A View from England: December 2009

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Snow, ice, sleet across UK causes travel chaos

Snow and ice continue to cause travel chaos across the UK, disrupting the Christmas holiday plans for thousands (link via BBC News)

Well, despite the snowstorm back in February, and the chaos it caused, the councils up and down the country didn't seem to learn anything from that experience. Yesterday, the chaos from roads that didn't get gritted (sanded) or salted, is inexcusable. It's unbelievable that news reports are about the gritters showing up today - the day after they were so urgently needed.

Yesterday was a real nightmare for a lot of people in many parts of Britain. There were many car accidents and a lot of drivers were forced to abandon their cars because the roads were so icy and treacherous. Traffic came to a halt in many towns and cities. Conditions were just appalling. Even emergency services and automobile breakdown companies were struggling to get through. In fact, an ambulance and a fire engine were both stranded on our road because of the ice!

A friend said that buses were getting stuck and blocking the roads in London. The bendy buses were the worst because they jackknifed all over the place until even they got stuck and jammed the roads even better. It meant very long journeys home for a lot of people yesterday.

I wonder if any of the roads were salted or gritted yesterday. Apparently they used to add molasses to the grit mix to make it sticky but the cost has gone up and now they don't however this means the grit and salt soon wash away particularly if you have some rain or sleet. Can someone verify if this is true?

Fortunately, Eurostar was back in business today after three days of stopages, although Eurostar services between London and Europe which were thrown into chaos by snow (more than 2,000 passengers were trapped on trains overnight in the Channel Tunnel on Friday) will not return to normal until "after Christmas" according to the latest report from the company.

And it's still only December! Winter has barely started.

What has the weather been like where you live? Have you had a bad experience on the road or perhaps waiting to travel via the Eurostar? What are your thoughts about the lack of gritting?

Related Post:
Frozen UK - snow causes chaos! (December 1, 2010)

Monday, December 21, 2009

Chris Hollins wins Strictly Come Dancing 2009

The official site www.bbc.co.uk/strictlycomedancingFollow on Twitter.com/bbcstrictly Sign up for text alerts at http://www.bbc.co.uk/strictlycomedancing/news/text_club.shtml

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Jamie's Family Christmas - Channel 4 special

Tonight was the first two episodes of a new five-part series called Jamie's Family Christmas with Jamie Oliver sharing his secrets for preparing Christmas food with tips to make it easy and fun, and most importantly, stress-free. And what a delightful series it is too! So often I get bored by cookery shows or I'm too overwhelmed with all the fussy details to even consider tying a recipe they recommend but Jamie's series is like a breath of fresh air. I learned a lot and enjoyed watching as well. My husband and 18-year-old son watched too. The bonus is that you get to see his lovely family (Jamie's wife, Jools, and their three daughters, Poppy, Daisy and sweet baby Petal plus Jamie's Nan and Jamie's sister and Mum and Dad) It's a real old-fashioned kind of Christmas special. I can't get over how comfortable all the members of his family are in front of the camera. And very natural as well. They are all stars! There was a very funny scene during a moment in their kitchen (the show is filmed at their home in Essex) when Jools handed Petal to Jamie and he swung her around and she looked very happy - until Jools took her away from Jamie! She cried and cried. Jools handed her back to Jamie and she instantly stopped crying. Jamie looked so pleased. Such a proud dad. I loved it. And another sweet moment was when Jamie was showing his daughters, Poppy and Daisy how to make American pancakes. It was just such a charming scene to watch. Jamie's Family Christmas is an excellent series! I think it's one of the best cookery shows I've seen on TV. And there's still three more parts to be shown this week (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening). If you missed the shows tonight, be sure and watch the rest of the series.

BBC Caves in to Carter Ruck Threats Over Trafigura Film

Via Iain Dale's Diary: BBC Caves in to Carter Ruck Threats Over Trafigura Film Carter-Ruck have succeeded in persuading the BBC to remove all reference to the Trafigura story from its website, according to the New Statesman. Newsnight. Trafigura. Law firm Carter-Ruck. Private Eye. Toxic waste. Twitter.

And I repeat the same request as Iain Dale asked: Could I encourage every single UK blogger to embed this video in their blogs too?

Monday, December 14, 2009

Strictly Come Dancing: Semi-Final Results!

I've been having problems accessing Blogger on the weekend hence the late post about Strictly Come Dancing. Of course, I watched the show! It was the Semi-Finals and very exciting it was too. The three couples competing were, Ali Bastian and her partner Brian Fortuna; Ricky Whittle and his partner Natalie Lowe; and Chris Hollins and his partner, Ola Jordan. I think all three couples danced beautifully but of course only two couples are allowed to go through to the Finals. There wasn't a dance-off in the show on Saturday night so the selection was based on the combination of the judges' scores and viewers' votes. The lowest scoring couple was thus automatically eliminated from the competition. The shock of the results was that despite scoring a perfect score of 50 for the American Smooth, Ali Bastian is out of the competition! I still can't believe Ali is out. I think she and Brian deserved to be in the Final. What a shame there wasn't a dance-off. I'm sure that would have made all the difference. I wonder what the judges think about this change. What do you think? Do you think the dance-off should have been dropped? Chris and Ola have fantastic chemistry and Chris noticeably improved - but I don't think Chris should have got through. On the other hand, Ricky is a very talented dancer so it was right that he got through. So it's down to two couples now. Who do you think will win? I think Ricky should win but I predict it will be Chris. And finally, what are your thoughts about Darcy Bussell, the former ballet dancer, who was brought in as an extra judge on Strictly Come Dancing? I think that as a professional dancer, she's obviously more qualified than Alesha Dixon as a judge but I'm not sure I like the way they keep messing with the show's format. I prefer it when there are only four judges not five. What do you think?