29.01.2004 - 3:48 p.m.

I am definitely leaving the country.

Englishness used to be a by-word for no-nonsense, get it done right now without fuss or associated silliness, the 'it was your country but now it's ours, malaria ridden swamps and all, we'll soon sort that out' attitude made us the despotic rulers of the world. By and by that attitude has slipped by the way, increasing sensitivity to 'feelings' and 'political correctness' is robbing us of that drive, the sense that you are the only one who can sort a mess out and by God it's gonna get sorted and damn quick too.

Like a great many people yesterday I was out on the roads when the (sic) terrible blizzard ( tyrannisnowus rex ) descended on the southern part of england ( for those of you elsewhere on the globe - a single weather front about twenty miles deep moved north to south dumping between 2 and 4 inches over southern england accompanied by strongish winds ) This caused absolute gridlock ( and I mean absolute ) on every single road, it was fuckin awful, peoples reaction's not the snow. I was on the M25 when it hit and everything slowed to a crawl and carried on going regardless. Problems were occuring for artics hauling thirty tonne trailers up gradients but that's to be expected. By accident I left the motorway ( the snow had stopped by now ) and headed into St Albans and then moved at an average speed of 1mph for the next 3 or 4 hours until I was able to rejoin the M1 at which point there were no problems and beetled up the M1 at a leisurely 40mph.

What I'm here to bleat about is the 3+ hours spent on an A-road not moving. Apart from the odd truck which couldn't get up a hill there were no,

a) accidents ( serious ones )

b) metre high snow drifts

c) abominable snowmen with temporary traffic lights and a mischievous grin

why then did a line of traffic not move ? The answer is :

Because the people behind the wheels were largely idiots. A car, front or rear wheel drive has no problems with 3 inches of snow, ( I drive a 1990 golf and have dealt with worse than 3 inches without trouble ) the blinkered, lemming like morons who panic at the first sign of something out-of-the-ordinary caused all the tailbacks. If you are someone who panics when confronted with a car / snow conflagration this is for you :

Park your fuckin car off the road and let those of us who can deal with minor inconveniences get on our merry way, if I'd been armed I would have overtaken you and shot your tyres out, you're so used to having things done for you, you are unable to think for yourself, use this experience to your advantage and learn how to control a car on a snowy road, it's not hard you just need to pay attention. And next time, when the weatherman says it will snow do us all a favour and stay at home.

Bits of North Amerikkka are currently under feet of snow and really really cold weather and somehow manage to keep going on a daily basis, why are we so weak and feeble that a minor amount of snow buggers everything up ?

Also, I noted that in the 6 hours I was on the road I did not see one gritter truck, not one, anywhere. Bastards.