Joe Bloggs

7:00am Jpn time - his lordship is hopping about like the lad from Raymond Briggs' Snowman. Yes, up in the better reaches of town we have a whiteout of fresh and falling snow. Downtown in the murk of North Mountain I am sure there is only slush (although, as ever, I am sure the tube is purring). Ah, time to get the Bing Crosby LP out.

Sorry, but no sympathy from me. The weather forecast is letting us believe it will be -20 degrees Celsius on Monday and getting colder after that.

Don't tell me, you're doing some penguin research?

Come to think of it, what I wanted to know was: now that Mr Bloggs is in a blogging heartland, what does he think of the likes of Belle de Jour and Pepys Diary?

First of all I've heard about your snow and even seen it!

http://www.shokoku-ji.or.jp/kinkakuji/webcam/index.html

We're expecting a bit of snow up here as well, but we'll never (thank goodness!) be in Marko's league.

Heart of blogging land is probably over the water from here, but as the original blogger has been reinvented via Pepy's Diary we'll let that one go. And an excellent reinvention it is. I should go there more often.

Belle je Jour? Well what can you say? Who told you about it?

Joe has actually been in this town once, although that was in the summertime. I have to say that so far this "winter" has been quite warm, but now the temperature is taking a sharp turn for the worse, but should go back to more humane levels after Christmas (more humane is, in my books, less than -10).

But we don't even have reindeers here, unlike the people down sarf think, the reindeer zone (so tot speak) starts about 100 miles or so north.

But speaking of cold: when my brother was doing his military service, one night in Lappland when they were camping in the woods, the temperature was around -50! Brr...coldest I had to suffer during my time was about -30 (and that's cold enough when you are a sentry standing outside!).

Begs the question ... who would invade such a place????

The crazy russkies tried that and our even crazier grandfathers declined the offer...

I invaded Iceland once and met an Icelandic woman who knew only too well what to do when the barometer dropped into minus double figures (I will stop here as Belle writes this kind of stuff far better).

No. No. Continue. I need more readers. Belle might even link this way if we hear more. ;+)

Oh and I now know where you got your Belle connection. Absolutely compelling reading and richly deserved.

Yes, the recommendations and winners I have checked out all seem to have something worthwhile about them; but, then, so does Joe Bloggs.