Legal Alien » Weather

Some stereotypes about England

Bjørn — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:56:15 +0000

Stereotypes about London and England are plentiful. A newspaper article in the Danish “Berlingske Tidende” about today’s “extreme” weather (“London paralysed by snow”) mentions two of them.

Used to rain?

First it mentions how the English who are so used to rain woke up to a snowstorm. I have covered that in another blog entry. London has almost 2% more rainy days than Copenhagen. So yes, there was a lot of snow compared to how much usually falls, but I haven’t heard it referred to as a snowstorm over here. But then, the journalist does mention that her source is “The Sun“, a newspaper given to exaggerations and even fabricated stories.

Double-decker buses?

Oh, and all the double-decker buses are at a standstill according to the article. In that case it is not as bad as I thought then, all the non-double-decker buses are still driving then I assume. Yes, there are non-double-decker buses in London.

Due to the extreme weather conditions…

Bjørn — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:15:52 +0000

The south-east of England is closed. The buses in London aren’t driving. Part of the M25 is closed. I was supposed to go to Bedford today, but the “Highways Agency” agency suggested that you only drive anywhere if you really had to. Well, I was pretty sure I would be able to handle the snow, before moving to the UK we lived in the country-side in Denmark so we had to drive in the snow every winter. But I was afraid of venturing out and meeting the English drivers that definitely are not used to driving in snow during the winter. My son’s school is within walking distance, but he came home with a notice that “due to the extreme weather conditions all schools in the Wokingham area are to close tomorrow”. The weather right now would be considered straightforward winter conditions in Denmark, so we had a laugh over that. Click the pink excerpt below to see for yourself…

Rain

Bjørn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:59:49 +0000

Friends back in Denmark frequently ask me how I can stand all the rain here in the UK. They never quite seem like they believe me when I tell them that in my experience it doesn’t rain a whole lot more here compared to Denmark. So I decided to find the official truth. That wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. It turns out the BBC and DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute) don’t agree on the numbers. The BBC is supposed to be very trustworthy, but I’ve decided to believe DMI on this one.

Rainy days per year:

London 119
Copenhagen 112

So there you have it, one more week of rain in London compared to Copenhagen for the whole year. Putting the numbers into a chart it becomes clear that in London the winter is wetter and the summer is drier compared to Copenhagen.

Quality of life

Bjørn — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 01:38:55 +0000

This is old news, but my blog on living in the UK is new, and I wanted to boast tell friends and family about the cool place we live in the UK. So back in 2007, Wokingham (the borough where we live) was found to be the number one place in the UK to live in. What particularly pleased me was that we here have “90 minutes more sunshine each week than the UK average”

Unfortunately, the latest survey from 2008 has Wokingham in fourth place. I assume the 90 minutes of extra sunshine haven’t gone away though…

BBC: Wokingham the ‘best’ city to live
Halifax press release: Residents of Wokingham have best quality of life