Snow Joke

Woke up to first snow of the year. The Brits panic, as we seem due for 'the worst winter for a decade'. Of course, for the last decade we have had 'unusually mild winters because of global warming' - so presumably they mean winters as bad as they used to feel in the 4os, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Still, as we never did have routine winters like (say) Finland or Switzerland, we never have devised a culture to go with it. Outdoor plumbing which froze seemed hilariously bad design to me, as a kid. The inability of the grit/salt lorries, or even the snow-ploughs, to get out because of 'the snow on the ground' made me laugh. And yeh, it did get cold, but I liked toboganning.

The charm of slipping and falling down may have drifted away, as I approach 60, but I still feel alternately amused and appalled at our reaction. Already the panic about oil, and heating getting turned off, and 3-day weeks, and disruption, and stock-piling supplies, etc. While compassion fatigue leads to apathy about the people stuck in post-earthquake Pakistan mountains in a cruel winter, we worry about relatively brief inconveniences.

Meanwhile we plan on 'Winterval' (yeeurgh) feasts, to 'treat ourselves' (as if most of us in the West didn't live like medaeval kings and queens almost every day of our lives).

Ah yes, I can feel the first person teasing me with the ever original "Bah Humbug" because I refuse to get all Dickensian romantic about the season of Good Will.

Any moment now... (Still says November, on my calendar), or, 'Pataphysically,

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