Sir Salter Scott? I’m gritting my teeth...

TEE hee. Scotland’s gritters all have funny names! There’s Gritty Gritty Bang Bang, Sir Salter Scott and wait, you’re going to love this one, Luke Snowalker. Oh, hilarious. Oh, what larks. Oh, give me strength.

I’m sorry if I sound like a sour-faced lemon-sucker about this. I’m sure if I never had to leave my house to go anywhere or do anything and was instead free to sit at home and watch the snow fall while the fire crackled and someone brought me endless chocolate digestives, I’d find it all terribly charming.

But unfortunately for me, going out is something of a daily occurrence. So when my little car got stuck in the snow trying to drive up a small hill on an ungritted suburban street, and then started skidding towards a parked car on Wednesday morning, you’ll forgive me if I didn’t give a flying fadoodle what side-splitting monikers the powers that be have named the country’s gritters.

One could be called Emma McGritty Face for all I cared, I just wanted to see it on my street.

But no. None of the streets around my house were gritted and, while the roads are primarily residential, some are also important arteries from one part of the city to another. And as roadworks are closing off a major road nearby for the next five months (yep, five months, don’t get me started) they are busier than ever.

I didn’t hit the car, by the way. Instead I managed, gingerly, to get my own car to the side of the hill, where I left it before walking for 15 minutes to the nearest station and taking the train.

But I could have hit that car and, equally, I could have slipped and fallen on the treacherous pavements, none of which (you’ll know where I’m going with this) had been gritted. Of course I got off lightly, compared to all those poor sods who did come a cropper on ungritted roads, and those who ended up stuck in their cars overnight on the M74.

From what I hear from colleagues, friends and family, ungritted streets in residential areas – including around schools – have been a frustrating norm all week.

It’s extraordinary really. We can clone a sheep, invent television, hold endless referendums, yet somehow Scotland cannot get its head around the fact that winter is an annual occurrence.

Look, I’m sure all these amusingly named gritters are working hard. But either there aren’t enough of the vehicles, they aren’t being managed properly or someone’s not checking the weather forecasts.

AND what is so teeth-grindingly annoying is that this happens every year. Just like winter. Every January I find myself having the same conversations, navigating the same ungritted roads and shaking my head while reading about serious accidents that have occurred because Scotland has once again been caught out.

A similar argument could be made about the NHS. Over the past two months we have seen A&E departments fit to burst. Why? Because it’s winter.

I don’t know what the solution to all this is.

But I do know that silly gritter names feels ridiculously patronising, designed to distract us from the fact that as a country, we are once again woefully under-prepared for winter.

THERE was only one word to describe the expression on the face of Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, left, when she talked for the first time about the stalker who had harassed her for 20 years: hunted. ‘It’s not that it ever goes away,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I ever believe it will stop or he will stop or the system will manage to prevent it properly.’ Her stalker, Edward Vines, was jailed for 45 months on Tuesday for continuing to breach a restraining order by writing to her from prison. That he was able to do so in the first place demonstrates how broken the system is.