Last weekend they forecast snow falls for England. For once, the Met Office got it right and today we woke up to lots of snow. Now, given such warning I would have thought that our gritters and so on would have worked their magic and kept us running. Far from it: thousands of schools closed (in my day that never happened), airports closed ... is this idleness and opportunist idle people taking a chance to have an official duvet day or is it yet another lessening of services by our local authorities? Here's another thing: listening to Radio 4 this morning at around 9 am. I am working in the dining room and I play the radio via my digital telly so it's digital radio. It started to break up badly and after around 5 minutes or so it stopped completely. Hmm, I thought, that's a bother. Then I realised the problem: snow on the satellite dish. Went to the garage and got myself a brush and swept and knocked snow off the dish, switched on the radio and Bob's you Uncle again. A good job I'm tall, by the way, as the dish is around 10 or 11 feet off the ground. Someone squat wouldn't have coped without the assistance of a chair or step ladder or even hovering helicopter.

DW