In the bleak midwinter
If I could paint this country's response to heavy snowfall, it would look something like Munch's The Scream. Except the figure's face would not be riven with existential dread, but with the kind of look that the helpless Englishman wears when his feet slip from under him, and the awful realisation hits that he's going to be reduced to a small child, frantically reaching for his absent mother's hand as he bumbles into the gutter. The news tonight was awash with images of hapless clowns piloting their "people carriers" along the flight path of a drunken bee, all the while wondering why their honest dependable B-road had been replaced by a glaciated dodgem terrorland. Channel 4's coverage was anchored by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, imbued with a rightful air of post-colonial superiority as he smugly segued to tales of the cretinous English descent into bureacracy and backbiting. Jon Snow was presumably out on location in the foothills of the Cotswolds, basking in the warm glow of plentiful links that made a pun on his surname. Elsewhere, there were politically-charged references aplenty as jackknifed bendy buses lay ybounden and cosy LSE lecturers estimated a £1.2 billion loss to the economy as a result of the country's loyal servants failing to turn up for work. And they wonder why all the jobs are going to the fucking Polish.