Return of the Big Chill

Fountain frozen over in icy cold weather

This was Trafalgar Square in London at the beginning of this year 2010, the fountains frozen over and an icy cold gripping everything, and this will doubtless be the scene again before the year is out. It has already snowed across large swathes of the country, mostly to the north and west, but the cold snap is already making itself felt in the rest of the country, snow or no snow. Its accomplices are sleet, frost and ice and its after-effects are the widespread disruption to transport services. And this has already occurred on the roads, railways and at airports. It can only get worse as winter sets in and icy blasts from the north sweep across the land, freezing everything up. There's a certain desolate majesty in this picture of the iced-up fountain, the play of the lights on its surface and the lit-up art gallery buildings in the background, but make no mistake, it's not where you want to be as day gives way to dusk and the deserted square succumbs to the unremitting all-embracing chill. The few brave souls that venture out for one reason or another will not linger in the open for long. An eerie silence descends upon the Square and a bitter chill takes hold. It's going to be a long bone-chilling night.

A new day dawns with a blanket of snow

Daylight brings some slight relief from the piercing icy chill of the night and the mood lightens. Everywhere is a picture-postcard scene of a snow-white landscape painted by Nature's brush. Beautiful it is, but its beauty belies the harshness of its nature and its effects. As for the phone booth in the picture, how quaint does that look? Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, rising out of the ground in all its brash redness, it somehow manages to introduce a reassuring note of security in an otherwise unremittingly white wilderness, with its promise of instant communication. Friends, family and emergency services are just a phone-call away should one get into difficulties on the road. Now how useful this is in a world where only new-born babes don't have a mobile phone, I don't know, but I rather suspect this red phallic symbol is more ornamental than utilitarian. More a throw-back to a bygone era than a practical modern communication option, it stands there defiant in all weathers, refusing to acknowledge the ubiquitous existence of the cellphone! And offering at the very least the sanctuary of its shelter as well as a phone service, assuming of course it hasn't been vandalised! Still, call me a soppy sentimentalist if you will, but I'd rather have it there than not.