Blowing In The Wind

At least the air is fresher. But we are hardly into autumn yet given the way that the weather has been so the storms are a reminder of what can happen. Avoiding speculation about climate etc. it allows to think what this winter might be like around the Atlantic Isles.

With so much information out there on the net and so many more scientists etc. making inputs and people reading and guessing what might happen it means that rather than knowing we could be more confused than ever in the past.

Is it now the rule that if the winter is "good" that is not much disruption or problems then people take it for granted. But when the weather turns bad or nasty then a blame game starts. We have become much more impatient of the slings and arrows of misfortune when we cannot just travel when and where we want and the heating bills go into four figures.

"It's the govenmunt!" could be the reaction. In the late 1940's the Attlee government elected with a huge majority hit the buffers in more ways than one with a crucial railway system nationalised at the same time as it was paralysed by dreadful weather.

I was happy making snowmen and throwing iceballs at the teachers and creating slides on the pavement for all to fall, but for ordinary people who already had had enough of the shortages etc. since 1939 it was a winter of sacrifice too far.

In the years since bad winters have usually caught us well short of being either prepared or tolerant of the consequences, some predictable, some not. What could a long nasty spell of rough or bitter or both conditions do to our modern economy, especially if the net goes down for any length of time?

Think, ten to twenty days with few or no flights in and out? Think, the motorways blocked with hundreds of trucks stuck or smashed. Cars going nowhere, heating systems out, electricity gone, just in time supermarkets out of time, traders marking up by the day.

Then Mrs. May telling us it will all turn out for the best while Mr. Corbyn promises to nationalise and ration snow production.

Now where did I put those packs of tinned meat I bought after 9/11?