We adapt to changes in a surprisingly fast manner and new habits can be learned quickly, an example being that when coming in from the snow we now bang our boots on the wall on both sides of the door to knock the excess snow off of them. Because the pavements are frozen and as slippery as ice-rinks we walk in the road, as they have been cleared of snow and ice and are actually safer to walk on, even with the close proximity of the traffic. Our false economy says that it is better to have pedestrians in the road or slipping over and ending up in hospital than it is to spread some sand, grit or salt on the pavements.
Our chancellor George "We're all in this together" Gideon Oliver Osborne, is taking a luxury break at Prince Charles’s favourite ski resort, Klosters in Switzerland where chalets can cost as much as £10,000 per night. Osborne is part of the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy, known in Ireland as the Ascendancy. He is the heir to the Osborne baronetcy, so has been born into a family that has been lording it over us since at least 1620.
Tory MP Frank Zacharias Robin "Zac" Goldsmith is on holiday at an £8,000-a-week villa in the Caribbean over the New Year but then he does have about 300 million quid of his fathers to fritter away.
I'm not exactly sure what George means when he says "We're all in this together" but then maybe my invitation to go to Klosters with him has just not turned up here yet for some reason. Goldsmith speaks and writes about environmental causes in Britain but can see nothing strange or contradictory about flying himself all the way round the world for a short holiday. It's funny how the rich are happy to spout all sorts of twaddle about how other people must cut back on their already meagre existences just as long as their own extravagant and opulent lifestyles remain unquestioned and unchallenged.
A good game that I play is that whenever a politician starts talking I imagine that the opposite of what they are saying is actually the truth. This works surprisingly well for a lot of their pronouncements and at least gives me some small amount of entertainment as well.
