NORMALLY, this leader column discusses the world's weightier matters, like how US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair can bring peace to the Middle East.

Or whether reform of the public services can work, or whether the Government's tax and spend policy is the best way forward and whether there is any future for a lowly Third Division football club in a 25,000-seater stadium.

All of these are issues of earth-shattering importance.

Yesterday, though, something simple happened. A little white stuff fell from the sky and covered the ground. Children awoke to a winter wonderland and dashed out to sledge and to snowball.

Only a few days earlier, their parents had spent hundreds of pounds on battery-powered garish plastic in a bid to keep them entertained for a few hours. But yesterday, for no more than the price of a carrot for a snowman's nose, there was a day's worth of fun.

Of course, those unfortunate people who have been without electricity for a day, or who have had a tree fall on their car, might not have such a rosy view of yesterday's weather.

And, for all of us, one of life's great minor irritations lies ahead as the thaw begins.

Because in every town in the North-East there are drainpipes that have been disconnected for decades. The shop-owners (for the offending properties are rarely private homes) presumably keep their downcomers nailed to their walls for decorative purposes as they are absolutely useless at directing rapidly melting snow into a drain.

This means that if the pedestrian wants to avoid a shower on the pavement they have to step off the kerb. And here's the other perennial, irritating problem: an ocean of filthy slush that builds up in the same place every year because of a drain that has drained nothing for decades.

So let the sodden of the world unite: as of today, we shall boycott any commercial premises that does not have the decency to keep its customers dry, and we shall march on the council offices demanding that at least once in a millennium it bothers to check whether its drains are really draining.

And then all will be alright with the world. Well, maybe.