Wrong kind of winter brings England to a halt
England was plunged into a Siberian winter this morning with train company websites frozen right across the South East. A chill wind from Russia dumped a mountain of snow on England, with some gardens experiencing drifts of up to 18 inches deep. Panic buying of milk, prosciutto, Bordeaux and other essentials promptly broke out …
of those f*cking 4X4s if people don't use them in adverse weather conditions? Isn't that the bloody point?!?
"Oh, I don't want to ruin my shiny alloys or my leather interior!" Muppets!
Lightweights the lot of 'em!!
Knowlegeable Land-Rover drivers drove carefully and assisted lesser mortals along the way.
a bit of snow and the whole south grinds to a halt you bunch of softies! now excuse me while i go do hanbrake turns in our car park while security are busy gritting the paths
I've not laughed so much at an article in a long time.
Come on - you spend £50k on a Range Rover or BMW X5, you're not a farmer and can't be expected to know what that "low ratio" lever is all about - you never have used it before. In fact, if you do think you know what you're doing, as the article says, you'll end up causing more problems.
Train companies. Highways agency. Snow we knew was coming several days in advance. FAIL.
Last time I checked Nottingham was in the south of England along with Mancester. If you Londers would like to insist that anywhere above the M6 is North why don't you build a moat and be done with it.
Way I see it your not a Northerner until there are parts of Scotland further south than your location.
I was greeted with exactly the same error message when I visited wymetro.com this morning.
I seem to remember someone going on about how there wasn't as much snow as there was 25 years ago... But I seem to remember this snow thing happening every 3 or so years, infact I remeber sitting on a Virgin train 2 minutes out of Watford Junction for 3 hours 6 years ago...
perfect hunting ground for the Subaru faction...
Go, defenitly GO!
I got to the office at 7 on the dot in my 4x4 thank you very much, unlike most of my collegues who didnt fancy it one bit. And besides, I could drive about in this all day, it's all the c**ts in Corsa's wheel spinning to oblivion on every slight inclne that cause the problems. So there.
3 of them stuck at the bottom of a hill waiting for tow-trucks :) lol!! Seen a couple of mini's flying round the streets (due to lack of grip and lack of driver brains!!) A+E will be busy today!!
saw four of them on the way into London this morning. Hard Core ! (read - fucking idiots!)
I nearly died half a dozen times myself just so I could get my laptop and leg-it back home to work in the warm - it was dicey enough in a car, let alone a bloody bike!
Flames - just enough to warm your toes
Obviously the speller has left the offensiveness up to the reader to decide.
unless you air brushed it.
Just in time for the strikes, you can see who's side God is on.
Now the strikes have gone all bikini black and nuclear, they have three options, come out in sympathy or have a snow day!
And for anyone who who wishes to correct the three to a two, I say to you there are 10 types of people in the world, those who know discrete mathematics and those who don't.
Sorry, but...why is a reference to the esteemed Mr Eastwood, star of many a smash spaghetti western (not to mention the "Dirty Harry" franchise) now deemed nsfw.
Its political correctness gone mad, I tell you.
Paris - because she sometimes has difficulty spelling "Clint"
Apparently the country has come to a complete standstill because London has. A light dusting of snow gave my street a nice Christmasy feel. Snow was a bit heavier over the border in Carmarthenshire with a few schools shut - but that was mainly because the bus companies stopped the school buses and the schools that were shut sovered a large rural area. All people need is just a little common sense - but there in lies the problem.
due to lack of snow. I confidently expect them to be cancelled tomorrow due to "lack of snow".
Tsk. Every Londer knows that anywhere north of London is north.
I think London should break away from the rest of the UK and become its own nation. Then you'd be sorry. Buahaha!
Fucking Fairies in their fancy 4x4s refusing to drive them properly and blocking our roads
Winter tyres, use a higher gear lower speed (torque limitations are overwhelmed by the lack of traction. using a low gear gives you torque you can't use, a higher gear you HAVE to be gentle with).
Farmers get around all day in knackered old ford cortinas and vauxhalls. No 4x4 (they're too expensive).
is that all the snow it takes to bring London to a grinding halt? Christ, you bunch of southern pansies. You can still make out the pavement! You can actually see tarmac!
You should only be complaining when it's measured in inches(or feet) rather than mm (or Angstroms).
And those people were talking about four feet of snow, not half a foot.
Now, which is more snow: four feet deep snow or six inches of snow?
My 2CV is owning the Roads !!!!!
So good to be driving past people stuck in their flash crappy plastic cars !!!!
Mines the one with the starting handle in it
It's not all bad actually. I managed to make it into the office reasonnably well: I waited 15 minutes for an elusive First Capital Connect service before being told it would be another 15 minutes before we saw the shadow of a train. So I decided it would be quicker to use the Northern line and discovered that because most people had decided to stay at home, the tube was actually working fine and was even quite pleasant as it was much less crowded than normal.
The TFL's journey planner was slow but working this morning too. Now, of course, the information it provided for services such as FCC (see above) was completely unreliable as FCC forgot to tell TFL they had severe delays and cancellation. Not that it significantly changes the quality of service of course.
