's worth, yesterday my mum advised me of the “blizzard” outside. This consisted of approximately 3 snowflakes so tiny as to be barely visible to the naked eye. This morning, we had about 15 mm of snow, and by the time I got to work here in Coventry, the ground wasn't even fully covered.

I find it highly amusing that the entire country is shutting down over a light dusting that doesn't even cover the ground fully yet. Unless the snow elsewhere is drastically worse somehow…

FlipC said...

It was just the touch of puzzlement in the question that struck me I mean my god who would expect snow in Winter? Answer - not the British obviously.

Well it's been steadily falling since my last update and it's now covered up my tracks. The biggest ooh is that it is now being blown in completely the opposite direction now.

London's been the biggest surprise to me what with the uncleared roads being mentioned and the complete shut-down of services over what is apparently 4 inches of snow.

Oh and I enjoyed the "Don't drive unless necessary" comment from the emergency services hmmm... "Oh hey boss sorry I can't come into work but I've been advised to not come in unless it's necessary... oh do I want to keep my job? I'll be right there" Of course unless you're a teacher could you imagine waht would happen if businesses in the same area shut-down when it snowed?

Anonymous said...

Ha. People who were in my office today: all the developers; the office administrator. People who did not make it to work today: all the directors (the CEO, the product manager, and the head of marketing); the accountant; the artist; the support person who doubles up as development paper-work keeper; the test engineer. There are two particularly noticeable things about this list:

1) We got no less work done than on any other day.

2) The plebs/people who turned up all live within ten miles of the office. The people who didn't don't; one of them even drives up (or rather, didn't) from the South coast, where he lives at the weekend.

It was a good four or five cm here by this morning, but the roads didn't become slippery, even after dark. From the photos I've seen it was a bit dire closer to the M25, so I can't blame the chap who didn't make it from the coast, but seriously, this is all you can expect when people think they can commute halfway across the country.

It wasn't just us: the whole block was very quiet today, and the local Tesco had its shelves still full of unsold luncheonables at 1330. Even reception closed for the afternoon because they had no staff.

Our CEO thanked and congratulated those of us who came in for our commitment to the company.

By phone, that is.

FlipC said...

Well all the main roads are clear this morning, though it's still nasty on some of the side roads and there's a huge patch of ice just behind where I've parked my car so I've just sprinkled some salt onto it and listened to it cracking.

Rubbish collections here were suspended yesterday after three lorries were involved in accidents with one apparently tipping over on an island, but other than that it ain't been to bad in Stourport.

Anonymous said...

The CEO thanked you all for bothering to do what I didn't? Oh that's priceless! :-D

CAPTCH: ingen. Hmm...