People in Canada or Scandinavia are used to it, they have snow tyres, and the local authorities spend lots of cash maintaining the capacity to deal with snow/ice.

When we lived in Texas, an ice storm completely and utterly shut the city down. Nothing moved, anywhere, at all. 5 grit trucks, 5 million residents. So Americans are by no means averse to calling it all off if the weather turns pear-shaped. The alternative is they spend millions to have trucks sitting round for the 9 out of 10 years nothing happens, or suffer everyone having a few days off if a dump happens. One comes from your rates, the other doesn't. Hands up for more rates or more expensive tickets instead of a day off with the kids in the snow? Maybe you are all offering to buy your neighbours a set of snow tyres or a 4×4?

Thought not.

And the comparisons with the war years don't work either. Most people lived within walking or cycling distance of their work, not an hour's drive like many in the UK do now. UK commuting is a massive daily surge in and out of CBD's, and we know that even in great weather, one points failure tips the whole thing into organised chaos. That's what happens when you run a system at 95% capacity – there's no headroom when things go Pete Tong.

So kick back, enjoy the snowy magic, have a good whinge and mutter about the good old days and how soft everyone is now – we'll all be back to doing 85 nose-to-tail in the damp grey rain soon enough.

/m

For those of us who live out in the country, the morning routine was hardly affected this morning – just brush the snow off the top of the Landrover and off on the 13 mile cross country ride into Salisbury.

Everything was fine until we got into town where the seemingly feeble city dwellers were all over the place!

Pah! It makes one want to move out to Canada in order to leave the feeble Brits behind!

It might only be half an inch where you are, but maybe not where the teachers live.

http://www.thestar.com/article/569102

:rolleyes:

So.. Canadians and Yanks: come on, now's your chance to really have a go. We deserve it. We are a nation of lilly-livered bloody layabouts who prefer to blame everything on the Poles and Pakistanis rather than getting off our arses and working.

The Finns live with meters of snow for 6 months of the year. Come winter, everyone puts on studded tyres and does 70 on the motorway just fine. Scary as hell for a soft pom visitor but fun nonetheless. Why TfL couldn't buy some, or even better get some Autosocks for the buses I don't know.

But as Ben points out, with 'serious' snow being so rare in the southern UK, it's not worth the investment for a few days a year out of action.

Actually Ewan, you should be lauding this as a great opportunity for mobile to come to the fore as a remote working tool. My entire team are snug at home, going 19 to the dozen on iChat, Skype, Twitter, WEBEX and plain old email.

Now where's my Cocoa and slippers?

/m

I on the other hand can work remotely — so here I am posting on a message board. Best get back to work, and then get best get a life

But actually I've made it to the the office only to discover that the broadband is down so there wasn't much poitn in most people coming in anyway.