Snow What? - Review of February, Week 1

It snowed this week. It snowed quite a lot. From Monday 2nd February all the way through to 6th February, the country (more or less) had been covered in the white stuff. Not milk, not paint, not naughty things, but snow. Snowballs, snowmen, cold feet, hypothermia, and a whole lot of hot chocolate. Oh, and of course the traffic issues, school closures, and general panic which erupted when:

• The Government noticed how poor their snow recovery plan is
• People realised they would not be able to get to work/school/on holiday
• We ran out of salt

Of course, thousands of school children across the UK loved it. No school, no worries. Snow was surrounding the children, and what else do you do with snow but sledge down it, throw snowballs and be a general pain in the ass to adults.
Clearly, it was not all fun and games. The most notable of tragedies that occurred this week was that of Francesca Anobile, although there are also the clear, everyday issues of trains, tubes and buses all being dysfunctional. RIP, Francesca.

Moving on, we see UK interest rates crash down to 1% in an attempt to boost the crippled economy. It appears that this is controversial, but then again everything is. One citizen said "I'd rather see interest rates go up to help savers and strengthen the pound", which is a fair point, and one I think I would go with.

Football fans were left devastated after the winning (and only) goal of the Merseyside Derby was missed on ITV. The match went into extra time, and the goal came in the 118th minute of the game, just 2 minutes before the game finished. After watching the game for almost 2 hours, you can see why some football fans may have been left gutted. For those of you who want to see the strike, take a look below.



Meanwhile, kissing in India can get you into serious trouble. Look around you before you kiss, otherwise you could find yourself in the same position as Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty, who faced protests and accusations because of a seemingly harmless kiss in public.

An Edinburgh scientist has quantified the amount alien worlds out there, in space. This might shock some more sceptical people, seeing as it has long been believed that alien life does not exist, simply because no alien life has been discovered. However, the scientist is adamant that there could be thousands of species of alien life out of our knowledge, and has argued "If alien life forms do exist, we may not necessarily be able to make contact with them, and we have no idea what form they would take." Personally, I'm sceptical too, and Duncan Forgan (the scientist) doesn't exactly 'wow' me with scientific evidence and hypothesise.

Clarkson is at it again. This time, he's not insulting truck drivers over murdering prostitutes, or showering caravan fans in flames of hate, but he's insulting our current Prime Minister. Don't get me wrong, Brown isn't the greatest PM we've ever had, but he's certainly not worthy of being called a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" by a cynical, sarcastic lump that drives cars for a living. You wouldn't hear our favourite man from the Top Gear team say that - just in case you were wondering, I'm talking about Hamster.

Meanwhile, a ghost ship is expected to arrive at Teesside for dismantling and recycling. The ship was rejected by both India and Egypt for being too dangerous, because the asbestos on board the ship will cause damage to the environment and staff working on the project. Able UK says that the dismantling and recycling of the 32,700 tonne ship is the biggest of it's kind in Europe. Impressive, but you have to wonder what the "rigorous controls in place" that they talk about are; and if they will work. A member of 'Friends of Hartlepool' (aww, bless) stated: "we've now got a ticking, toxic time bomb and we're going to live in a nightmare haze of toxicity for the rest of our lives." Clearly, the member has no faith in the "rigorous controls" that Able UK have spoken about - and who can blame them, how can you possibly contain 700 tonnes of asbestos-contaminated materials? Good luck to Able UK.

Whilst the United Kingdom has been having one of it's coldest (and snowiest) winters in a long time, Australia has been having deadly heatwaves and hazardous bush fires, threatening thousands of people and killing 100 since the final few days of January. Opposite ends of the world, opposite temperatures, but the effects differ. Deaths over in Australia, transport shutdown in the UK. I know which I'd prefer to have.

In other news (always have to say that!), a 3 year old boy from Wales was killed by 2 family dogs, both put down. The story is perfectly summed up by a neighbour, "you see these stories on the telly and you don't think it is going to happen on your street." My heart go out to the family and friends, and the boy.

Well, that's it for this week. Clearly, there are many, many, many more news stories out there but I picked a random bunch that seemed easy enough to blog about. Thanks for reading, and (hopefully) catch you next week! Be sure to comment.