Our 'inability to cope' is grossly overstated by the media in my opinion. There was a headline grabbing statistic last week which reckoned the UK had ground to a halt and that 1 in 5 people didn't go into work. Without context, that statistic can mean anything. 1 in 5 people may have used their common sense and worked from home instead.

Im basing it on using trains and driving when the weather hits. Im also basing it on stats that im privvy to seeing about workforce absence acorss the UK when bad weather hits. We dont cope well full stop. (we do cope better than the US when the superbowl hits though in relation to people calling off going to work)

I'm not saying that workforce absences don't rise sharply when bad weather hits, course they do. I was merely stating that the stat of 1 in 5 is misleading. In a sample of 20 people, 4 people who didn't make it to work may have been made up of 1 lazy @rse playing the weather card, 1 working from home, 1 genuinely snowed in, 1 looking after kids who's school had closed. 3 of those 4 are genuine reasons for non-attendance at work. That was all I was getting at.

I dealt with the point about normal snowfall in the second part of my reply. I agree that we should cope better, but in fact we are nowhere near as pathetic as the media would like you to believe.

We may have snow every year, but how many days per year does it cause a problem? One or two? How much extra cash is that worth?

The heat is different issue. The problems with water shortages are due to too many people and not enough rain (don't laugh). Compared to our population we have a shortage of rainfall, particularly on the east side of the country. Solutions for that problem are vastly expensive and long term.

Indeed they may.

Snow or severe ice would be over 2 or 3 weeks worth off the top of my head.

Too many people and not enough rain!

Really? Not down this way it isn't.

Ah, i keep forgetting we have the north/south divide.