It’s yellow with a chance of amber?
IT has been snowing a lot in the North East today; indeed according to the news, it is a yellow alert with a possible amber alert on the high ground.
Forgive my ignorance, but am I the only gadgie in the North East who doesn’t have a freakin’ clue what that actually means? Givowwer!
Not once has a mate, colleague or relative popped around the house and boldly exclaimed, whilst shivering and stamping their snowy boots on the doormat, “Why man, it’s ****** ’n yellow with a chance of amber ootside!”
Nevertheless, it always amazes me how the arrival of duff weather still catches us unawares and then dominates every area of our life.
The groan of disbelief when the morning peep through the curtains reveals a sparkling winter wonderland that has just fouled up your day. Thoughts of crying off and going back to bed are scuppered by the knowledge that your boss or the office informer live three streets away and will be strapping on the skis at this very moment.
The journey to work turns from the humdrum and frustrating into the heroic and terrifying. Long forgotten balaclavas, cagoules, walking boots and skiwear are recycled until we resemble a tramp that still makes an effort with his leisure activities.
Geordie pluck and inventiveness shine through the gloom as Tesco loyalty card double as windscreen scrapers and people, who would usually rather pull themselves along using their eyelids than use public transport, happily squash on to the back seat of the bus like 12-year-olds on the way to the baths.
Families at breakfast gather around the radio listening to my old mate Alfie Joey reading out school closures with an intensity only matched by French resistance fighters listening to the BBC on the eve of D-Day.
“They’re copping it in Northumberland,” I murmur, “could be yellow alert with a chance of amber!”
At first, places that are only familiar as names on signs on the way to the caravan are mentioned.
Your area eventually gets a reference and we cheer to find one of our schools is still open.
Conversations which used to start with how good/moronic the X Factor was now begin with forecasts or situation reports: “Our Margaret couldn’t get up Dunston Bank so she’s had to walk in her heels.”
Smugly, the ‘yummy mummies’ with their four-wheel-drive ‘Jesmond tractors’ on the school run suddenly don’t seem as ridiculous – even the most rabid environmentalist would gladly swap their Citroen for a footballer’s blinged-up Humvee if it’d get them off their estate.
“To hell with the ozone layer and the polar bears,” they’d cry. “I want to get on to the Central Motorway before the inevitable collision between the raging bearded bloke driving the Volvo and the texting hairdresser in the Corsa blocks the road until Valentine’s Day”.
As well as thinking of the plight of the elderly, I begin to fear for the younger generation.
Bless the wannabe hoodies in their skinny jeans that staff our bus shelters… it can’t be safe showing three inches of backside crack in sub-Siberian temperatures.
At least my generation had the good fortune to follow fashions that were cold-weather friendly. Mods had Parkas, skin heeds had Doc Martens and the rest of us had snorkel jackets with their luxury orange lining and polyester fur based on an animal of unknown origin.
Weather whingers are soon silenced, however, when some silver fox brings up the sufferings of the winter of ’63.
This definitely wins the game of dodgy weather top trumps that plays out in many households.
Visions of a white hell more akin to the Russian front are told with relish by grandads across the parish. Anyway, as far as extreme weather goes, I just can’t wait for the heatwave; melting roads, hosepipe bans, neighbours in Speedos, bad barbecues, sunburn, heatstroke, Geordie tans and moobs, gasping: ‘It’s the wrong sort of heat.’
Wonder what colour alert that’ll be?
■ Mike is hosting his own comedy club evening at Whickham Glebe Sports Club on February 24, featuring Radio Newcastle’s Alfie Joey and Cal Halbert, AKA ‘The Mimic Men,’ as seen on Britain’s Got Talent.