winter weather

Reading the news this morning and looking at the weather in both the US and the UK, I am once again reminded of how lucky I am living here in Southern California. Although we have had some exceptionally cold weather recently which caused Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency when millions of dollars worth of citrus trees were damaged, it really is nothing compared to other parts of the world. Looking at the BBC's website this morning I saw floods in Mozambique and Indonesia and a report which was actually a political article about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the first part of which focused on the weather in Chicago. A chilly eight degrees below zero Fahrenheit (which actually felt like minus 20 due to the arctic wind blowing off Lake Michigan) caused one TV station to issue a frostbite advisory, warning people not to stay outside for more than five minutes as frostbite could set in! Yikes!

Then I started wondering about how my family was in England and if the weather there was also bad. The BBC often have photographs that people send in so I browsed through a selection about weather in England and Wales, and that's when I saw the most ridiculous thing. In a country where people rarely wear shorts (even in the summer), one reader, Richard How, sent in a picture he had taken and wrote: "I live in Newport Pagnell, Bucks and I couldn't believe it when I looked out to check the snow, there was our postie in SHORTS! He must be mad." Hope it's not a new trend over there, because he might really get frostbite.

Talking of fashion trends, the British seem pretty interested in Hillary Clinton's dress sense and in an article in the German newspaper, Die Welt, have found a report where Donatella Versace advises Ms Clinton to wear knee-length skirts to bring out her feminine side. Apparently, black is a good color for her as she is a strong woman and strong women wear black, Ms. Versace says. Ms. Versace sounds as though she genuinely admires Hillary Clinton and beleives she is in a good position to advise her on her sense of style as she successfully changed the appearance of pop star, Christina Aguilera, who according to Ms. Versace had no style when they first met and now looks like a diva from the 50s. Mmmm ..... I wonder what she has in mind for Hillary?