31 December 2001

on 31 December 2001 at 08:00

Questions that have no answer

As a change from my usual festive quiz, I have put together a special New Year series of questions that have no answers at all. This is because, sadly, I have not been able to discover the answers, and if readers can help me, I would be grateful.

The basic question is why? The last question, in the spirit of the New Year, is more of a suggestion.

1)Why are so few people employed picking up litter? It is a fairly easy job, satisfying and one which I am sure taxpayers would put higher on their list of priorities than, say, parking attendants.

2)Why is one of the two main doors at Norwich rail station always broken? One side was shut for months; suddenly it was open, and the other one was inaccessible. Is it the wrong kind of hinge, or leaves in the lock?

3)Why do supermarkets place screw-topped light bulbs next to bayonet-topped ones, when nobody that I know uses screw-topped ones, and thousands of people buy the wrong ones by mistake because they didn’t know there was any other sort?

4)Why does my computer tell me that it is “writing unsaved data to disk” when I attempt to switch it off? If I wanted to write data to disk, I would have saved it. Is this something to do with the Data Protection Act?

5)Why does an organisation set up to promote the widespread use of speed cameras call itself the Norfolk Casualty Reduction Partnership? Why not the Speed Camera Promotion Partnership, or is that a little bit too honest?

6)Why does it take so long to complete road works? Does it have something to do with cone storage?

7)Why bother with window envelopes? By the time you have positioned the address so that it shows through the window, you will have creased the letter out of recognition and put it in the wrong way round twice.

8)Why are some town or village road signs absolutely huge, and some small and discreet? Does it reflect the ego of the parish council?

9)Why can’t anyone – the Strategic Rail Authority, for instance – accept that not changing something is often the best idea?

10)Why don’t pedestrians use cycle paths? After all, cyclists ride on the pavement, and cycle paths are almost always empty.

Time-wasting of fairly early man

I am not sure exactly how staggered I was to be told that people may have arrived in Norfolk up to 200,000 years earlier than was believed.

Clearly, it would have been earlier if there had been a decent bus service, but I was probably more staggered to be informed that early man, astonishingly, experienced warm summers and cold winters.

Artefacts unearthed on the coast reveal that the most popular job at the time was warning of global warming or, alternatively, an Ice Age, and there were periodic pleas for people to stop using flint axes in order to preserve the environment. This theory is backed up by the extraordinary number of flint axes found periodically, and by the remains of computer models in operation at the time.

Obviously, if early humans arrived in Britain 700,000 years ago instead of 500,000, as was formerly believed by some people, it raises profound questions, such as why there was such a delay in setting up a usable transport infrastructure and a second footbridge over the Wensum, not to mention dualling of the Acle Straight.

Early man was unavailable for comment late last night.

Car-free day every week not such a bad idea

Sometimes, when I walk through Norwich city centre, I think how nice it would be if we could abolish motor vehicles. Then I recover, and after a while I feel better.

A question, however, lingers on. If we are so keen on making the motorist extinct, why don't we have a day a week when the city centre is kept clear of cars? A day when we can wander where we will and enjoy the unpolluted atmosphere of our fine and ancient city.

Nice idea? Well, let’s do it. We could call it Sunday.

Funnily enough, Sunday used to be fairly car-free in the city until we switched from worshipping God to worshipping shopping instead. Now we go hurtling around seven days a week in the hope that somehow, somewhere, we will stumble on satisfaction.

Off and on, we might realise that a day of rest is actually quite a good idea, but no sooner do we suspect this than the politicians and the businessmen persuade us that we have to go on buying.

So we are lured into this race to nowhere – nowhere in this case being a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week city. If we wonder what it will look like we have only to glance at Prince of Wales Road, described recently as a powder keg and the most dangerous street in the county. It may not yet be seven-day, but it is close to 24 hours a day at the weekends – and as close to soulless as makes no difference.

A day off from all this is not something to be discarded lightly.

Relief as 'lost' buses turn up somewhere

Last time I was astonished that a reported one in 10 buses in Norfolk failed to reach its destination, and wondered what happened to them. Happily, things are not as bad as I feared. In fact what should have been reported is that the destination board on one in 10 buses shows the wrong destination – which may not be totally reassuring, but at least they’re somewhere, despite what many passengers say.

Pondhenge Pantomime

Problems arose at the Pondhenge Pantomime when Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, who was passing, said he had discovered a frog that could turn into a prince at will, and they could have it for a firkin of ale.

Len “Kissme” Hardy, who was playing the fairy in the unexplained absence of Dorothea Goodchild - and who is renowned for believing almost anything - put on his wellingtons to extract the frog from a Pondhenge tributary, which was flooded because of global warming the previous Thursday.

