With more adverse weather forecast up here in Scotland over the next few days, I pose the question: are we prepared?

Everyone who has experienced the snowfall this winter so far, they will know that the amount that lay, in such a short period of time was unseen – certainly in my lifetime (that I can remember).  I did overhear a lady in the street saying that she hadn’t seen it ‘so bad since 1962′!

The snow lay at least 15cm deep in places (falling over a short period), causing mayhem for just about everyone who had to leave their home.   People couldn’t make it to work, schools and further/higher education institutions were closed, and public transportation was brought to a stand-still – literally.

All of these closures and problems regarding transportation caused logistical nightmares for citizens.  Children were stuck at school, parents were stuck at work, the elderly was housebound and people were forced to sleep in their motor vehicles overnight!  The latter is quite bizarre, I know!

So the question is: how did all this happen and how prepared was the UK?

I suppose the simple answer is that it happened due to snowfall, and the UK wasn’t prepared.  Lets delve into the issue further.

Cold and snowy winters seem to be an increasing  occurrence over the last few years.  Global warming?  You’ve got to be kidding – it’s getting colder, I hear you say!

Last year, the UK had a cold and long winter which questioned the country’s readiness to deal with such an occurrence.  Again, we had people stuck in cars on motorways due to snow, we had people home-bound due to snow and we had insufficient grit, which did not aid the matter!

Fortunately, this year the UK governments, and local councils, ordered larger reserves of grit in a measure to avoid the embarrassment of running out again.  Fine and well – until the snow comes!

The snow arrives, and in abundance it does too.  People get taken by complete surprise (council planners also), and we are in the same situation as the year before.  One of mayhem.

People leave for work in the morning, see the snow falling at 10am, leave work at noon for home.  They then get home to find that their street is completely untreated – so what do they do?  You guessed, abandon their car – and others follow suit, thinking it is OK because Jim next door has.  Put simply, these people aren’t helping themselves.

They are blocking gritters and snowploughs from clearing the snow.  It simply causes greater frustration for them, and other road users in the long run: uncleared side-streets, but clear main streets really doesn’t help your average person get the car out of their street!

Airports in the UK come to a complete standstill when snow falls.  It begs the question, why do places that get much more snowfall than us cope with only minor delays?  Simple.  Planning and equipment.

The UK simply isn’t planning effectively for this snowfall.  We get the infamous weather warning from the MET office and the bombardment on National News of ‘SNOW’, but what help does this give us if we weren’t prepared in the first place.

Snow tyres

People in places that expect major snowfall every year mitigate the problem by having the correct equipment.  In some states in the USA and Canada, it is illigal to drive without snow chains, or indeed snow tyres.  These things help cars get through snow, although at extra cost to the citizen.

Governments can also be more effective by purchasing equipment and supplies such as snowploughs, grit, and manpower to distribute the equipment and supplies.  Again this comes at a cost.

There has been a figure in the region of £7bn bounced around to ‘winter proof’ the UK, which would entail purchasing all this equipment plus more.  I believe this is a small price to pay, since the cost of each day of snow disruption is estimated to be in the region of £1bn+.  We can see this such an investment would very quickly have paid itself off, even just this winter.

It begs the question as to why the government hasn’t pushed ahead and implemented this.  The answer is that the weather in the UK during winter time is very unpredictable – imagine if the government bought all this equipment and no snow arrived for the next few years?  They would be dead in the water!  There is also the matter of maintaining the equipment, which will cost £billions per year also.

Here’s hoping to the next round of snow is handled better than the last!  Happy sledging!

I’m sure you’ll be pleased to here that I have another new mobile telephone!

In October 2009, you may remember that I received an iPhone 3GS, well it proved to be a short-lived phone.  Before I had the iPhone 3GS, I had its predecessor, the iPhone 3G; both were great phones, the 3G more than the 3GS – more on this upcoming!

So, you’ll be busting a gut to here that I now have  a Blackberry Bold 9700.  Now, you may be wondering, why I changed and how I changed so early.

First and foremost the reason I changed was because I pure and simple was bored of the iPhone.  After having the 3G for 1 year, and the 3GS for 3 months, I was getting fed up of a touch-screen phone.  However bored I was of the touch-screen, I wouldn’t have gotten rid of it until the screen smashed whilst on holiday at the end of December.  By the way, in NO WAY (no joke here) did I mean to smash the phone’s screen: it fell out the pocket of my shorts when I jumped, landed on its bottom and cracked.

Fair play to Apple, however, as the phone did work with a smashed screen – which I was surprised at – however it was a health hazard!  I could have sent it away for mending, by the insurance company, but luckily I was due a phone from O2 anyway.

I hear you say “how the hell can he be due a new phone only 3 months after receiving one”, well you are right.  I’m lucky in that when I got the 3GS, it was a new contract that was taken out for my sister – but she got my old 3G and I manage to wangle to get the 3GS!  It is all pretty messy…

Anyhow, I chose the Blackberry Bold 9700 to get away from the iPhone, and I have to say: I don’t miss the iPhone one bit.

The email client on the Blackberry is so much better.  I never used to be able to get my Microsoft Exchange emails directly to my iPhone (had to log into Webmail every time), but now the phone alerts me when I have an email.

I also much prefer the physical keyboard on the Blackberry compared to the on-screen one of the iPhone.

As for Apps for each phone, I grant the iPhone has a better (much better) app collection, but I never really used them – apart from the Twitter app.  Now that Blackberry has its own Twitter app, I’m as happy as Larry (who is Larry anyway?)

The thing I most miss from my iPhone is iTunes.  I used to love how well it integrated into iTunes – but the Blackberry does the job – and it copies Playlists.

Overall, I’m happy with my choice.

I hate smoking. It is a horrible habit, and one that I’ve never once partaken, if I may add.

Basically, my gripe is nowadays when you want to enter a public building (a shopping center for example) you walk in with a headache, choking for breath, all the side effects of inhaling the smoke from others cigarettes – otherwise known as ‘passive smoking’.  Throw into the equation the putrid smell of cigarette smoke, it’s horrible.

Obviously it is the smokers choice of whether to smoke or not, this doesn’t bother me.  I’d rather people never smoked, but I guess someone has to prop up the public purse.  However, what really bothers me is that some people who choose to partake are so ignorant.

What I ask the smokers is that they refrain from standing at entrances/exits of public places; for the non-smokers it is horrible – for reasons defined above.

There are the people who stand at doorways smoking, but then there are the intensely ignorant people who think it is OK to blow the smoke into your face, or the people who don’t at least try to exhale the smoke in a direction which is clear; which at the front of busy shopping centers cannot be done!

Basically what I ask people to do is smoke in the designated smoking areas.  By the way, I do not want to tar all smokers with the same brush, some already do this.

Also, the Government could do with bringing in legislation in which states something akin to  “Smoking 30-meters from a public building is not permitted”; this is if they haven’t already – I had a look through the law, but nothing stood out at a quick glance.

Scottish legislation: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/acts2005/asp_20050013_en_2#pt1.

Sorry for the very unstructured rant!  This has been a pet-hate of mine for a while, however it was only aggravated today by a terribly ignorant individual.

I’ve re-signed up to Twitter.

Please follow me (@marc_fraser): https://twitter.com/marc_fraser.

Thanks

Marc

After 6 months of the iPhone 3G, an upgrade is due!

I was so impressed with the iPhone 3G, that I’ve decided to get the latest version – the iPhone 3GS. It should arrive on Wednesday; how it is getting here I don’t yet know. If its Royal Mail, I’ll be lucky to see it before Christmas!

I’ll post my initial impressions when I receive it.