The annual winter weather panic. Mon Dieu, les Anglais.

Despite my sometime attempts to distance myself as some kind of nebulous 'citizen of the world' or 'internationalist,' I guess that deep down we really all are a product of the place that we grow up in. And I'm British. It's snowing outside and I'm going to get excited about it. Okay, okay, so half an inch and a few blizzards isn't something necessarily worth getting all worked up about, but the fact that it's - gasp - December and it vaguely resembles a bad Christmas Card anywhere near to a Church, park or Old Building means that the entire country has been given free reign to wax lyrical, and as I presume we will see by the morning, turn into a state of mass panic. If we get the forecast four inches (eight on high ground), there will be transport closures, offices closed, emergency service shutdowns, blackouts... everything. For some reason major cities like Moscow and Montréal deal regularly with months of feet of the white stuff, but we can't seem to cope with a few hours or a light dusting. Changing from tube to bus at Kings Cross I ambled past assembled masses unable to take the train home, following general cancellations - all this from a little snowfall. I have to admit, as it doesn't directly affect me (yet, at least), I find it all very amusing. And who doesn't like a feeling of occasion? To fall in with the old Christmas song cliché, my feelings are: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.