The weather outside is frightful (or: it's being smart that counts)

Why do we get so excited about snow? the BBC asks. I don't why, you tell me Beeb. Because I sure as hell don't get excited about snow. Not one iota. Knowing snow is coming, or waking up to find snow covering my garden makes my heart sink.
I don't know whether this is a symptom of getting old, I can't remember enjoying snow when I was younger. As my mum has pointed out, I've had more snow in my lifetime than she ever did by my age. I pointed out to her this was probably due to the global warming her generation and the generations before her had caused. But for as long as I can remember, I have not liked snow, for the reasons listed below.

1. Snow is hugely inconvenient. For transport, public and private. For businesses. For schools. For people in general. You can't get anywhere, and if you do succeed in finally getting there, you can't get back.
2. It's white. I hate the colour white. Whilst not a universal disadvantage of snow (for example some people might like the colour white), it certainly gets irritating after a while.
3. The end result of snow. Slush, or even ice, tend to be what comes next once the pretty little snowflakes have fallen and covered our houses, cars, roads and pavements. If you're lucky, it becomes slush. Dirty, mucky, slushy slush. At least this only soaks your shoes through faster than the snow did. Slush most often occurs on roads or where grit/salt has been used. But the compacted snow more often becomes ice where people tread repeatedly on it. This makes for more dangerous walking than the thick snow that lay there before, and I'm sure most people find themselves with aching feet from the way you walk on ice.
4. It is cold and wet. This comes into play when you get it in your face or down your clothes, whether because it's drifting down from the heavens, being blown around by wind, or if you have been the target on a snowball.
5. Snow costs money. Much like the inconvenience, businesses will do less trade, people are unable to work, and the cost of getting the area/country back on it's feet is pretty big. Compensation for disrupted travel, most likely flights from closed airports rather than disrupted public transport, will need to be negotiated.
   

Basically, snow is useless. I personally do not think it is even that pretty. There's nothing majorly magical about a blanket of snow, and I don't understand why people like it. With the exception of kids, because they obviously know no better.

***

I recently saw a bus advert for the LG Optimus phone that claimed "It's being smart that counts."
This obviously refers to the fact that if you don't own some sort of smartphone these days, you clearly live in a cave or under a rock. My contract is up in a matter of weeks on my G1 and though I both love & hate my phone, I don't know if I can find an acceptable replacement. I was hoping to go for the HTC Desire Z, but since it's so new I don't think I will get my regular £30 800 minutes-Unlimited Texts-Unlimited Internet contract on such a phone. But now I have had my G1, I have higher expectations of phones. In fact, I get frustrated that my phone cannot do things. I now want a phone with the following abilities:
- Email
- Threaded texts
- Open documents i.e word doc, jpgs, pdf
- in addition to this, I want to be able to EDIT these documents and then send them on
- Navigation & Maps
- Social networking feeds
- Integral calendar that is easy to use
- a QWERTY keyboard
- and probably many more I can't think of right now.
I basically want a laptop in a phone. Which is probably why I want an iPad, for the first time since they were launched, as I have sort of been seduced by the idea of their capabilities. I'll let you know after Friday whether I buy one using a friend's bulk discount.

The other thing that came to mind when I saw the aforementioned LG advert was that it is not being smart that counts. If it was being smart that counts, then I would have had an easier time at school, and so would a lot of kids still in education being ridiculed for their higher intelligence by those with lower intelligence. Telling them that it's "being smart that counts" probably isn't much consolation.


Last but not least, the photo here shows how sentimental I am: this is a collection of scrapbooks and memory boxes I have, and two large photo albums started by other people but finished by me of my childhood and adolescence.
This now all resides in the loft. Teehee.