From “the wrong kind of snow” delaying rail services to “the wrong kind of rain” to resolve a drought - Brits are well accustomed to the weather being blamed for one failure or another.
Now Ipswich Borough Council has added its own entry to the list of meteorological excuses.
In a Tweet to followers this morning, the council told residents the cold weather was posing difficulties for its brown bin collection teams.
“Due to frozen contents we are having trouble emptying brown bins,” it said.
“We’re safely doing all we can to collect them but we are having to leave some.
“Please only contact us if your brown bin is full & cannot wait until your next scheduled collection.
“Thank you for your understanding.”
The most famous example of a weather related excuse came in 1991 when British Rail said the disruption caused to many of its services was down to a “different kind of snow”. The phrase “wrong kind of snow” later became a byword for pointless excuses.
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