AIR POLLUTION

The Great Smog of 1952

The air is grimy. Hanging like a warm, dirty fog, the tiny particles of Sahara-sand and factory-fumes are almost detectable as you stumble through the mist. It's horrible; it almost gets inside you, coating your lungs with grit.

Still, it's not as bad as all that. In 1952, a four-day smog descended on London that reduced visibility to just a few yards. Driving was impossible, the ambulance service was cancelled and the smokey-fog even penetrated inside, seeping through cinemas and pubs, rolling through the single-glazed, lamp-lit windows of Central London. Thousands of people died as a result of contracted illnesses, enflamed by the so-called 'pea-souper', while the coal-fires burned.

No run today then, I thought as I left the house. I found out later that David Cameron, our shiny-faced Prime Minister, had decided the same; although he got on with some work, rather than going back inside for a giant bowl of rice krispies and a cup of matcha tea.

I can't cope with this cooped-up feeling. Being snowed-in, waterlogged or under house-arrest would be utterly unbearable. There comes a moment when you just need a little fresh air. I guess at least in the snow, you could crack open a window and fill your nostrils with the ice-cool atmosphere. As terrible as a flood would be, if I were marooned upstairs, I could catch a glimpse of the jack-o-lanterns dancing on the ceiling.

Perhaps though, this freak cloud of hazy pollution reminds us of how great life is... without it. We live, after all, on a temperate isle, surrounded by ocean, windswept and gloriously unpredictable. While Athens swelters in the summer heat and the desperate smog, while Beijing coughs and splutters, and while car-horns punctuate the swirling dust clouds of New Delhi, we're busy finding other things to complain about in our own quirky way. Just like them, I reckon this grotty cloud will soon blow over.