Leningrad Cowboys

Snow

It's been quite nice and warm. Naturally that's been followed by the coldest March weather on record, high winds and snow. The AA roadwatch online map for the area was obliterated by little red triangles.

The roads didn't get gritted. Note to the council: it's too late when there's a queue of traffic going nowhere. By then you are not actually gritting the road. Just pebbledashing the stationary cars. The driving was spectacularly bad:

Too fast: the very first right turn of the morning. The road went round to the left and down a short and fairly steep incline. I tried the brakes. Nothing. The oncoming red car was going fast, but was miles away. With the obstructions his side, surely he'd stop? He didn't. I slid to a halt opposite a space he could bail out into. He baled out at speed, then hit his brakes too hard, too late, and slid on into the roadsign. I saw he was unhurt and carried on.

Too slow: they either have 4x4's and utter contempt for the rest of us, or they don't and are too dim to understand the physics. Maintain momentum to survive. Like sharks swimming. Stop and you've had it. You'll not get going again.

Not moving at all: what you need is information: is the small occasional forward progress genuine or merely because another car up ahead has turned around and gone back the way it came? There is none. Left frustrated and floundering, no-one knows what to do for the best. The Internet information is rubbish, too little, too late, too inaccurate.

The High Street was blocked, so it was the reverse trip up the road where the postie came to grief, and I nearly didn't make it up the incline at the end, wheels spinning and rear end fishtailing. The traffic was queuing back for miles, all because no-one had the sense to turn right at the roundabout (road clear) but insisted on waiting to turn left (okay, you may want to go left, but what's the point when, clearly, nothing's moving?). How many of those poor people had travelled miles just to get stuck going nowhere near to home? Frustrated at the home stretch?

It does look nice, though. Photo opportunities abound.

Leningrad Cowboys go America

No typo. The 'to' is missing, the title is grammatically wrong.

A gloriously mad film. The Cowboys are a band, with outrageous quiffs (about two feet long, Google images) and long pointy shoes (they buy a car, kick the tyres, punctures result).

I think it's from Finland. There's not a lot of subtitles, because there's not much dialogue. What there is is hilarious.

It is absolutely, wonderfully barking berserk. I don't know why I've not heard about these movies before (there's three: Go America, Meet Moses, and the balalika diaries (or something like that)). Find them and watch them, an insane visual treat.

The film starts off, appropriately enough, with the bass player frozen stiff laying on the tundra. He goes to America too, albeit in a ramshackle coffin knocked up from scraps of wood and secured to the roof of their car.