We do not handle “weather” very well here in the UK, in fact despite what the 24 hour news channels and certain newspapers will have you believe, we never really have extreme weather of any kind. After many warm winters, there has been a generation of people that grew up without even seeing snow, so when the white stuff decides to make an appearance again as scheduled in winter, the nation seemed to get its knickers in a twist.

In February we were told that the killer snow was the worst in 18 years as terms such as chaos, arctic conditions, snowpocalypse and snowmageddon rapidly became the norm. Snow in winter who would have thought it? But gone are the days of winter weather being the norm, in fact in these health and safety obsessed times, Royal Mail bosses even stopped postal workers from delivering the mail due to the harsh weather conditions which were literally a few inches of the white stuff.

So yes it may have been the worst weather in over 20 years but twenty years ago people just got on with things but now everything comes to a standstill which begs the question what would actually happen if we had seriously bad winters like they do in Eastern Europe or even the United States?

In December the media hoped that we forget about the coverage in February and how the “Killer Snow” brought the country to a halt, so when the dreaded white stuff decided to make another winter appearance, they laughably went a little too far by saying it’s the worst winter in 300 years and it could kill 35,000 people!

If you are reading this overseas you could be forgiven for thinking Great Britain were suffering horrific arctic weather conditions but the reality is we received inches of snow. By contrast it was of great amusement to see how America dealt with winter conditions. New York for example had 2 feet of snow within only 24 hours, that’s right two feet not two inches! in fact some areas left piles of snow as deep as 80 centimetres (32 inches).

Although overpaid Premiership footballers are not known for playing in snow, and can even be seen wearing gloves and snoods if there is a slight chill in the air, American football fans, love their matches to be played in the snow, and were angered after an NFL game in Philadelphia was ­postponed after a snow blizzard forcast. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said: “It’s a joke. We’re a nation of wusses.”

I think that sums the UK’s weather and the medias coverage of it perfectly, if an NFL game being cancelled after two feet of snow falling in 24 hours makes them a nation of wusses, I dread to think what that means about the UK with only a few inches, maybe our resident travel expert Simon Calder can come to out rescue. In the meantime Ed Rendell we salute you.