Posted on: January 12th, 2010 by Reuben Turner

Amazing what a little snowfall does to the public psyche. The UK press can’t seem to make its mind up whether snow is some kind of white-out killer apocalypse or a silly flash-in-the-pan that exposes the ineffectual jobsworthiness of our schools and councils. (Funny how the newspapers always make it through, no?).

Meanwhile we’re outraged that our buses aren’t running, our trains are delayed, our schools are closed.

It always strikes me that infrastructure problems like this should remind us how amazing our infrastructure actually is.

A ten-minute gap between tube trains should bring to mind that we have a railway in London that manages to shoot metal tubes carrying millions of people through Victorian tunnels hundreds of feet underground, with literally a minute between them, day after day – and safely.

A threatened gas shortage should make us consider that we’re able to drag up a volatile, inflammable compound from miles under the ocean floor and pipe it hundreds of miles RIGHT INTO YOUR KITCHEN.

Meanwhile in the midst of huge snowfalls and the coldest winter for years, we have functioning electricity, gas, telephone, TV, newspapers, wireless and broadband, all of which enable us to work from pretty much anywhere.

I love this clip of comedian Louis CK – reminds us all how easy it is to get used to the incredible life we lead.

But all of this is as nothing next to how the rest of the world functions. When you consider that a third of the people in the world have never made a phone call. That in the Occupied Territories a journey across town (to work, or home to see your kids) can take six hours of passing through checkpoints. That people in the developing world regularly see their kids die because there isn’t a bus to the hospital that day, or they can’t afford the fare.

So, think about it that way and you can, quite literally, think yourself lucky.

One Response to “Think yourself lucky”

1. Derrin says:

   January 12, 2010 at 12:40 pm

   Not to mention the astonishing physicality of the snow itself. Us urban dwellers often forget the sheer power of nature; our concrete, asphalt and metal worlds keep us so cocooned physically and spiritually. (Maybe it’s just the Aussie in me that gasps in awe when our man-made world is covered in the soft white stuff). It’s inconceivable to me how fellow Londoners slept rough over the past week or so, let alone being a child working in 40 degree temps in a field.