Thursday 5 February 2009

Why Can't the UK Cope with Snow?

So the UK was snowed in this week with 15cm deep snow. The news reports told us that 6 million people did not make it into work on Tuesday and that 6,000 schools nationwide were closed. Why? It is just snow. Other countries have much deeper snow for months every year but life goes on as normal. The snow in the UK is always a new type of snow thereby causing an unknown problem.

About a month ago we had much deeper snow and people were slowed down by snow-covered roads but life went on as normal. Certainly the schools were kept open. Children just put on their snow boots and warm clothing and enjoyed the snow.

The school in our village of Bolderberg with fresh falling snow on 5 January...:


...and on Tuesday 3 February with much less snow:


One mother who was interviewed said it was sensible to close the schools because of "Health & Safety". The UK has gone over the top with Health & Safety. As a consequence of such ridiculous "What if?" over-protection, five teenage girls had a sledging accident in which two were critically injured. Had they been at school,the accident would not have happened.

Mind you, when I asked someone in the UK why everything stops when it snows, she replied,
"Here in the UK we work longer hours than other Europeans and have less public holidays so I think we are entitled to the odd "snow holiday."

What do you think?

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