Weather

Saturday

Rod Liddle

What’s strange about this weather? Nothing at all

How can we stop weather hyperbole? I am so staggeringly bored of waking up each morning to headlines which insist we’re all going to be killed – on the roads, or through freezing to death, or in a flood. There have been four weather hyperboles already so far this year; warmest January, or warmest day in January ever, wettest February, coldest March. There are so many criteria for awarding a hyperbole sticker that almost every day of the year could qualify. So, snow in March? An unheard of experience? Nope, it happens every other year, more or less – and that’s in the south of the country. Last year at

Saturday

Rod Liddle

I need your help

I am in southern Italy and there has been thunder and lightning pretty much continuously since Tuesday. I am quite scared of lightning. I need to buy some comestibles; especially wine and cigarettes. But the tiny apartment I have rented is connected to the outside world only by 72 metal steps affixed to the side of the mountain by metal scaffolding. The lightning is all about. Should I risk it? Would it help if I wore rubber-soled shoes for my dash to the shop? Or will I be forever fused to the rockface, like a sort of crap gargoyle? I turn to you for help, and succour.

Saturday

Harry Mount

Turkish time travel

Harry Mount looks across the Dardanelles and sees yesterday’s weather today In Canakkale — the biggest town on the Dardanelles, where more than 130,000 British, Australians, New Zealanders and Turks were slaughtered in the 1915 campaign — Mark Wallinger, the 2007 Turner Prize winner, has dreamt up a clever little work about memory. On the Asian quayside, looking across to the Gallipoli killing fields on the European side of the straits, is an old shipping container, tricked out like a 1950s picture house; think Cinema Paradiso, and you get the idea. Using a 1950s-style sign, Wallinger has named it ‘Sinema Amnesia’ (Sinema is Turkish for cinema). The sign says that

Sunday

Daniel Korski

The gates of hell

Some blogs get you the news from wizards of Wall Street, or the war-torn back alleys of Baghdad. But here at Coffee House we aim to capture a more, well, English experience: news and views from the gates of Gatwick Airport. I’m stuck here, watching the diligent but lonely tractors fight against a mass of snow. Several inches of snow blighted London yesterday, while icy winds made matters worse. Many flights have been cancelled and disappointed holiday-makers have had their Christmas plans put on ice – literally. Everywhere in the airport’s soulless halls, amidst tacky tax-free offerings, you hear the same thing: why are the airport operators perennially unprepared for

Wednesday

Alex Massie

The Big Society vs A Culture of Hopelessness

As we all know, Dave has had some problems defining his Big Society idea. It’s more conducive to thumb-sucking pieces than snazzy tabloid headlines. Sometimes, however, it might be easier to sell in terms of what it’s not. Consider this story, warning that there might be lots of snow this winter: Council chiefs have sparked outrage after proposing residents dig themselves out of the snow as Britain braces itself for another winter of Arctic conditions. As long-range forecasts suggest the country will be hit by blizzards and temperatures plummeting to -20c, bosses at Camden Council prepared to hand out spades. But their solution to the bitter weather has been slammed

Friday

Alex Massie

The Politics of Snow

With admirable opportunism Sunder Katwala argues that the current frosty conditions make the case for more, not less government. As he says, everyone plenty of people like to rail against government in the absract only to find themselves asking the state to do more as soon as something – such as a heavy snowfall – makes life just that little bit more inconvenient. And, to be fair, he has a point. Many people do think like this, which is one reason why there’s not actually a very hefty constituency for libertarianism. This is unfortunate, but true. Nonetheless, even libertarians are permitted to argue that since the public highways are publicly-funded

James Forsyth James Forsyth

More trouble lies in wait for the government

Labour lost the first week of the long election campaign. The Hoon and Hewitt plot and the late and tepid endorsements of Brown from key members of the Cabinet have highlighted the divisions within the Labour party. Hoon and Hewitt were right that stories about these decisions will not go away. They will run and run right up to polling day. The weekend papers will also not be good for Labour. To compound Labour’s woes, it looks like the big political story of early next week will be Alastair Campbell’s testimony to the Iraq inquiry, which threatens to dredge up memories of spin and Iraq. It should be remembered, though,

Sunday