SO what are you doing with the extra hour today (Sunday) after the clocks went back?

Only one per cent of people questioned in a survey said they would do something for charity with their “extra” hour.

The second most popular way to while away the 60 minutes was to watch TV.

Ten per cent of women said they would use the hour to catch up on housework (just five per cent of men said the same thing).

By far and away the most popular option which was chosen by more than three out of five Brits was spending the hour in the land of Nod. Happily, I was glad to join them.

The change from British Summer Time reinforces the dreary realisation that we are heading for winter.

Some are predicting that we will have another bitterly cold one, and snow could arrive on our doorsteps early on in the new season.

I must admit to having a dislike of the white stuff these days but there was a time when I welcomed it.

That was more years ago than I really care to remember, but I do recall the wonderful time I had gathering up snow in cupped hands, forming it into a ball and lobbing it at friends and foe.

It is painful to think back at the effect the snow had on my hands which were red raw and frozen after a session outdoors, and they hurt like crazy when they began thawing out.

Kids these days can avoid the sort of discomfort I suffered by using some handy devices I’ve noticed have gone on sale.

For just �5 one can purchase a machine which can make three perfect snowballs at once. And the scoop action means that you don’t even have to touch the snow, so your hands can stay warm and cosy in their gloves.

Another device, which only costs �8, makes a snowball and then enables one to fling it half again as far as one could usually do.

But for the ultimate weapon, one cannot go wrong with a machine which can launch a snowball up to 50 feet. It would be �15 well spent, and I’m thinking about putting it on my Christmas list in preparation for a triumphant return to the wintery battlefield.

Top of many people’s Xmas list will be mobile phones. It has been predicted that by the end of 2012 there will be more mobiles in use globally than there are people, and that number is about to pass the seven billion mark.

Right now there are more mobiles than toothbrushes.

This is encouraging for the new president of the Stevenage-based IET which is Europe’s largest professional society of engineers.

I wonder if he has seen the results of research which concludes that the art of conversation is dying as Brits become “all text and less chat”.

It finds that more than half of us rarely or never have long telephone talks with friends or family, with 70 per cent saying the average length of a call to loved ones is less than 10 minutes.

I find that sad.