I hope you’re all sitting comfortably, because today we’re going to learn how to build a proper British snowman.
‘Snow’ in the UK has – for the last 20 years or so – amounted to a spot or two of cold rain that looks a bit grainy when it hits your windscreen (windshield for American viewers) as you’re driving along. Even with the relatively vast covering today it was still nothing compared to what we used to get – and what almost all of the rest of the world still gets on a regular basis.
This dearth of decent snow has given rise to a very British creation: the British Snowman.
To build one you will need the following:
- a thin layer of wet snow
- several dog turds
- some grass clippings
- oil from road
- mud or soil
- masonry removed from someone else’s property
Begin by having a snowball fight. Throw snowballs at moving traffic then, when bored, place snowball on the ground amongst the mud and grass exposed in the previous activity. Roll it around until it gets too big to move any more – by this time it will have acquired a non-white exterior consisting of mud, grass, oil, and any dog turds lying around. It will be roughly spherical depending on how soon you realised you couldn’t move it for much longer.
Repeat this process to make a smaller sphere (the typical snowman-builder will likely need two tries at this, since the first will result in a ball too heavy to lift). Place it on top of the first. Ideally, the primitive snowman will be located on a pavement or in the road – because that’s really funny.
The snowman now needs a face. The nose is usually created using a ‘carrot’ – the typical snowman architect will need to look this up on Wikipedia, not being familiar with vegetables in general, and especially not carrots in particular. The eyes and mouth will be carefully fashioned out of stones or small rocks taken from someone’s garden. The adventurous snowman builder will use clothes and possibly shoes to adorn his creation.
Since the majority of British Snowman builders are students, optional extras include genitalia and bosoms.
Suggested further activity: wait until dark, then go and demolish as many snowmen as possible – ideally by pushing them on to paths or into roads.