Mon Feb 28/05
There's nothing deadlier than a giant ball of snow

Considering how bloody much of it they get, it's remarkable how the British simply do not understand weather. They never have. When I was a kid visiting family in (relatively) balmy South Devon, I'd puzzle over the alternating proclamations of drought and flood in my grandmother's Daily Mail. (72 hours of relatively unchanging weather anywhere on the British Isles, I concluded, was enough to declare a potentially disastrous irregularity.) Anyone who's ever seen the British attempt to drive in snow knows what I'm talking about. I think Jamaicans would have better luck.

My favourite story, though, was always the cautionary tale of a wealthy dowager who stepped out of her air conditioned Range Rover and fell in a swoon from the heat, which was about what one would expect from a late spring day in Toronto. MDs were trotted before the news cameras to explain that one mustn't jump too quickly out of one's air conditioned car, and indeed that one would be better off not to use air conditioning — or dishwashers, or central heating, or full-sized refrigerators, or any of the other mod cons that the uniquely British combination of astronomical energy prices and fear of change kept away — at all.

Anyway, it's a damn shame that young Peter Strang had to die to bring it about, but this story (from the Telegraph, mind you) is the new grand champion. I offer the most pertinent bits without commentary:

The primary school pupil apparently died playing with a friend after a "giant snowball" rolled down a hill and engulfed him.

Local minister Norman Nicoll told the Daily Record newspaper: "It seems there was a giant snowball the boys had made themselves. Apparently it rolled and unfortunately Peter was caught under it."

"There were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident," the article concluded. Correction: there were nothing but suspicious circumstances. I hope they're going to ask that so-called "friend" a few questions…