Europe

One thing about taking public transport is the unfortunate amount of anti-social behaviour you have to exhibit to make the journey a smooth one. If you seem too sociable, you wind up attracting undesirables: Smelly buskers, smelly beggars, and not-so-smelly emissaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recently arrived from Canada and unaware that Belgians really don't want to talk to them.

Since many people I know don't take public transport, it might be time to explain what they're missing.

Winter has finally arrived in Western Europe. Not bad really, considering it's just over a month late. To be honest, I was starting to have my doubts about seeing winter at all until the end of the year, but it took a large violent storm to force some semblance of balance back into place.

This time last week, we were only just starting to see the start of strong gusts of wind that really took hold on Thursday, causing vast property damage, even to the point of rotating traffic lights 90° on the boulevard in front of the office. Here in Belgium, we only topped wind speeds of around 100km/h, however this was a mere breeze compared to other countries such as Germany and Austria where gusts peaked to around 170km/h.

If you haven't yet noticed because you're too busy living under your rock, the weather is completely stuffed, worldwide.