The Peat Moors Centre (£25,000)

You have to understand the Dog & Duck to realise why it has taken a while to get around to this one.

You see, we are just a bunch of ordinary Somerset folk, all ages, sizes and trades: teachers, grandparents, parents, former schoolkids etc.

Which is why hearing that the County Council was going to close the Peat Moors Centre (PMC) in order to save £25,000 (6th item on the list in the linked document) came like a kick in the stomach / bollocks / kidneys / all of the above.

Even now – months later, talk of the PMC causes choking throats and swollen eyes.

Many of the regulars have kids who used to love going to the place on school trips. Some of them are young enough to have actually done it themselves – they still talk about getting airsick as the bus bounced along the road from the A39 to the PMC (a definite candidate for the worst maintained public road in the South West).

Even outsiders like Carla Young were appalled, saying “but you’re lucky to have the moors, you should be celebrating them, not closing the place down!”

Is there ANY good news at all in this sorry, sorry tale? Well, the only thing we can think of is that it provides an alternative currency, or yardstick against which to judge the sordid mess they’ve got us into.

A few examples ... If 1 PMC = £25,000, then that makes:

The cost of Jonesy’s mistress? 6 PMCs

The cost of Jonesy’s post? 7 PMCs

The cost of marketing Excellence? 160 PMCs

The cost of ICElandish Excellence? 1,000 PMCs

It’s enough to make grown men vomit.

Snow Crisis!

This is the scene outside Somerset's Dog & Duck Inn at 7.30 a.m. this morning, just after the discovery that all schools in the area are being closed due to "adverse weather".

The white stuff you can see is milk. Our intrepid milkman has been and gone. But if you look really carefully you can see some more white stuff on the top bar of the gate. This is not spilt milk - it is the snow that has brought Somerset to a standstill. Again!

The temperature is already an "icy" 3 degrees ABOVE zero, which everywhere else in the world would mean that the little dusting of snow you can see is melting as we watch. The wind is coming in at a mere 15 mph (admittedly it is coming from the North).

Daffer Jones, bless him, is still in bed (he always lies in when he's not at sea). This is just as well, as the Council's pathetic failure to keep the infrastructure open on Tuesday reduced him to tears.

"What would happen if there was a proper emergency?" he asked.

Snow humility in Somerset!

Less snow than anywhere else in the country, but just as much disruption.

Other counties are closing hundreds of schools as well, you can read all about it on their websites. We have to rely on the local press.

13 inches of snow in Surrey. 13mm in Somerset (and melting fast).

The comparisons lead to an obvious conclusion: Pathetic Performance.

How embarassing! I just hope there are no foreigners around to witness it.