Hello and welcome to a very frosty episode of the Europeans.

Coming to you from an incredibly cold Amsterdam, where I am, and I think a slightly milder, slushier Paris.

Yeah, it is milder and slushier.

But over there I hear you're all obsessed with whether the canals are going to freeze over

so that you can skate on them.

Yeah, it's true.

Well, it's been 24 years since this legendary 11 city ice skating tour has been able to take place

because the canals haven't frozen over enough, hashtag global warming.

There's complete elf-staden tocht mania in the country at the moment,

and yet, officially, it's not meant to go ahead because of the dreaded sea word.

I saw that the Prime Minister said, like,

can you all please try not to fall over on the ice and get hurt?

Because the hospitals

really don't need that right now. Yes, be careful out there, Dutch people, and everyone

else in icy places. We sadly didn't get any of the orange sky phenomenon, which looked

beautiful in other parts of the continent when the Sahara sand was coming over attached to the

snow. Beautiful or post-apocalyptic? Or pre-apocalyptic?

Maybe both.

Can't we have both?

Dysopian movies are beautiful sometimes.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you about some news I read this week

before we get into the rest of the episode.

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