Catastrophists

During the recent spell of bad weather, the so-called Beast from the East, I was watching the local news programme. They featured a primary school headmaster from Bradford who had quote “agonised” over the decision to close or open his school due to the weather. He said he had to take into account the surrounding roads, the pavements and the parent’s safety coming to/from school. This set me thinking; actually he had taken on a huge number of problems that were not his responsibility. To me his role was simple he had to ensure that the school environs were safe for pupils and that there were enough members of staff to supervise them. No more no less, it was not an agonising decision but actually quite an easy one that could be based on simple facts. Extending his responsibility beyond the school gates is ludicrous. If instead of citing the icy pavements he had said that he must ensure that all parent’s cars were road worthy then it would have been obvious.

It is similar to the way that we catastrophise the ordinary events of life. This is particularly evident when there are transport delays, and people state that for instance that it is like being in a war zone. No it isn’t it is a mild inconvenience that will be forgotten a week later. Being in a war zone is being a refugee in Syria. A lady who had been stranded in her North Devon village for two days because of snowdrifts called it “disgusting” that the council had not dug her out. No that is a sensible use of resources; they should be first deployed where they have most benefit. One of the hazards of living in an isolated location is that it is isolated. What is disgusting is that during the cold spell we have homeless people sleeping on the streets.

So lets sit back and let nature take its course, we cannot do anything about the weather other than prepare if extremes are forecast, though quite why my local shop had been stripped bare of bread and toilet paper today is quite mysterious.

View from our house on Tuesday