SNOW…

Or…once again the UK comes to a standstill…






Hi Guys,

Well once again in these fair isles of ours, despite the fact we all knew it was coming, the folks in power decided not to let out the Gritters…until after the snow had fallen.

Then we listen to the media, who have shifted the emphasis of the news for moment to the weather, away from the global recession, which they have been promoting for a period of around eighteen months, or so, gradually increasing public awareness to the impending Armageddon, until their prophecy of doom arrived. Like they say, throw enough dirt and some of it will stick!!!

Well, like the aforementioned dirt, the prophesised snow started to arrive yesterday, or at least it did around these parts and this morning the UK has awoken to sheer chaos.

Now okay there are snow falls around the 10cm mark and others around the 30cm mark, but hang on a second, here’s a novel thought, send the Gritters out before the main fall of snow and it should help and maybe a plough or too wouldn’t go amiss either.

You look at parts of Europe and parts of the United States where this would be an hours’ snowfall and they don’t seem to stop for long before the traffic is moving again. We get snow of any amount and the country comes to a standstill.

I remember going back out to the Defiant offices at the beginning of January 1994 and New York seeing eighteen inches of snow on the Friday and another twenty-four inches arriving on top of this on the Saturday. Sure the traffic stopped, but not for long. The snowploughs arrived and simply moved up the streets ploughing the snow from the middle creating small hillocks on either sidewalk, which the owners of the stores, hotels, offices, etc simply dug little passageways through to get to cross the street.

The last time I remember seeing anything like that was in 1980/81 and we got a real blizzard here in this area. The snow didn’t last more than a week, but there was a lot of it. The time before that, I was a kid, way back in the early/mid-sixties and I remember my Dad and me digging a tunnel down the road to the shop. Although back then it snowed more often and there was always more than we tend to see nowadays. It does get bad in this neck of the woods, but the lack of forethought about dealing with the impending snow, rather than it’s aftermath is the reason we see so much chaos.

Oh well at least today we are hearing about the chaos of the roads and not the recession. If only we could get the media to push other, much more worthy of news casting, affairs, we could then change the world for the better, it obviously worked for the doom and gloom patrol.

Sure folks, we are in a bad way at the moment globally, mainly because of a small amount of greedy individuals (we all know who they are) but we need positive thinking and folks to start spending a little again. It stands to sense if I don’t buy off you and you don’t buy of him and he doesn’t buy off her and so on and so forth then the world economy fast comes to a halt and we see the domino effect in action!

Oh well, soon be summer and then here in the UK, surrounded by water as a small island nation we may have to endure water rationing again!!!

Maybe Monty Python were right with their sketch about the game show, “Spot the Brain Cell”, maybe we should look at the folks in power taking part in a new show of the same name, but for real.

What do you think…?

Coming up on the Blog:

• Hot Wheels Issue#54
• Bristol Comics Expo 2009
• More Comic Reviews
• More thoughts on kids and comics
• Changes in comics from the sixties to today
• More from the adventures of Bentley and his pals
• A “Worlds End” Graphic Novel update

And don’t forget to send in your illustrations for the Colouring Book Competition, for your chance to have your work included in the Worlds End Colouring Book.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
February 2nd 2009