"London should break away from the rest of the UK and become its own nation. Then you'd be sorry. Buahaha! "
No, we wouldn't. Mwahahaha!
I was once told that the North started at the Trent, the south bank was the home to the "suth'n poofters" and the north bank was home to the "Northuners".
Go figure...
Simple rule of thumb.
If bath, path, grass etc rhyme with scar then you're a southerner.
Otherwise - a brief "a" sound in the middle and you're a northerner.
Nottingham is nothern.
I'd agree with Sarah. The UK would be about 10% down on CLINTS if London went it alone! Snarl up's ain't caused by the snow, they're caused by suvvern softies who ain't got a ruddy clue how to drive in it!
Nigel
"would have found barely any tubes running"
The Tube, by definition, runs underground. Why the heck are they affected by snow?! Or is it just the usual outages...
Lucky me not being near there anyway
EA
We are being advised not to attempt to travel 'unless our journey is essential'.
Trouble is, leave that judgement up to a lot of London commuters, and they'll get it utterly and pathetically wrong.
I'd like to see them advise people not to travel whether they think their journey is essential or not.
Where's the Nanny State when you need it? Too busy sniffing around in overfilled dustbins.
I've always considered Cambridge to be the most northerly part of the South and, yes, I was just fine in my Subaru Legacy thank you very much.
Most tube lines run outside at some point. That's why.
I am so very weary of all the whinging and it's only lunchtime.
Well techinally Nottingham is North of the Trent....
Anyway, at least the rail companies did get information up eventually. There is no information on the bus service outside London...
This morning I saw a driver of a Porsche Cayenne deciding that two inches of pristine snowfall was impassable, doing a several point turn and retreating. This was in Paddington St, W1. That's the first left heading down Baker Street after the station. Numpty on so many levels.
"cut-off communities such as Guildford" - you make it sound like a 10 house hamlet with a pub; Its verging on a city!!
With a higher rate of spending per head than even Scotland, we'd do well to get rid of those money-spending, moaningly malcontent metropolitans.
I am not sure the X5 has low ratio gearbox - however driven correctly then the Xdrive (4 wheel drive system), traction control and stability programmes it will be more than a match for the weather - same system certainly got me in today without hassle :-)
but lets face it - those people who don't allow enough braking distances in the wet and and don't adjust their speed (downwards when required) to merge in/keep flowing at junctions etc. - i.e. unable to think more than 5 mtrs down the road aren't going to be able to cope whatever the car (and just as likely to be in an Audi, Ford, Toyota etc as a BMW) in this weather
ho hum.
Britain is so twentieth century.
@AC 12:00 GMT
Seems that there are only 10 types of people that understand binary numbers as well....
Contrary to your research notes, Evil Auditor, the vast majority of the London Underground is actually OVERGROUND. So are the depots. And how were the staff to get to work?
I'll not resort to the typical "Southern pansies" comments I'm sure will have been posted by now, but will instead remind Londoners that historically, they've had much worse weather in the past, and done just fine.
There were more tube and bus services running during the Blitz than during this "light sprinkling".
I mean, FFS. Southern nancies for teh wi....I mean EPIC FAIL.
<enters ruddy-faced and glowing>
I love how the police, travel companies etc say "only travel if your journey is essential". I keep trying to convince my bosses that my coming to work isn't actually essential, but they disagree, dammit.
And if London split from the rest of UK, they'd get to keep all the politicians, as well as the vast majority of consultants, financiers, lobby groups, homeopaths, hairdressers, middle management and telephone sanitisers, which would be just perfect for the rest of us!
<goes to make snow angels>
To describe it as a Siberian winter. Surely the PC thing demands that this be called it the New Ice Age.
[Note for pedants: this is different from the Next Ice Age]
thetrainline.com
'Failed to connect'
I have to agree with Sarah here.
London should breakaway imagine the benefits.
1) London shrinks in size and importance as nobody can get in from outside to work there.
2) Public money actually would get spent elsewhere in the UK.
3) The rest of us might actually be able to buy local homes without Londoners buying them up first.
Maybe we should make Scotland the new capital of the UK at least they could teach us all how to deal with snow. Grabbing my coat, mine's the one that looks like its for an Arctic expedition.
Their Heavy Snow: At a Glance page(which I assumed would be blank) was conspicously missing a North and a Scotland until about dinner time. Presumably "Scoop" Nanook couldn't get any mobile reception.
Nottingham is neither North, nor south. It's in the Midlands. The East Midlands, actually. We know this because the telly has East Midlands Today on it..... I think.
Still, a massive clint is wildly entertaining!
Incidentally, it's snowing here in Hannover (that's Germany - possibly North) and all the trams/underground trains are running fine. Vorsprung durch bloody-mindedness!
Paris 'cos, well, she's got a huge clint too (probably)
As per usual, a sprinkling of snow and the whole country falls apart.
In fairness though, those side roads are treacherous, if you drive off it's knowing that sliding into your neighbour's car is on your own head. Never sure if tyre chains are legal on our tarmaced roads, but in any case, never seen them used. So it's up to the councils to get the roads sorted before 'getting up' time :-)
(Of course, if the town planners ensured everyone could live in decent accommodation within walking distance of work, it'd be a lot easier to cope with.)
