ckn

There is an Apple reseller in Bury St Edmunds called Stormfront. I wonder how many sales they've lost to the usual liberal lefty Apple buyer who doesn't want "Stormfront" on their bank/credit card statements... Linky

Icy road car pinball

I've just realised that I'm turning middle class. We received our Ocado delivery this morning*. I am dressed in Boden trousers, stripy shirt, thick woolly jumper and brown brogues because I'm just about to leave for a smart casual lunch with the wife and some of her work colleagues and customers. Time to put a stop to that stuff... that's 2010's new year resolution sorted. * all the way from their Hatfield, Herts depot, the best part of 85 miles away.

Time to turn the heating up a bit then.

First link on a google search

Get yourself to B&Q and get a 25kg bag of water softener salt. It'll cost you about

Oh believe me, they know I was listening to the local radio while driving as the Christmas staff are on and haven't a clue how to work the RDS Traffic Announcement feature and I wanted to listen for the traffic updates. There was a right ranting session going on from businesses in one decent sized village who had not had one gritter through their village all weekend despite the main road being a B classified road. Going by the reply from the council, it seems they're guilty of short-termism in thinking that we've not had a bad winter for about 6 years now so there's no need to bother planning for another one.

Had to drive the wife to work this morning because she was not comfortable driving on the roads round here. Some fairly major routes have not been gritted even once since the snow started, one road that sees a lot of bus traffic and is on a decent ratio hill has not been gritted. I thought it was maybe me just not seeing the grit but I had a walk and there's not a single bit of grit in the snow at the side of the road. I know it's a very rare winter that we'll get disruption like this but this is absolutely pathetic. The birds round this way are a bunch of cheeky beggars... I had one blackbird chirping away at me because I was a bit late in defrosting and restocking the bird bath with water. Since then, there have been a few fights among the birds for control of the bird bath. At least the cat's happy, he's sitting watching the birds from the spare room window but is just too much of a wuss to go outside in the snow.

That brings back memories! The view looking out of my back window from my office: Just a quick point&shoot. Edit: now it's snowing even heavier than it was last night.

It has started snowing again and the compacted snow in the tyre tracks left by cars has turned into ice. Lovely. I'm very glad we're both working at home today.

Simon's Cat in the snow

Moderately heavy snow here. The two main trunk roads, the A14 and A12 are shut in decently large sections. The A12/A14 junction is closed because a trucker drove too quickly, skidded and jack-knifed his lorry. None of the dangerous non-commuter roads, i.e. those on reasonable hills, have been gritted and are only passable with extreme care, if at all. For once, my game this weekend has been cancelled very early. I'll be missing the wonders of the South Woodham Ferrers v Canvey Island local derby.

Suffolk Council. Trunk roads are Highways agency, others are council. Council priorities: * Priority 1 – All A and B class roads, and the busiest bus and commuter routes on other roads. These are treated on any occasion ice or snow is forecast to be a hazard; * Priority 2 - Other significant bus routes and other commuter routes. Treated if snow or ice is forecast to persist for much of the day, or shorter term conditions will be severe, e.g. rain turning to ice; * Priority 3 – Other classified roads and busier unclassified roads. Only treated in prolonged severe conditions as resources permit; and * Priority 4 – Remaining surfaced unclassified roads. Treated in conditions of severe and prolonged snow, as resources permit. In reality, we'd have to have a new ice age before they grit priority 3 and 4 roads. It wasn't too many years ago that they'd do their best to grit every road and they'd have the stock levels to do it properly. Also, do you REALLY trust a government computer project to get the gritting levels right? Really? In Suffolk and Essex, I've seen some major A roads closed in weather that simply isn't that bad because the gritting and clearance is ######. There is no excuse for not gritting roads BEFORE a predicted heavy snowfall but it happens every year and will every year in future.

That annoys the hell out of me. I remember in the 70s and 80s, gritters gritting every road around our way at the threat of snow, these days they only do A roads and bus routes after the snow has fallen yet there were three stories on breakfast news about the councils worrying about their grit supplies running out. FFS... they've had 10 months since our last snowfall to restock yet are now realising they haven't got enough. They'll do the same next year. Go to any other country that gets snow in the winter and they just get on with it. In Britain, our investment in our transport infrastructure and maintenance is pathetic at best and closer to being outright criminally negligent. Our local council is genuinely considering cutting back the money they spend on this sort of thing because they have to make 14% cuts across their entire budget due to government grant reductions; well, cuts on everything but education as that's been mandated as uncuttable by central government edict meaning that everything else has to put up with deeper cuts.

I've just been made to feel very old. A friend has just taken on a new employee, an 18 year old guy with a date of birth of 1991. 1991... ffs... really ffs...

It's snowing very lightly in Ipswich just now. It's just heavy enough that you can see a few flakes so I'm expecting a travel broadcast of disruption and region-wide chaos if it continues for more than 10 minutes.

We had two moorhens in our garden this morning. First time I've seen them in this area.

I just got 2

My garden plants are at it again... Yesterday, two more roses flowered in my garden and the magnolia tree has started to bud. I think that they need to get the message that it's the second week of December, not the middle of March.

True... the off-season is like caffeine withdrawal for some on here.

Typical moderation process: 1. see unacceptable post (or get a "report" or PM) 2. sit slack jawed for a while wondering how people genuinely think that's acceptable 3. type a reply ranting in return, hit preview 4. realise that's not exactly an adult response or suitable for a moderator 5. sigh loudly 6. redraft reply or simply decide to prune out the stuff 7. grumble a bit 8. send suitably worded PM 9. wonder whether anyone else saw the deleted/edited post and would bring their own faux indignation to the thread 10. sigh again 11. go read the cross-code forum for light entertainment. That said, I'm glad John's back with his troll-dowsing tools and refreshing lack of tolerance for idiot posts

I shaved my beard off and I'm going for a haircut today. Perfect timing for the winter kicking in tonight with sub-zero temperatures At least I'm not going the whole hog and losing the excess fat that keeps me warm on cold nights. That'd be just silly.

National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009

I now have clear blue skies for miles around my house and my garden lights are off again.

It's so dark outside now that my garden lights have come on already. Normally they don't come on until about half an hour after dusk.