"Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"

You can't move for news stories about the snow this week, and the pointless, time filling sequences of people's photographs of the white stuff (because, you know there's no other news at all this week). Everyone's panicking because a couple of flakes of snow have hit the ground and treating it like it's the end of civilisation as we know it. Then, of course, there's those smug bastards who are taking the piss because they've barely had a millimetre of it covering their streets, as well as those hardy souls that are saying "Bah! It's only a bit of snow!"

Normally, I'm one of the latter, but, living in way up here Northumberland, I've come to realise how cut off I am during times like this. Not quite as bad as Scotland, of course, but we're doing our best to keep up.

Train and bus services are erratic, with a lot of them being stopped at certain times of night because of black ice and damage cause by the cold; the local council is concentrating more on keeping the paths and roads clear around the new multi-million pound white elephant that is Sanderson Arcade, rather than dealing with the estates where people, you know, live (and when the snow plough does turn up, it just moves the top layer of snow over to the side of the road). Just walking into town proves to be more like a major polar expedition, not helped by the fact that the snow seems to turn people on the streets into massive arseholes, who are determined to hog the dry parts of the pavements so they don't have to get their wellies wet.

It has been, frankly, insane. But, on the other hand, it's been great to be able to lock myself away and get some writing done, make some plans and try and figure out the best way to seize 2010 and get things on track.

So, yeah, the snow isn't all that bad.