Authorities in Ireland have been forced to issue an important proclamation to help people deal with the cold weather.

Now, as far as the sensible, rational, discerning and presumably sexually virile people who read this column are concerned, it's not such a big deal -- you wrap up warm when you're outside, you keep the central heating on when you're inside and at night you stick an extra blanket on the bed.

And the best piece of safety advice from last week is this -- don't try and drive your quad bike across frozen lakes. Because, apparently, you will break through the ice and immediately drown in a cold death.

But the authorities are dead wrong to be issuing such public service announcements.

So ISpy has a public service announcement of its own -- if you think that driving a half-tonne quad bike across a lake that has one inch of ice separating you from the water is a good idea, go ahead and give it a go.

Because the gene pool really will be better off without you.