The Sky is Falling!

Run! Duck! Hide under your desk! For God's sake, shelter the children and hide your pet safely in a laundry hamper! London is engulfed in . . . 6 inches of the fluffiest snow imaginable and the apocalypse is apparently upon us. Honestly, the way this town loses it's mind over a little white stuff makes Toronto look like Yellowknife. Wow, how long has it been since I could make such a truly Canadian reference and know that my audience will know what I'm talking about?

The snow began on Sunday afternoon, when Brianne and I had been spending the entire day hanging out with her friend from the panto tour Clare and her boyfriend Jonathan. Lovely people, an actor couple like us, great pals to have. We've now got them hooked on a reality show that we like(d) called Murder in Small Town X. You may not remember it, it was only on for one season in the summer of 2001, but it was a great mix of reality contest and murder mystery, and we're watching it with them on YouTube. When we left their place that night, it was a fluffy marshmallow dusting all over the place, pretty and seemingly harmless.

The next day London was in the fetal position. Nearly all the tubes were down or severely delayed, every bus in town was cancelled - something that even The Blitz didn't achieve - and motorists were warned to stay off the roads if not absolutely necessary. I was one of only three people who made it to the office, other two being a hardy Aussie and a Frenchman with a skiing background. All manner of shops were closed, West End plays were called off for the night, two airports shut down, Heathrow cancelled dozens of flights, loss of business cost the city over a billion pounds . . . and I know all this because today's newspaper had about 10 pages dedicated to the devastation caused by 6 bloody inches of snow!

It was nice to notice some sense of humour about the whole affair yesterday. When I was waiting on the tube platform, an announcement came over the PA describing about 5 line closures and severe delays everywhere else. After a couple of seconds, the announcer piped up again and declared, "For once, ladies and gentlemen, this is NOT our fault!" Chuckling ensued amongst my fellow commuters.