DURING the past week or so, Britain has been hit by a weapon of mass disruption. It's called snow!

If there is one factor which encapsulates the lunacy of Saint Anthony playing a world leader, and promoting the UK as a global power, it is our shameful inadequacy when it come to dealing with climatic changes, even ones we have been warned about aeons in advance.

Sustained and heavy rainfall regularly means misery for thousands of homeowners for whom the promised flood barriers have yet to materialise.

Yet several weeks of prolonged sunshine herald drought warnings and threats of prosecution if we water parched lawns or wash our motors. Is that crazy or what?

However, it is snow we are discussing here and how a couple of inches of it, somehow spirited down from the heavens by Osama bin Laden, al-Qa'ida, Saddam Hussein or the North Koreans, brought most of the United Kingdom to a halt.

I surely can't be the only one questioning how, in the 21st century, the UK can't handle winter conditions nothing remotely as severe as 50 to 60 years ago.

How can anyone in a position of authority, in central or local government, face their critics after the scenes of chaos which appeared on television?

In one report a woman, visiting Britain from Russia, said to camera: "In Moscow, our winters sometimes last six months and we have very heavy snowfalls. Yet nothing stops." They certainly stopped here!

Mile after mile of stranded cars and lorries, with their occupants trapped inside; for up to 17 hours in some cases.

A friend's daughter, who lives in Huntingdon and works for a group of newspapers at Wapping, commutes to and from East London on the M11, five days a week.

She was one of the unfortunates who did a 17-hour stint in her car and was traumatised by the experience, which included the danger of freezing to death or risking asphyxiation by carbon monoxide as she and the other drivers kept their engines running and heaters working as long as they dared.

There was also the daunting choice of risking a burst bladder or trying to find an abandoned bucket. There never is one when you want one, is there?

The BBC's Steve Wright, one of the few coherent contributors to the nation's airwaves, mentioned one motorist forced to urinate into a Lucozade bottle during his roadside incarceration.

I doubt the company was grateful for that particular plug but any publicity is better than none. Perhaps we should all carry a bottle of Lucozade when embarking on a long journey, just in case it snows!

The person I felt most sorry for was the chap driving the gritting lorry. There most definitely is only the one and the trip from Lands End to John O'Groats, collecting then spreading meagre supplies from each local authority, while enduring the sneers and taunts of enraged, stranded motorists, must have been daunting in the extreme.

I hope he had a Lucozade bottle.