Confabulations

Why is it that when the first snowflakes fall, the UK goes into a sort of snow-craziness of excitement mixed with terror and fearmongering. It’s snowing! Oh no, whatever will we do?! Let’s go out and play, but not before checking for 8-car pile ups on most major roads.

Even the BBC have gone a bit overboard this year – their how to survive winter guide includes such gems as ‘put the heating on’ ‘wear a jumper’ and ‘remember to eat’. Thanks for that.

The thing is, these elderly people who are so at risk during the winter months have survived far more winters than the rest of us. Surely they’re better equipped to know what winter is like – after all, when they were young we used to get a few feet of snow, not just a few centimetres. It’s the youngsters we should be worried about. Those hoodies only provide so much warmth and one cigarette hardly makes a fire, unless they’re into arson.

We Brits love to complain about the weather so it doesn’t matter if it’s a heatwave or a frost – even rain makes the news and lets be honest, it rains most days. Snow is much rarer and the news cover is inversely greater. In fact, people are probably so worried about the dangers of snow that they go out and drive too carefully, causing an accident that could otherwise be avoided. I’m not saying the BBC are completely responsible but they could certainly use a more positive editorial slant. “Snow to cause chaos across country” for example could be rewritten as “Snow to provide fun for millions”.

Just a thought.