Friday, February 16, 2007

Chris Patten is Wrong - Now There's a Shock

Chris Patten in this week's New Statesman...
"How can anyone like snow? It's just about OK dusting the back garden twice
a year, but it produces a seriously depressing landscape and is nasty, wet and
cold. To think that there are some people who pray for it, pay huge quantities
of cash to stand in queues in it, in order to risk breaking their legs on
it."

A great quote, but as usual, he's wrong. I love snow.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I spent some considerable time shovelling two feet of it off my driveway yesterday.

The excitement of snow wears off before too long.

Anonymous said...

'Nasty, wet and cold', though, would describe David Mellor pretty well.

Anonymous said...
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Nich Starling said...

You obviously didn't spend long enough travelling around North Norfolk in it Iain, although I seem to recall a fair sprinkling on the day of the St Benet by-election.

Anonymous said...

Patten was an excellent last Governor of Hong Kong. However, he's been wrong about everything since he went to Brussels. And now he's right about snow. I hate the stuff. I spend January in SE Asia or Australia when possible.

Anonymous said...

Patton is a socialist, and an authoritarian one at that.

Being "king" of hong kong for a few years is the only thing people like him are good for.

However I'm with Patton on the snow issue.

"Absolute bastard when you are trying to deal with a massive enemy counter-attack."

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I normally agree with you Iain, but Chris Patten has been a very safe pair of hands in everything he has done. He delivered a strong Central Office performance to help Major win the 1992 General Election. Despite an offer he refused the position of Foreign Secretary from the Lords, instead going to Hong Kong where he helped deliver the best democracy that was probably on offer. He has been a consistent and sensible Commissioner and delivered a superb report into policing in Northern Ireland which has helped deliver peace in the Province.

If the Conservatives would have had more statesmen like him their future would have been assured.

Anonymous said...

Depends what sort of snow. The slushy stuff that you can't turn into snowballs or snowmen is nasty. Otherwise it's great. Bit annoying for drivers but that's mostly due to black ice.

Anonymous said...

I am with Mr Patten on this one! I hate the bloody stuff. One flake around here and the phones go off, the power fails and you can't get out of the village for three days unless you own a Monster truck.

Anonymous said...

The landscape is depressingly grey without snow. The light reflected by snow makes depressing English winters much lighter and better for personal mental wellbeing.

The miserably protracted November grey wet weather for 6 months is truly despair-inducing

Anonymous said...

I love the stuff. It's like being 5 again when it snows.
And anyone who doesn't is a big meany moap who smells.

Anonymous said...

voyager is quite right. All the Scandinavians were getting REALLY depressed earlier this winter because there was no snow. Without it there is only grey.

Anyway, all you snow lovers should be keeping your fingers crossed, because the latest computer models are hinting at the possibility of an Easterly blast towards the end of next week, although the set up is on a knife edge and nobody really has a clue yet...

PS I thought it was Chris Patten that was the wet?

Anonymous said...

I do love the snow. Early in the morning after an overnight snowfall, everywhere looks so stunningly beautiful. I left for work early during the recent snowy period in order to photograph my cottage and the - rapidly dwindling - countryside around here under the white blanket.

One of Two Jags' huge development juggernauts, a 196 person per hectare, housing estates is creeping over the hill above here and the ugly monstrosity will soon surround and engulf us. It's concreting over our countryside and overcrowding our, already over crowded, town and some surrounding villages, like mine.

The cowboy, experimental - reed bed, weir and high lying reservoir - waste water system up there is a blight for the established community here. Whole streets and hundreds of houses around this new estate now flood on a regular basis where they didn't before it was built. 'Too much water for the system to cope', said the water company engineers.

Will my part of Old Harlow be the next Boscastle as a result, since a section of the reservoir's walls have been designed frighteningly lower at the section which points downhill to here? Watch this space.

I should have dreaded the snow, yet it covered that monstrous estate beautifully for a while. So thank you God for snow!

Anonymous said...

We're split in our household. My wife hates it complaining that it makes her commute twice as long.

I work from home and absolutely love it. As you, Voyager & others comment it transforms the landscape and brightens a miserable winter's day. Equally I love long, hot summer evenings sitting out on the patio drinking wine until midnight.

Joey B said...

Do you have to drive in it? If snow only fell off roadways and pavements, I would have no problem with it. Snow is still rare enough in South England to be a novelty. When I lived in the snow belt, in northern New York State, one didn't see the ground for three months out of the year. That, more than any other factor, drove me to leave there.