yes, let's not forget that London and the South are not the be all and end all of the UK. Scotland and the North of England cope with this every year. However, it is worth the while of councils up there to invest in snow ploughs to keep the roads open. In London we rarely get enough snow to make it unsafe to drive and this sort of stuff happens less than once a decade. Economics!

That said, I do think more effort could have been made. I haven't seen a single council worker with a shovel, the pavements haven't been gritted, Phoebe's school couldn't even bother to put a message on their telephone system to say that the school was closed.