The Wrong Kind of Snow: How the Weather Made Britain - Hardcover

'A meteorological feast for every day of the year' -- Good Book Guide 'It's this year's Eats, Shoots and Leaves, an entertaining gift book that will keep difficult uncles distracted for hours on Christmas Day' -- Guardian online 'Worthwhile enough to shine for longer than gimmicky giftbooks often do' -- Independent 'Smart and well-researched' (five stars) -- Time Out 'Chock-packed full of tales ... if you're interested in the weather - and we all are - then this is a fascinating book' -- Robert Elms, The Robert Elms Show, BBC London 'Wonderful ... full of fascination and amusement' -- Alan Titchmarsh, The Alan Titchmarsh Show 'A perfect buy ... both fascinating trivia and a timely survey' -- Sainsbury's Magazine 'The idiosyncratic accumulation of strange weather-related factoids, quotes and anecdotes has bags of charm.' -- The Sunday Times

It's the great British obsession and not surprisingly: no other country in the world has such unpredictable weather, with such power to rule people's lives as we have. The Wrong Kind of Snow is the complete daily companion to this British phenomenon. From the Spanish Armada to the invention of the windscreen wiper, each of the 365 entries beautifully illustrates a day in the weird and wonderful history of the British and their weather. 31 January: The 'Big Freeze' of 1963brings the FA Cup competition to a halt: every football pitch in Britain is frozen: the third round takes 66 days to complete: the Pools Panel is formed as a result. 9 February: 'British Rail blames the Wrong Kind of Snow' -- it was a journalist's phrase, but on this day in 1991 it stuck to the beleaguered BR like flesh to ice. 15 July: The exceptionally hot and steamy summer of 1858 caused the Great Stink of London, resulting in the building of London's sewage system, still in use today. On the same day in 1930, rainfall in Yorkshire is so heavy that the Whitby lifeboat makes a rescue two miles inland. 10 September: A violent storm -- rather than British sea power -- defeats the Spanish Armada in1588. Four centuries later, bad light and rain stop play at the Oval ...And much more.