Wordy Wednesday Goes Sub Zero

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Snow Fun

It's rather cold here at the moment. On Monday morning there was snow on the ground, and this evening it has started to snow again. Actually, it's more like sleet. I suppose this means that the temperature has risen above zero for the first time in a few days, and probably also means that I ought to go to work wearing ice skates tomorrow.

When it's cold and miserable in other parts of the country, such as the North of England, or Scotland, I don't mind. After all, people who want to live that close to the North Pole deserve everything they get. However, once it gets far enough South to affect me, it's no longer amusing. Usually snow isn't a problem here because the rain soon washes it away, but it's simply too cold for that at the moment.

I've not ventured very far in these Arctic conditions, and I'm now living off tins. It's not that I couldn't drive to the shops, or even walk to the ones across the road, but I'm putting off the shopping until it's necessary for once.

Some people seem to believe that snow is a good thing. However, there are only two basic reasons that they like it, and they're wrong:

It looks nice. Well, it does, but that's what pictures are for. It stops looking nice once enough shoes and tyres have been through it. It looks even worse with the various dog products that are secreted into and onto it. and if you slip over you might get a much closer look at it than you wanted. Particularly at the dog stuff.

You can make snowmen and throw snowballs. Only if you get enough and the conditions are exactly right. Otherwise you end up with the wrong type of snow, just like on the railways, and the snowman doesn't stick together.

Climate Change

I've said this before, but since scientists are increasingly convinced that humanity is causing major climate change we should stop worrying about trying to prevent it, and instead look at how we can harness it. It'd be wonderful if we could totally control the temperature, like you can with air conditioning and central heating. Of course, people would argue about what to set the thermostats to, but that's what democracy is for. "Vote Green for a cooler Britain", or whatever.

I've worked out how to do it. They could make some kind of under-pavement heating system by drilling deep down into the earth and piping hot volcanic stuff around. Then to cool down hot areas, they could pump sea water instead - after all, they're worried about the rising water levels, aren't they?

The BOV Patent World Climate Control System should make weather extremes a thing of the past, and hopefully make me a few quid as well. The only problem I can see is that if this prevents sea levels from rising as much as predicted, then London might not end up underwater. Still, you can't have everything...