Did you know it has been snowing in Kingston? And across the country. It has. I’m not making this up.

One thing I enjoy during a cold snap is watching the TV news.

So here’s a quick spotters' guide to our first class news coverage:  

- An interview with an AA man on a motorway bridge telling everyone to “only drive if it’s absolutely necessary”.

What does “necessary” mean? More clarity please.

If I dropped dead tomorrow the Surrey Comet would continue, which means it’s not strictly “necessary” I go into work. That reasoning might not wash with my boss though.

- A reporter standing in a gritting depot in front of a grit mountain giving us meaningless figures such as “the council is using 190 tonnes of grit”.

I’ve no concept of what that is. If the reporter had said “three billion tonnes of grit” I would have believed him.

- Shots of flipped-over cars and people slipping on pavements followed by the classic line “but for some, the snow was a chance to have fun”, featuring clips of kids having snowball fights and dads sliding down slopes on estate agent signs.

- Pictures of frozen runways and people stranded at Heathrow. Talk of passengers getting “heated”. Rubbing it in or what?

- A teacher outside a closed school saying things such as: “We always do everything we can to keep the school open during bad weather.”

- A business leader talking about “the loss to business” caused by workers not being able to get to work.

It’s funny how, in a normal week, we never hear anything about the “gain to business” from the thousands of hours of unpaid overtime that many people across the country do.

Funny that.