Well, winter's arrived here with a vengeance. Woke up to a complete white out. Siberian weather, free, gratis and for nothing, no doubt courtesy of Mr Putin. (Notice how I blame him for everything? Even if I don't really believe the Russians are controlling the weather from the International Space Station. Well actually I'm only saying that to protect myself from the possibility of reprisals for 'blowing the whistle' on our Mafiya friends' plans for world domination.)
Now, it was not unexpected, it had been predicted all last week and merely arrived a day late; so where were the 'gritting lorries'? Not on the roads, that's for sure. Why were all the buses pulled off the road at 11pm last night? Where were the contingency plans? This happens every time we get snow! How much does it take to be prepared? Granted, in London, the snow usually melts without settling because of all the heat that gets lost from all the offices and houses but nonetheless.........When it falls overnight there is less ambient heat in the capital because most of the central heating systems are off so it will settle!
On the whole it's all just a minor inconvenience (unless you're old, when falling and breaking your hip is almost a certainty) but what possible faith can we have in 'the powers that be' to draw up contingencies for surviving a nuclear attack or massive floods or widespread civil disturbance, even a terrorist attack when they can't even deal with a little snow? It isn't like this doesn't happen most years. They must wet themselves laughing in Chicago or Oslo or Moscow as they watch us flounder about, slipping and sliding amidst the flurries of feeble excuses that get trotted out from the 'Same Lame Excuses we used last year' file. :) I think it might in the long run be worth getting a few huskies and a sled, certainly faster than road transport today. Mush, mush! Be a lot of fun I think, lobbing snowballs at stranded tourists as I flash past in a blur of husky fur, overtaking cars condemned to five miles an hour because there's no grit on the roads, taking the Hyde Park Corner roundabout at breakneck speed on one sled ski, huskies baying into the dawn, and me laughing maniacally like some drug-crazed Santa Claus :) Only about one third of the staff made it in today (including me, I hasten to add) and the chances are most of those couldn't get in as opposed to them looking out of the window and thinking: "It's really nice under this duvet."
Little Mugwump doesn't know how lucky he is. The way he sleeps, if he'd still been a stray, sleeping rough, he would have woken up buried under six inches of snow this morning!
Fortunately, I had already booked tomorrow and Wednesday as holiday. It will be far more treacherous tomorrow when all the compacted snow from thousands of footsteps has turned to ice and anyone without skates or chains around their shoes/boots/trainers/dinky little ballet pumps (so de rigeur this year) is going to end up calling for an ambulance to do something about their broken hip/leg/ankle/arm/skull/wrist etc.
Wow! Two posts in a single day! That's a first! So, to celebrate, a small digression. Do I hear a planetary groan? Since I cannot leave comments on another blog, I will leave them here. The only people who are a disappointment are those who have few, if any, morals and would sell their grandmothers for a 'pocketful of mumbles' (beneath contempt) or those who are too asinine to work out that life is not divided into black and white and comes in varying shades of grey (idiots of the worst order); the rest are a joy! No-one needs, nor should we ever consider giving, forgiveness for being less than perfect, however imperfect we or they may be; in an imperfect universe, no forgiveness is required.
And so, finally, to our thought for the day. Take what is given to you, hold fast to that which you can carve for yourself and enjoy!
I'm giggling. Truly. For the second time in a day, the first time being with the first ridiculously silly post, the second with the pictures of you driving a sled through London to work, hurling snowballs at innocent tourists like me.
ReplyDeleteYou know, you just might get to hear me say "***K **U" yet, if you keep up this nonsense. Enjoy the holiday. Make some taffy and think of people all over the world who never even see snow, but the white sand on the beaches of desert islands. They envy you at least a few days out of the year. :)
Ce blog, c'est pour t'amuser. I loved the sled, I almost think it would be worth blowing my savings for the gag (huskies are not cheap).
ReplyDeleteThe snowless may think of us a few days a year but we think of them all the time! I have been to Mauritius and, by God, do I want to live there! :)
Please don't blow it on a sled. Take a vacation to some place warm instead.
ReplyDelete:)
You and Mugwump made the news!! Hope you were some of the happy folks enjoying the beauty and friends- or at lest the comraderie at the local pub.
ReplyDeleteHere is a good one: How do I know the relation of a graph that depicts, say, velocity vs. time to a graph that depicts displacement (distance? hard to tell on the specific graph, but either would probably work) (x) versus time.
ReplyDeleteHow do I know what the graph should look like?
Thanks!
Moscovites and others would laugh at us because we put the limits in the matter of health and safety beyond the reasonable. Your tongue gets burnt because the coffee is too hot and you can file a lawsuit against the cafe,pub or restaurant for negligence.
ReplyDeleteSince when we cancelled schools, transports,etc... because of few inches of snow. I remember going to school when the temperatures were well below 0 degrees (-15 to be precise).
And of course you can't grit in front of your door. If someone breaks a hip, or die after a fall, you could be sued for not having gritted the pavement properly. So you have to leave the job to your council! But, of course the staff can't grit the streets, because they can't drive the trucks in the snow. Health and safety issue! So, who the f..k will do the job!
Bienvenue dans le monde des manchots...
"Which of the following correctly describes
ReplyDeletethe velocity and acceleration of the object at
its maximum elevation?"
Question of the day. He answered in lecture, but that was so long ago, I can't remember. The last thing we did was a hypothetical on a car speeding past the cops (do you still call them bobbies there?)
I posted a hypothetical on my blog, which I would be interested in reading your answer. Funny, one can pretend to "hear" a voice which is written, but in reality we have no idea. Writing is a very narrow dimension in which to relate, but sometimes it is what we have. As for history, it is quite limiting. Having the capacity to google Feynman on video and hear him speak renders his words meaninful- just having a live human. Conversly Newton is known through his writing and his music/poetry. I sometimes find myself fantasizing about who me might have been. It was something which occupied many a lonely childhood day- fantasies about dead scientists and poets.
Okay, nuff said. I know you are here- saw your visit- so try to help me answer that first question. I know it should be common sense. But my common sense has never included a perception of motion. I thank the universe for presenting humans like you whose sense has apprehended these things. :) What a gift!
It's 2:30 am after a birthday party. You have given me a multiple choice question, at least give me the options :)
ReplyDeleteScrewing his eyes against daylight while searching for the ibuprofen and telling the inner voices that it wasn't his fault, he never once refilled his own glass, he ponders. If the object is an upwardly moving object in a gravitational field then at the apex of the parabola (maximum elevation) its velocity will be zero and its acceleration will be zero. It then comes down the other side of the parabola with increasing velocity, although its acceleration will remain constant in a uniform gravitational field.
ReplyDelete'Bobby' went out of style here when we started using 'pigs' in the 60s, this was later replaced by 'the filth' but probably the most common (at least in London) and most widely understood is 'the old Bill'.
Hey, I know you have a hangover (I have slight one after the hubby slipped me something to kill the anxiety of having a lab report due monday and two other people dependent upon me to finish it. I I am soo screwed!)
ReplyDeleteSo, in the event you are sleeping it off, I will leave you alone. On the other hand, a chat at Gmail will do wonders for my GPA. I am going to try to get onto the auto tutor service, but everyone tells me it is a waste. I have never been so mentally lost in my life. I think hitting myself in the head with a bag of bricks would render me more sensible.