Blood for the Baron!

Young lady in getting some tyres at the moment. She works as part of a workforce of around 60 at a local firm, and lives about half a mile from her office. Yesterday she phoned in to say she was taking a day off because of the snow - they told her it was a poor excuse, and her response was "well, how often do we get to enjoy snow?". To which my repsonse would've been "how often do you get to enjoy unemployment?". THIRTY PEOPLE did not show up for work there yesterday.

Today she told them she was going to leave at 4pm instead of 5pm as it would be too dangerous to drive into town in the dark to get her tyres fitted.

Snow madness - the idiots perpetuate the myth. We have had no more than 10cm of snow and yet people are acting like the apocalypse is coming. Drive carefully - check your tyre pressures and conditions, get your battery checked, make sure there is antifreeze in your car and TAKE CARE. DO NOT BE A CHAFFINCH'S CLOACA.

It's different, granted, for those that have more snow than this piddling amount.

Having said that, I did fall over on an icy pavement last night, but a nice man from the Indian restaurant helped me up.

CHAFFINCH'S CLOACA?

Dear God. I mean, dear God.

And sorry guys... i tried, but failed, to find a photograph of an exploding cloaca.

(Hopper grins, looks cautiously around, invokes RULE 34 of the internet, and runs for cover making a mental note not to come back to this thread)

And great advice AnnieM re: our cars.
I would add 2 other things - a blanket and a mars bars. If you get stuck in a jam because some f*ckwit decided to over-turn his car to show his displeasure at the ice, it might get kinda cold, and a mars bar is always good to nibble on if you are stuck for a few hours... the voice of experience speaking!

Yeah, joking aside - a sleeping bag in the boot is mandatory in my car. OK, please resume animal genitalia references.

Hopper wrote:And great advice AnnieM re: our cars.
I would add 2 other things - a blanket and a mars bars. If you get stuck in a jam because some f*ckwit decided to over-turn his car to show his displeasure at the ice, it might get kinda cold, and a mars bar is always good to nibble on if you are stuck for a few hours... the voice of experience speaking!

Do you often get stuck in jam Hopper I know you are part troll (a Bill bailey reference there) but come on!

Not that often, it has to be said.

The time in particular that i'm thinking of, i was working in the wilds of... Oxfordshire (not that impressive, i realise!). Coming back from a nightmarish day digging in -3 temperature and terrible sleet on a completely exposed hillside, some lorry driver had totalled his truck on a narrow A-road, and the police weren't letting anyone move either way - not that it would have been that easy to turn around. So there we sat, about 10 cars or so, for about 4 hours, getting colder and hungrier... wishing I had a blanket and a mars bar (and a hip flask)

I also lived in the hills around Glossop for a while - that was quite scary in winter... 4ft drifts in the road and all that, and we used to carry a 'survival' kit of water, little bits of food, blanket, entranching tool, and those chemical handwarmer things. Not great roads once you got the beaten track.

My (soon to be ex) step father in law lives in Wisconsin - f*ck me, when it snows up there, it really snows, 2 ft in an hour. That was frightening!

And "part troll"...

Bastards! All of you.

I'm off to shave and get a haircut.

I just wikipedia'd Cloaca. I wish I hadn't.

I was thinking a knife or a spoon would help you get out of the jam . How thick is the jam?

Respect to the lady who overtook me this morning!

She had the roof of her convertible folded down & flew by me as if I was standing still ( I was doing a shade over 60 mph)...& she didn't even have a woolly hat on