London Snow
I’m amazed at the huge outpouring of interest in a mild snowfall.
OK, London shut down because of 10 cm of snow. We berated ourselves, we jeered at the local councils, London Transport, the Post Office, the mayor, the schools, all of which wimpishly threw up their hands and cried “We can’t cope! It might be dangerous! Send it away!”
The Sunday night bins haven’t yet been collected. The post hasn’t come since Saturday. The shelves of Londis down the road resemble Harare more than Haringey.
But yesterday a delivery van battled through the drifts to deliver a wicker cat basket to us, and today another courier delivered (how suitable) a large goose down duvet.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
There’s business to be done, and they’re doing it.
So while voices round the world are raised to mock London’s ineptitude when faced with a few flakes, remember this: the London couriers who delivered our parcels yesterday and today, aged 20 and 21, could not remember ever having seen snow before in ther lives.
Damn right we can’t cope. We hardly ever have to. We’re out of practice.
And do the men of Manitoba (on the same latitude as London) grin with delight as our men do when they see the first flakes of snow falling? I don’t think so.
February 4th, 2009 at 16:57
That quote about the gloom of night…does your post office use the same motto as OUR post office?
And you want to use a more precise reference than “Manitoba”. That’s a province, not a city. So it’s a range, not a point. A range of many hundreds of miles north and south. I think London is on a line of latitude shared with CALGARY, which is a city not in Manitoba but in Alberta. But all those prairie provinces in Canada sit next to each other and probably stretch from about Paris to northern Scotland in terms of what they’re opposite in Europe.
February 4th, 2009 at 17:31
No, it came from Herodotus (OK, via the US Post Office). We’re not allowed to use it because snow certainly stays our couriers from their appointed rounds — we didn’t get any deliveries from Saturday to Wednesday.
You want a precise reference? Pine Dock on Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba is on the same latitude as Mount View Road, London.
It’s 4h 22m and 132 miles due north of Winnipeg. And probably snowy at the moment.
February 4th, 2009 at 19:21
just to put things into perspective, gentlemen, 83 inches of snow at the forty fifth parallel so far this winter. two days of school closings, three two hour delays for schools without public services shutting down. and probably another good ten weeks of snow to come!