Snow delay
It didn't help that was, itself, delayed.
This was for an honourable reason: getting the latest update from the M8 meant the normal courtesy of supplying a text to opposition front benches would not have been possible in time.
But, in the chilly atmosphere at Holyrood, it added to an impression of drift and uncertainty: an impression which, naturally, Ministers are keen to dispel.
The transport minister, Stewart Stevenson, was up against it from the start.
Folk don't like being stuck in cars. Folk don't like their trains cancelled.
MSPs, despite rumours to the contrary, are folk.
They too have spent hours struggling personfully to get to their toil. And they are reflecting the fury around Scotland.
White hell
Mr Stevenson owned up (within limits.) He took responsibility for those matters - such as communication - which lie within the ambit of government.
Ministers, he said, should have spread the word about the white hell more speedily and more robustly.
Perhaps, in future, the phrase "avoid travelling unless absolutely necessary" will be shelved in favour of something more robust. Like health warnings, it has become too formulaic, easily discounted.
But Mr Stevenson was understandably to take the blame for the weather or, more precisely, for the weather forecasts.
The Met Office, he said, had delivered forecasts which fell short by several centimetres of the snow which actually fell.
Further, it fell over a prolonged period and an extensive area of central Scotland.
Hang on, though, say opposition MSPs. Mr Stevenson's list of forecasts didn't include a severe weather warning issued at 2040 GMT, on Sunday evening.
The government reply is that the information offered in that warning was in line with other bulletins: two to five cm of snow, locally 10cm over the hills.
Ruby-cheeked youth apart, I expect we would all welcome a break in the snow.
Stewart Stevenson more than most.
I'm 
Comments
or to comment.