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It’s snowing!
By nealejames | February 8, 2007
8am Thursday morning, I looked out my window, and Hell’s Bells, the weatherlady was right… it HAD snowed. Not exactly the several feet deep dump that I was warned about, but enough of course to bring my native southern England to a shandy drinking stop. The message of ‘stay indoors and don’t travel’ was dutifully obeyed and the outside world seemed very quiet for a Thursday morning rush hour. I’m self employed, so I had a quick staff meeting with myself and gave myself the day off, plus a pay rise for good measure. I checked in with the news; travel chaos. Roads closed, trains with icy leaves on tracks and all the airports in synchronised closure, stating that flights had to be diverted. Now this is the bit I never quite understand, because I’ve never been on a diverted flight. Where, if everything’s shut, does a Captain divert to? I imagine this is a great opportunity for smaller airfields, where Bob the cleaner, plane refueller, chief flying instructor, customs man and check in clerk all at the same time, thinks; “I’ll clean up here.” He’s straight on the blower to air traffic control with the message that Little Fansworthy Airport was cleared of snow at 0730 hours GMT. Half an hour later, you’ve got 400 passengers inbound from Mauritious peering out of little jumbo jet windows on final approach to a runway that’s only three football pitches long, the only thing to stop it being old Maud’s outside loo at the end of the tarmac… laid by visiting gypsies of course in ‘72.
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