…and so it came to pass. Britain was flung into what the tabloids choose to call “commuter chaos” yesterday as nature unexpectedly blew its wad all over our fair nation. Big fluffy crap not seen since those long distant days at Guston when snow was the best thing since sliced bread.

Actually, when Messrs Mansfield and Wheelan built a snow Hovis outside Wolseley, it was in fact unsliced bread.

Now, as a driver, snow is not so nice. A bit like Christmas really, when you get to that age when you actually have to SPEND money in December.

Several colleagues stranded on Bodmin Moor failed to make it to work and some a little closer tried the same. As a consequence, I learnt of a very bizarre Royal Mail rule that states “If you are unable to attend your normal place of work due to inclement weather, please make you way to your nearest Post Office or Mail Sorting Centre and make yourself available for service”. The idea is that if manager of said establishment declines your kind offer, you still get your day’s pay. In theory. I don’t think anyone has tried it yet. My nearest Post Office is in Tamerton Village and the old dear would probably call the police if I turned up broom and kettle in hand offering to be her sidekick for the day.

RIP George Best. The slavering journos and their eagerness to get on with the obituries was sickening as usual. The poor guy lay in bed with his family around him as the radio pretended he had already gone. I really don’t care how much he drank or what he got up to off the pitch in recent years any more than anyone should care what any of us get up to out of work. I don’t even like football that much but he was undoubtedly a great sportsman and that should be enough for one lifetime.

But even as I type, the news on the radio is discussing his career and how recent players like Becks and Rooney are nowhere near as good as him. Best is gone and now they are moving on to others in their cackling, hyena-like way. What have the other two got to do with this and what have they done to deserve such criticism on the day of another’s passing? Few of us are lucky enough to do anything outstanding in our lives, so why does the media insist on pulling apart those who do for us all to see? There is a bizarre contradiction in celebville these days, the media thrives on their celebrity and bathes in the sparkling limelight that these famous people shine on it but at the same time it still insists on inserting microphones and telescopic lenses into every secret crevice of their lives. One probably couldn’t exist without the other but I don’t agree that the achievement of fame and fortune should immediately invalidate your right to a life and privacy and neither should it mean that they have to be perfect. I know I am not.

Anyhoo. One last thing to end on. It is the early 70s, George Best is one of the judges at the Miss World show. A cuban cigar hangs from his lips and a very expensive bottle of champagne is at his side. The most beautiful women in the world parade past him and he leans over to the judge sat next to him…”I don’t know mate…where did it all go wrong?”

l8r

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