THE BRITISH THREAD II

You need to appreciate vastness covered by snow, and the many subtle variations of the color lavendar and yellow that a deep snpw in sunlight can display.

I just came back from a jaunt through my woods and swamp area and the new snow smooths out all the rough edges of the forest margin and makes a cup of hot chocolate taste way better.

Better get used to it, were in for another Ice Age soon. Thatll be good for the UK ause it will give you some additional landmass greater than the landmass of your present country. Course youll be fighting the French and Scandanavians for it again

I think the main reason Queenie is that the weather does not answer to your convenience.

Imagine how it was during the long matriarchy.

Haha, expansion of the empire without us having to do even do anything.

I just want to be able to walk down my street without thinking I'm going to fall over.

Hey PQ and Spendi

Glad you're both OK

Ah PQ - I do love the snow but I hear ya, the pavements (not that we have them here) are much worse than the roads - do take very good care in the ice.

Spendi - glad you're able to get out and about. Hoping you can keep warm up there.

I remember it lasting two months.

Snow really sucks, PQ. And I had had more than enough during my childhood, I thought. (It was really a lot more than nowadays.)
But since three weeks I have to drive to mother's (which isn't that bad, since the roads are snowphloughed and it makes really fun driving on hard snow) to clean the pavement ... 28 metres).
And since we got additionally 10 cm during the day, I'll have to drive there three times today instead of twice as the days before.

We had had it worse last year re temperature (six days below -20°C in a row).

Yes, the '50s were great- plenty of snow and ice, no central heating, food still rationed, and no telly.

How many schools were closed Mac?

Maybe the teacher's concern in case the kids slip in the playground is a trick to get rid of the spirited ones by getting them all playing on the ice on the canals.

Schools closed because of snow?
What a joke.
Buses and Shanks' pony, that's all we had.
We used to slide down a big icy slide in the playground, and batter into the iron railings at the bottom.
No elf 'n' safety then.

Well-Mac--in those days the accidents were seen as acts of God and thus nobody's fault. Now God is on His last Legs it is obvious they are somebody's fault and media & Co pin whoever it is to the wall. All up and down the chain of command and if the minister can be stuck up there so much the better.

Directives flow downwards, gathering momentum, trying to cover every risk and the end results must be entertaining, because media has found that we lap it up, and also that the kids end up being both protected and frightened which is the very last thing evolution teaches and the very people who support evolution are the same ones running the process which is like a snowball rolling downhill.

One can only laugh.

Obviously, the UK has a different culture regarding snow ... at least to us.

If we would take the same action re schools as you do - ours would be closed for more than a couple of weeks, especially in some hilly/mountain regions.

Well, and you should clear icy pavements unless you want to get sued?
Here, you have to clear them - between 7 in the morning and 8 in the evening. (Since you can't get salt for gritting in the moment, some towns allow that you take the sand from the playgrounds - I've used Epsom salt, bought from our agricultural co-operative [which doesn't work vbery well, though].)

Mac--did you see Lord Turnbull shaft the lot of them on Chilcot.

Right back to that bloody Thatcher person who was Blair's favourite Prime Minister.

He guided the enquiry on what to ask the buggers when it is their turn. The Mandarin's Revenge.

I watched it all day. It was fascinating.

No mate, I was busy all day and out in the evening. I'll read about it in the Guardian later.

I remember a lot of ex-ambassadors and diplomatic staff wrote jointly an open letter to the Government before the invasion, telling it what a mistake it was about to make.

I saw in the paper today a bit of interesting advice:

"Never trust a man who cultivates on his face what grows wild on his arse."

We have our H&S audit on Thurs. The council (on our behalf) is currently being sued by one of our parents because their kid got hit in the face, damaged a tooth, when playing with a raquet of some sort during a play session ... big hoo haa - case has been going on for hmmmm... couple years.

Kid trips over, slips, bumps, anything these day... the suing culture is arriving in the UK. Can't do anything at school with too much red tape to measure.

Hey ho.

"Cultivates" means moustaches and trimmed beards. They are not the same as an uncultivated beard such as Bin Laden's and Rasputin's.

Was it in an ad for Gillette or was it to make the readers who scrape their faces every morning feel better about themselves?

It's inevitable when nothing can be an act of God anymore which then requires all such accidental events to be somebody's fault.

Has the case cost more money than the price of body armour?

That's ... well, somehow interesting

US to lift 21-year ban on haggis

(I had had the pleasure to get haggis with a Piper to pipe it in. [A friend's girl friend's father, former Pipe-Major with Queens Own Highlanders Pipes and Drums.] The pleasure was more about the music.)

Fair fa' yer honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the Teuton race

This news will send President Obama's approval ratings soaring.