Southsea will suffer from the loss of Knight and Lee – Verity Lush

This was back in the days when there was an alcohol and cigarette counter and when John Lewis didn’t open on Mondays.

It was with sadness, and a pang of nostalgia, that I read about the imminent closure of Knight and Lee.

Being an ex-Portsmouth High School girl, I spent many an afternoon in Palmerston Road when my mother collected me from school.

Shopping in Knight and Lee with our mums was standard for myself and my friends, and it has truly been a stalwart of Southsea.

Without it, what shall become of Palmerston Road?

It is that unreasonable to find snow a bit of a drag? 

There has been much in the news this week about snow.

Snow, snow and yet more snow.

Even though we in the south have what is known as ‘no snow’.

Aside from the fact that the Daily Express will now declare Armageddon and the national news will treat us to the annual pictures of salt and grit mountains, this has also led to speculation and debate about whether or not to pay people if they cannot travel to work because of snow.

Much of this is relative, surely?

If you were to live 10 miles away from work and had one foot of snow, with walking being your only option, how can you be expected to miss a day’s pay if you can’t get in?

Short of calling out Ant Middleton and the SAS to helicopter you out of your house, you’re stuck.

It takes the average runner 60 minutes to jog six miles – and that is in good conditions.

Imagine what time you’d need to leave in the morning to hike your way through 10 miles of the white stuff – and how physically fit you would need to be to do it. 

Perhaps I am lacking in dedication but freezing to death or losing my nose and several digits for the sake of non-emergency work seems beyond the call.

Alternatively, if you live a tad nearer and getting in on foot is reasonable, then it must be pretty galling if you traipse in and somebody else who lives an equal distance does not – but still gets paid just for staying under their cosy covers and Netflixing their way through the day.

I often think we are too hard on ourselves as a country when it does snow.

If we were all living in Colorado minus snow tyres on our cars and with a distinct lack of provisions in the cupboards for such scenarios, then I would understand the criticism.

But given that we see proper, deeper snow in the south approximately once per five years, it seems fairly reasonable to me that some areas of the UK ground to a gritty halt last year when several inches fell.

Smoking, womanising and drinking with the Mad Men

I am among the last remaining humans in the Western world to have not watched Mad Men. 

I sought to remedy the situation and am completely hooked. 1960s America and the smoking  and the womanising are cannily depicted, and it begins in an era where anti-Semitism was still uncomfortably prevalent and women were on the cusp of liberation. The Pill was revolutionary and the concept of ‘having it all’ was coming into play.

I wonder when, in the following 60 years, women realised having it all actually translates as ‘doing it all’.

You can have the career, the kids, the cash and the car, but you’re still juggling all the pieces – only with less time to do so!