And the verdict on the snow is....

Judge: Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today at the Court of Natural Fairness in bath to discuss a prosecution case. It is: “The snow and ice has been a disaster for this area.” Can I ask the prosecution to outline their case?

Prosecution: Thank you m’lud. Your honour, this is an open and shut case. This bad weather has turned many roads and pavements into ungritted death traps, people’s gardens are resembling recycling sites because no-one has picked up their rubbish and businesses have lost millions. The snow has been a total disaster. End of story.

Defence: And what about aesthetically?

Prosecution: I beg your pardon?

Defence: It’s the beauty of the whole thing. You can’t deny that everywhere looks wonderful in the snow. Every time you walk round a corner you spot a potential Christmas card for next year. And it’s not just the usual Bath beauty spots – every single estate, every suburb and especially every village looks utterly glorious at the moment. And all of these sights are improved further because they tend to have happy smiling children’s faces illuminating them as well.

Prosecution: That is all very well but you mentioned there about ‘walking round a corner’. Have you tried to do that? Have you seen the people falling over, skidding and being forced into the road to face cars that are also skidding? I don’t think that people would see much beauty in that.

Defence: No, you are right, getting about hasn’t been easy for people – but many have still managed to do so. This weather has really shone the light on some local heroes and put Bath’s community spirit back to the fore.

Prosecution: Heroes? What heroes?

Defence: Well, apart from the emergency services who have been brilliant as usual, if you scratch the surface you will find heroes on every street in the area. People who have been helping others to move the snow and the ice from their drives and paths, people who have been doing extra bits of shopping for those on their own and people such as milkmen, newspaper delivery boys and girls and local shopkeepers who have done their very best to keep their communities alive and kicking.

Prosecution: That’s all very well, but try telling that to the businesses who have lost money, children who have missed vital schooling and people living on ungritted roads with overflowing bins. I doubt you will find much ‘community spirit’ among those people.

Defence: Of course, this has been a difficult period but I still believe it has shown some of the “Best of British” and if we see this as a bit of a war with Mother Nature, the evidence is that after a war there is an upsurge in optimism and businesses can, and do, bounce back in style. Just watch and see.

Judge: OK, OK, enough. I have heard all the arguments but I just cannot make up my mind. I, therefore, will ask the people of Bath to be the jury on this one. Has this been a week we will remember with affection or with sadness? Answers on a postcard etc, etc...

The universe and nuclear submarines (yep, a BIG subject!)

This is a shortened version of my Bath Chronicle column of February 21.


Allow me to say something that may shock you . And that is that the universe we live in is BIG. No, not just big but pretty damn massive. Think of the biggest thing you can think of and then multiply it by the biggest number you can think of and you might go some way to understanding just how big the word big can actually represent.


The reason I feel the need to express this so very loudly is because last week our galaxy suddenly seemed very small indeed - more of a Galaxy bar than an infinite Milky Way (if you get my drift). This occurred to me when I heard that two communications satellites had managed to crash into each other in space.













What I can’t get my head round is why, if our galaxy is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter, contains 200 billion stars and could be anything up to 1,000 light years ‘thick’, then how come two tiny satellites still managed to crash? With all that space to play with, it is surely impossible for two independent satellites to crash and need the space equivalent of the AA to help them?


I was just about getting to grips with this mindboggling accident when I picked up a paper and read about a recent crash in the mid-Atlantic between British and French nuclear submarines. Now, I know the seas and oceans of the Earth are not exactly of space-like proportions, but let’s not forget they too could reasonably be called ‘big’. There is billions of gallons of water swishing around by our land forms, so how did two nuclear submarines somehow manage to collide in the midst of all that? As Jon Snow pointed out on the news, I know these things haven’t got any windows but this is ridiculous . . .













And there’s another small, tiny, minuscule thing about this issue which also worried me. And that is the word ‘nuclear’. It has been revealed that these British and French submarines (whose sat-navs sound as bad as the cheap one I bought before Christmas), were carrying enough material to carry out (wait for it) 1,248 Hiroshima-size bombings. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem that funny any more does it? Put simply, this could have been the transport accident that may have ended the world. Barmy.


So, what does the fact that it is dangerous to go under the sea and into space (let alone on the local roads!!) tell us? What it tells us is simply that what will be, will be. All the planning in the world simply can’t account for the fact that there is simply no such thing as the impossible.


The chairwoman of CND said this week that what occurred under the Atlantic was a “nuclear nightmare of the highest order”. Just read those words again and ask yourself ‘if that was the case, how come fewer column inches have been devoted to our near-oblivion than the recent dusting of snow’?


Crazy world, isn’t it?


Oh, and perhaps not that big after all . . .