For the past week or so here in Blighty, the weather forecasters have been building us up for a major bout of bad weather. They’ve been going on at length, for a week or more now, about a warm front in the west meeting a cold front in the east (the same cold weather that has caused the deaths of over 100 people in eastern Europe and caused Venetian canals to freeze over), with dire warnings about massive snowfall on the eastern side of the UK. Threats of two to six centimetres—gulp! (did that sound sarcastic enough?—and ensuing travel chaos.