In Snow or Sun, Thy Country will be Undone (From The Argus)

In Snow or Sun, Thy Country will be Undone

11:58am Friday 3rd December 2010

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By Jo Chipchase - Letting off steam »

We Brits don’t cope well with extremes of weather, do we?

I was amused by two Canadian girls who were being interviewed on the TV news the other night. They were stuck in a UK airport – I believe it may have been Edinburgh. One girl concluded: “I can’t really comment on how your country deals with snow because this is the UK and we’re from Canada”. What she didn’t say but obviously meant was: “We’re from Canada where the infrastructure doesn’t grind to a halt whenever there’s ‘white stuff’.” She may have added: “Further to your planes being grounded, we don’t have trains that require a ‘third rail’ that’s prone towards icing up, rendering the whole system useless… and aren’t we glad about that, you Brits!”

Other countries seem to cope with their summer and winter weather conditions perfectly well. Britain copes with neither. While various European countries are basking in summer temperatures of 40C and daily life proceeds as normal, the thermometer reaching 28C here in Blighty triggers government health warnings. Oh, drink some water, cover your limbs so they don’t burn to a crisp and sit in the shade, for heaven’s sake!

In winter, any incidence of snow results in schools closing their doors, even when parents and pupils could conceivably walk there with a bit of effort. Nothing will convince me that this isn’t because the administrators are fearful of (a) damaging their attendance record and (b) being sued under UK Health and Safety legislation. When I was at junior school back in the late 70s, we were expected to walk through the inclement conditions and then sit there in a draughty Victorian building and get on with our lessons.

The parallels with summer and winter inadequacies don’t end there. In Britain, in summer, when it’s not remotely hot, people wear all manner of inappropriate attire such as flip flops and micro-mini-shorts. Following the prevailing summer fashion is more important than being warm and comfortable, it seems. Unsurprisingly, many individuals don’t dress adequately for wintry weather conditions either. Instead, they wander outside in inappropriate shoes and break their legs on the icy pavement. I’ve even seen some crazy characters in shorts or with exposed arms when it’s about 1C outside. Madness!

Plus, in Britain, there’s a fixation with temperatures dropping below zero – i.e. “as low as -20C in parts of Scotland” where it is rather, ahem, hilly. Hmm! Is that really so newsworthy? In other countries with high altitude areas, the winter temperature falls well below zero on most winter nights and nobody bangs on about it. In the mountains of southern Spain, for example, -10C to -20C is commonplace at night. And people don’t have central heating in their homes. They have to light a wood-burning stove to keep warm. They don’t moan about it either.

While I’m grinding my axe and looking for a target, people who are able to deal sensibly with weather extremes, such as snow in Newhaven, don’t rush en masse to their local store and panic-buy all the milk and bread - meaning that some families can’t obtain any - before denuding the petrol station of fuel as well. We’re not in the wilds of Canada and a thaw is predicted for tomorrow. So, yesterday, was there any need to grab all the provisions off the shelf at once? I think not.

Perhaps we all need a holiday in (a) the Nevada Desert and (b) Siberia to re-install the ‘stiff British upper lip’ and sort us out?

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