Beheading snowmen

They just couldn’t wait.

They couldn’t wait to cut the heads of carefully crafted snowmen. What could be so urgent to necessitate the introduction of saw to sculpted neck?

Saving the grass apparently – according to Hounslow Council.

Even as war, hunger and pestilence roam the world, somehow a decapitated snowman deserves his place on the front page. And in some parts of London like Chiswick, there’s been a wholesale decaptitatory crackdown.

Even my Fosters-drinking mate at the railway station has disappeared – and he was fine this morning. Gone without trace.

And for what? It’s snowing again. 

Sure, it may be laudable to clear pavements to save people from slips and broken hips. But who begrudges a snowman?

As we’re having to wait for the sun anyway, why not have the cheery companionship of a snowy sentinel to share the icy times while they last.

We’ll be wading through mud, slush and rain soon enough.

According to the Daily Telegraph, even the Queen has been drawn into the row

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What do snowmen drink?

Wonder no more – the answer is here.

I saw this guy this morning. In his left hand a can of

How many different words for snow, death… and farts?

Eskimos and Inuit are reputed to have many/seven/50/100 different words for snow. Though it may be a tundric myth. (And anyway, don’t we have snow, blizzard, sleet & slush – OK that’s only four, and I’m not sure about the last two.)

But anywhere with an unusually high number of different words detailing aspects of a phenomenon interests me. It evokes poetic lists. Like these from Belfast poet Michael Longley – The Ice-Cream Man.

Rum and raisin, vanilla, butterscotch, walnut, peach:

You would rhyme off the flavours. That was before

They murdered the ice-cream man on the Lisburn Road

And you bought carnations to lay outside his shop.

I named for you all the wild flowers of the Burren

I had seen in one day: thyme, valerian, loosestrife,

Meadowsweet, tway blade, crowfoot, ling, angelica,

Herb robert, marjoram, cow parsley, sundew, vetch,

Mountain avens, wood sage, ragged robin, stitchwort,

Yarrow, lady’s bedstraw, bindweed, bog pimpernel.

You can listen

The biggest snowball in the world, ever.

She's contemplating the snow, he's admiring my taste in music. (Anyone know the artist?)

The snow began as I wandered along and around Portobello Road, past stalls selling printers type, old maps, bananas, crepes or cheese or “antique” candlesticks.

I was chewing the fat with the bloke who sells world music as we listened to The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria.

And the weather forecast is…

Justin Snow - from uniwatchblog.com