20 COMMENTARY www.EDP24.co.uk/news Eastern Daily Press, Thursday, March 12, 2009

YOUREDP Switchboard 01603 628311 Newsdesk 01603 772433 Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich NR1 1RE EDITORIAL Editor Peter Franzen Deputy editor Peter Waters Assistant editor Paul Durrant Night editor Mark Harrop West editor Chris Bishop Picture editor Nolan Lincoln Head of sport Richard Willner Making the most of virtues Business editor Paul Hill What’s On editor Trevor Heaton Web editor Celia Sutton Barely a month ago everything was white and I was sitting on the A14, ADVERTISING the traffic and my day brought to a Advertisement manager Gary Attfield grinding halt by a jacknifed lorry. Advertising 01603 693847 Schools closed their gates, trains Leaflets 01603 772130 stopped running, flights stacked back Photo sales 01603 772449/ at icebound airports and great www.edp24.co.uk swathes of industry and commerce, Postal subscriptions 01603 772291 already under the cosh of the credit ARCHANT NORFOLK crunch, shut up shop. Councils Managing director Stephan Phillips across the country ran short of and 01603 772829 then reluctantly, lest their E-MAIL jurisdiction should be next on General [email protected] nature’s hit list, began swapping salt. [email protected] Yesterday, the snow came again. Editor [email protected] Bucket loads of it. As the night time Letters [email protected] temperature dropped towards minus Advertising [email protected] 11, hundreds of revellers from all walks of life and from many FAX countries cavorted unhindered by Norwich editorial 01603 623872 heavy coats, woolly hats and Norwich advertising 01603 623225 weighty, multi-buckled boots, danced West editorial 01553 768511 on tables and drank half price beer The EDP is fully committed to from bottles. This cosmopolitan Complaints Commission’s Code of Practice. crowd ate with white plastic forks If you have a complaint which cannot be free helpings of spicy pasta served up resolved by the editor, write to the Press piping hot on white paper plates by Complaints Commission, Halton House, Elvis in a white one-piece, 22-23 Holborn, EC1N 2JD celebrating like there was to be no tomorrow. EDPDISTRICTOFFICES This is happy hour – four until six – an everyday celebration that 01502 711800 stretches from December into April. FAIRYTALE: The town of Livigno in the Italian Alps. 20 Blyburgate, Beccles NR34 9TB This season everybody’s especially happy because it snowed longer and valley were so isolated and the wooden buildings that remain dotted glitterati of nearby St Moritz. 01263 512732 harder than for many a year. winters so harsh that they were along its winding streets, any Livigno is a lesson in making the 31 Church Street, Cromer NR27 9ES The people here have good cause for unable to leave their homes. With the number of cheap bars, cafes, most of its virtues. The snow on the celebration, for while the annual snow blown and piled up against restaurants and pizzerias. roof of the building across the alley is DEREHAM 01362 854701 snows, and the isolation they their walls and doors they lived Nothing, of course, is as cheap as it more than a metre deep but the roads Bond House, High St, Dereham NR19 1SZ endured as a result, once brought much of the winter, with their was before the pound’s value nose- are entirely ice free. The buses run great hardship, they eventually animals, indoors, sustained by what dived against the euro – and just every few minutes throughout the DISS 01379 651153 brought a rare combination of wealth they had been able to grow, harvest about every other currency except day, the kids go to school and ski- 26 Mere Street, Diss IP22 4AD and happiness. and forage from the poor rocky the Zimbabwean dollar. school. The cogs, motors and cables Just one and a half hours flight time ground in the warmer months. Nevertheless, credit crunch or no, of the chair lifts, drag lifts and FAKENHAM 01328 862678 and a (longish) coach ride from a As legend has it, tax collectors were the number of shops per capita gondolas whisking thousands of 22 Norwich Street, Fakenham NR21 9AE place where snow brings chaos and frequently sent out from the city but remains one of the highest in Europe winter sports enthusiasts high into misery lies a place where it brings invariably either went missing or – more than 200 of them among