The press are in a snow flurry over the UK’s favourite water-cooler subject – the weather.

From panic-buyers emptying superstores to revellers being trapped all night in pubs by snow and the UK running out of gas by Sunday, the media has milked every angle of the cold snap possible.

But the Metro’s charity angle has taken it a bit too far, even by tabloid standards.

The London commuter paper's front-page spread on the first Monday of the New Year boldly warned that hard-up pensioners had resorted to buying books from charity shops and burning them to keep them warm.

It reported that an unnamed charity shop in Swansea, South Wales had vulnerable shoppers seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal.

The story has captured the imagination worldwide, with even US newswires reporting the story.

But it turns out that the Association of Charity Shops (ACS) has heard no evidence of this new trend, and has firmly declared that there is “no truth in it”.

“We’ve also done our own quick calculations,” said an ACS spokesman, “and the cost of coal isn’t much more than the cost of books. It doesn’t stack up.”