Snow: The End of British Civilization. For a Couple of Days.

There's some snow. It's earlier than usual but it is December tomorrow and we've 200 years of tradition of illustrating Christmas with snow scenes, so it's not that amazing.

Yes, some areas have had a lot of it and rural life can be disrupted. But here in the urban West Midlands we have barely enough to cover the ground and even our road, a fairly minor one, has no snow on the carriageway. So it's not the end of the world.

But guess what? There are lists of closed schools and cancelled events everywhere. Why on Earth do we do this in Britain? Are we afraid that if someone hurts themselves, "we" as the organiser of an event or the opener of a school will somehow be liable? And if you want to tell me that the heating is off, that begs the questions *why* is the heating off? Or is it that teachers now all live in barn conversions 40km from where they teach?

Basically, we're all namby-pambies who think that a few centimetres of snow represents the onset of a new ice age.

Get out there. If only to build a snowman!