a the mountains operate faultlessly KING’S LYNN 01553 777622 riches and joy. returned empty handed, unable to population of 5,000 people, a total from 8.30 in the morning to five in the /777623 The lady on the weekly Inghams penetrate a virtually roadless, often much swelled by the temporary evening, day in, day out. Soon after, St Ann’s House, St Ann’s Street, bus, that winds its way up from snow-bound mini state whose three residents of its 100 hotels. And credit the engines of the piste bashing King’s Lynn, PE30 1DL Brescia’s little airport via Lake Como now enjoined communities cover a crunch or no, the hotels and caterpillars spark into life with into the Italian Alps and to the linear valley measure of little more apartment blocks appear full, mainly barely a cough and head off to the LONDON 020 7219 3384 ext 6211 fairytale town of Livigno, passed the than half a dozen kilometres. So rich with Italians and their families. hills to work, their lights twinkling Press Gallery, House of Commons, London time by enthusiastically explaining has this duty free zone become from These are the citizens of a fellow EU like faraway stars that have fallen to SW1A 0AA why, even though there are no legal, winter skiing, summer mountain nation whose economy, some would the high slopes, well into the sub-zero logical or obvious geographical biking and shopping, explained the have you believe, is either the night. 01502 525835 reasons, it enjoys tax free status. lady on the bus, that a man who permanent poor man of Europe (next It’s snowing again and all anyone’s 147 London Road North, Evidently, the reason why the litre owned a mountain has become a to Spain – ironically another holiday thinking about is how good it will be Lowestoft NR32 1NB and a half bottle of good Chianti that multi-millionaire. And so the story destination with opposite attributes) skiing on the powder on top of the we will crack open with supper goes, he still rides unpretentiously or about to implode. dutifully bashed piste tomorrow. THETFORD 01842 765945 tonight and the litre of brandy that around town in a battered Fiat Strange then, there appears to be no Given the UK’s topography and 3 Market Place, Thetford IP24 2AH will round things off and keep the Panda, apparently little affected by talk of banking or sub prime temperature, the revenue raised chill of the mountain out tomorrow his fortune. If his ancestors did for a mortgage crisis here. Maybe, because from a million ski lift passes happily YARMOUTH 01493 847954 each cost south of five Euros, is snow. tax man, there is neither record of it almost everyone’s on holiday, they’re paid over to the authorities who clear In times long gone by, related the nor story about it – at least not one burying their heads in the snow. I snow and bash pistes, is not, of 169 King Street, Yarmouth NR30 2PA lady on the bus who’s been looking told to strangers. don’t know, but these seem like course, available to your average Do you have a problem receiving after parties like us for more than a Still snowy, modern day Livigno ordinary folk having a good time, not British council. But we do pay our your EDP? Call sales decade, the inhabitants of this idyllic boasts among the ancient, iron-hard the diamond encrusted Cartier taxes. manager Mervyn Freeman on 01603 772214 Many of the photographs published in the Tickets Online Canaries’ best fan Sign up for the EDP online EDP are available to buy. To see photographs of news stories, events, local Scottish rock band Would you like to read the scenes and sports or to browse our Simple Minds is Eastern Daily Press online in archives visit www.edp24.co.uk/buyaphoto returning to Blickling Hall the same way that you Call into any EDP office or phone us on for an outdoor gig this would with the real 01603 772449 to place an order. Images summer. Buy tickets newspaper in front of you? are available in gloss or semi-matt finishes. online for this concert You can do just that by For a special gift, photographs can be and for others in Norfolk subscribing to our e-edition, framed or finished on canvas. by Sugababes, Jules and it will cost you less than Holland and David Gray Are you City's 12th man (or woman)? You could £1 a week. www.EDP24.co.uk at win the Aviva Norwich City Fan of the Year Cup. 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