How are you managing in the Great Winter of February 2009? Last Monday, large flakes of white stuff fell out of the sky and the London newspapers went a tad bonkers:

UK SNOW CHAOS, BRITAIN CRIPPLED BY HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IN 18 YEARS, ARCTIC WEATHER HITS ENGLAND, LONDON OVERWHELMED, I LOVE BEING STRANDED SAYS PHILLIP SCHOFIELD.

Translated from tabloid-speak, all this meant was that the headline writers in London couldn’t go out without getting snow on their Guccis. The buses had stopped running, there wasn’t a taxi to be found and their favourite restaurants had run out of sushi.

Confronted by chaos and confusion at Heathrow, a Canadian traveller remarked: “This isn’t snow, this barely qualifies as dandruff.”

Clearly he hadn’t grasped the seriousness of the situation. Had he not picked up a paper? Was he not aware that a new ice age had dawned and civilisation was about to disintegrate?

The end of the world was explored in a recent BBC drama. SURVIVORS was about a group of plucky Brits who were among the last people left after a particularly virulent outbreak of bird flu. They banded together, squabbled incessantly and survived in their harsh, new environment by recycling TV scripts from the 1970s.

I was musing on this as I tried to decide which of the dogs to sacrifice when we get snowed in and ran out of food. If Britain’s infrastructure collapses under the weight of snow and we’re left to our own devices, what happens next?

The situation in the south east could become quite Darwinian: ten centimetre snow drifts and the lack of public transport will quickly dispose of the weak and unfit. The commuting classes will be too bewildered to fend for themselves and perish horribly on station platforms. Middle England will resonate with Daily Mail readers exploding at the paucity of blitz spirit and grit.

Deprived of botox and publicity, celebrities will be the next to go. Supermodels are too thin to survive more than five minutes without flash photography. Being of greater girth, bankers will probably last longer. Unfortunately, they’ll be the least use. On the positive side, we can eat them when we run out of tinned stuff, along with the tubby teenagers everyone is worried about.

Experts say that the most important asset for survival is a robust, positive attitude.

When the end of the world arrives, I’d recommend sticking close to a Canadian.