More Snow

[fiat_knox]

This past week, the snow news on the BBC has universally been portrayed as some frightful event, like fallout from a nuclear explosion or an erupting volcano in Belgium that's spewed ash clouds hundreds of miles away across the UK or something.

Traffic disruption blah, fatalities blah, businesses and schools wimping out and staying shut, railways not running wibble. The usual blatherskite, spoken with panicked overtones as if this were some country not accustomed to seeing snow fall so thickly - the Sudan, perhaps, or Death Valley USA.

You can, and must, separate out the cap of gravitas from the actual facts being reported. News is just the reporting of what is going on, what has happened and what has not happened. Not what could happen or what might happen. That's speculation and fantasy. Not news.

So it's been snowing all week. So? I managed to get where I was going with no hassle. All week. Even when the snow was at its height. It never bothered me one bit. I even walk around the town with my coat wide open, my gloves in my pockets, completely at ease. Everyone else is wandering around bundled up tightly against this cold like walking Egyptian mummies. Me, couldn't care less. Yesterday, in the house, I was even in a vest, shorts and sunglasses. (Well, I was using the computer upstairs, and it is a south-facing window in direct sunlight).

Mister Freeze from Batman's got nothing on me. ;)

And I'm not the only one whom the weather never bothered. Life went on in town quite happily, unaffected by changes in the weather. My regular 2000AD and delivery of Fortean Times, monthly events with the sensitivity to disruption and change of mimosa plants, arrived on time and intact - in other words, business as usual.

Oh, and bills came through right on schedule, too. The weather could not even so much as slow them down.

I'm currently looking out at the sky, at the birds wheeling about in it. They're not bothered by the little flurry of snow that's coming down - so I'm not bothered, either. It's when I look up, and there isn't a bird to be seen anywhere, that I pull my coat tightly about myself and batten down the hatches for a cold one.

In summary, I call bullshit on the bleating sheep on the news. And that is the whole of my rant about snow, and snow reportage.

Comments

[jagash.livejournal.com]

*Chuckles* I deem the honorary Canadian.

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

I know the words of The Lumberjack Song ...

[cdave]

I'm glad the snow didn't impact you, but it was a newsworthy event. Most of the tube lines, and all the buses were out in London on Monday, meaning millions of people couldn't get about. As a small for instance: my rubbish collection didn't happen.