Large areas of the country were brought to a halt yesterday because the Highways Agency were all outside playing in the snow, and didn't get round to clearing it.

"It caught us totally off-guard," said its Director not in Charge of Operations, "because whenever the weather comes on after the news your mind begins to wander a bit, and you try to listen out for the bit that affects you, but by then it's too late. Does that happen to you, too?"

"Of course, eventually we sent out gritting lorries and stuff," he continued, "but the roads were full of traffic, which was really unexpected, and, well, frankly the weather was terrible. No, I won't be resigning. I'm a senior manager, so I'll be delegating that to someone else."