It’s something of a cliche to suggest that we Brits spend all our time talking about the weather, at least when we aren’t dealing with our other favourite topics i.e. health & safety, snooker or sentences that begin “I don’t mean to sound racist but…”. The irony of this is that, while we may be conversant in weather, we’re head-bogglingly rubbish at dealing with it when it turns in any way slightly beyond what would be considered ‘mild’- if you believe the news anyway.

In other parts of the world, people live in places such as Tornado Alley in the US where a good day in August is one where you come home from work to find your house in the same street you left it, or there’s the monsoon lashed regions of Asia which can experience as much rain in an afternoon as Somerset would in the average lifetime.

Meanwhile we live in possibly the most temperate country on the face of the Earth.   Thus we’re depicted as being prone to either all dying of sunstroke if the mercury climbs over 80 in July or, as the last few days have demonstrated, getting hopelessly befuddled and often caught completely unawares when water freezes into snow and starts lazily billowing out of the sky. I’ve allegedly been practically housebound for the last 48 hours because, despite us now being in a year with a funky futuristic name, we can’t manage to put salt- one of the most abundant substances anywhere- onto our roads and pavements to prevent us having to deal with the minor inconvenience of driving or walking on snow that has been compacted down into unending sheets of ice which lie in wait ready to make us skid or tumble and snap our necks with no warning.

How the would-be Brittanic members of the human race managed to get through ice ages that lasted for millenia is anyone’s guess when all we get now is news bulletins booming that the cold snap is due to last “a few more days” with so much portent they might as well be saying it’ll last “till the absolute end of all time”. Reporters have been stationed up and down the country to tell us that everywhere has become ‘snow-bound’ and ‘inaccessible’, despite the fact that they’ve managed to get several hundred kilos of broadcast equipment there in the first place  to tell us this.

I don’t know about you though but, for all the tooth-gnashing horrorbastardism of the news reports on the snow, all I’ve seen is people collectively taking time off work and school to joyously, for want of a better phrase, dick about. Everyone’s found their Christmas/New Year break unexpectedly lengthened by a couple of days and, in the case of my neighbourhood, set about building ever increasingly massive snowmen (there’s a 9 footer round the corner), have snowball fights, drag each other round on sledges and, in a couple of magnificent cases, build igloos and have a picnic in them. The 9ft snowman has even had a huge snow living room built for him. And a trumpet put in his mouth.

Clearly, far from being bewildered by snow, we’re better at dealing with it than any other nation. In a few weeks the Winter Olympics get underway in Vancouver and, no matter what events you may end up watching through the Games, I guarantee you won’t see one snowman, one snowball fight and certainly no snow living rooms constructed by either spectators or competitors. If the Winter Olympics were held on these isles there’d be a packed Wembley Stadium watching nations throw snowballs against nations, the whole of Dartmoor stripped of snow during a snowman building contest that’ll end up with an army of massive 50ft high creations straddling the South Downs, and all the skiing events replaced by the infinitely more tense British pastime of crowding round the radio first thing in the morning and waiting to see if your school’s been closed.

And, for another guaranteed British medal, the newsreader biathlon- where they have to travel to a snowy village, then file a report about how it’s impossible to travel to the same snowy village.

Obviously, over the next few days the snow will freeze into ice and then it’ll turn slushy and things might be a bit unpleasant for a bit but, for a while, let’s just enjoy the snow. The world’s all pretty and white and fluffy, every footstep makes that crunchy snow noise, many of us have an extended holiday and- this is a fact, by the way- sitting in a pub is for some reason infinitely more satisfying when there’s snow on the ground outside.

All of these are good things because, at a time like this, there’s really no reason to stay indoors. For one thing, there’s bugger all on the telly. Unless you like panicking reporters.

Or Labour simply handing the election to the fucking Tories 5 months early. This snow might be the best news we get all year.