However, after depositing the frog on stage, he forgot to take his boots off, and a last-minute attempt to iron his fairy dress also proved counter-productive when he was hauled on stage for the rehearsal.

He was being lowered on to the stage, in full view of the local primary school, when he realised he had a wand in one hand and an iron in the other. Someone yelled “Behind you!”, and the primary school shouted back “Oh yes he does”, because that was what they had learned. At which point Len began to have doubts about the whole thing...

17 December 2001

on 17 December 2001 at 08:00

Are conductors the way back for buses?

Let’s leave aside for a moment the unlikely council assertion that 57 buses an hour go on or near the Riverside complex in Norwich. Readers of a mathematical bent may wish to stand in a strategic spot and check it for themselves, once they have defined “near”.

The more important question is: what can we do about buses generally, given the amazing statistic that one in 10 of them in this neck of the woods fails to reach its correct destination?

Beside this, the fact that one in five is late pales into insignificance.

Where do all these buses end up? Surely they can’t all break down and strand their passengers by the side of the road? Do they all go through Hingham? Is there a bus graveyard in the heart of Norfolk?

Huge numbers of passengers write to this paper complaining about buses turning up late, not turning up at all, breaking down or vanishing into the mist. Despite heroic efforts from many drivers (though not all), our bus service is little short of pathetic, for all sorts of pathetic reasons.

So why don’t we follow Ken Livingstone’s example?

Ken, you may remember, is Mayor of London, just outside Norfolk. There are lots of buses in London, and there is a certain amount of congestion too, I believe. Ken’s strategy in the face of this “envisages a significant increase in the number of central London buses with conductors by the end of 2004”.

Conductors? How would they help?

The most obvious gain is speed. When a driver takes the fare, buses can remain at a stop for two to three minutes, compared with a few seconds if there is a conductor. In a situation where stationary buses in St Stephen’s – and elsewhere – can cause blockage of the through lane and almost permanent congestion, this must be worth thinking about. Ken lists the advantages: * Faster journey times; * Easier fare-paying for passengers; * Improved safety; * Information available when you need it.

All this might go a little way towards tempting back lost or disoriented bus passengers. As usual, it is a return to something unwisely discarded in the past, like trams and branch lines. So it would almost certainly work.

Phone breakthrough

This year’s most innovative Christmas present is the immobile phone – a new kind of phone that can not only be carried around with you but has an exciting new feature: you don’t have to be moving to use it.

The problem with previous mobile phones is that it has proved impossible for users to stand still. As soon as they are connected, they are forced to walk up and down, often pretending to do something else very important at the same time.

Occasionally they will feel compelled to jump into a car and drive round while the call lasts.

This obviously causes problems, not so much for the phone user as for anyone who happens to get in the way.

The pressure group Confront (Come Off Network, Fathead, Ready or Not), set up to deal with the problem, recommends standing in front of the mobile phone user, unless the phone user happens to be driving, when it is inadvisable.

The immobile phone will change all this, enabling the user to stand still and talk, thus causing minimum inconvenience. Unfortunately supplies are low, and thieves are targeting them.

A spokesman at a local stockist said: “We have absolutely none left. They’ve walked.”

Fear of bears in Costessey

Dramatic changes in our surroundings are predicted for the middle of the century if certain climate changes take place. According to computer models set up by the UEA’s School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing, the climate of the United Kingdom could cool by as much as 2C in the next 50 years.

If that happens, polar bears and penguins will be familiar sites in the remoter parts of Norfolk, like Costessey, and killer whales will take over sections of the Wensum. “We are expecting thousands of deaths from frostbite if the temperature falls by as little as 1C,” said report compiler Professor Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam.

Asked if this forecast was a little on the pessimistic side, Prof Aufmerksam said: “Computer models can be tricky. Climate is a chaotic system and is really quite unpredictable. However, we are totally confident and have issued a warning to freezer manufacturers.

“In any case if we are totally wrong, in 50 years’ time no one will remember. It’s a great line of work to be in.”

Pupils are quite right about apostrophes

Not long ago the EDP printed a letter from pupils at Thorpe House School in Norwich, standing up for the correct use of the apostrophe. They were brave – some would say foolhardy – enough to add three examples of correct usage.

Needless to say this provoked letters to the editor suggesting they were in error, and that Mrs Burns’ computer should in fact be Mrs Burns’s computer.

I am proud to stand foursquare with the pupils here. Mrs Burns’ computer is quite correct, as is Jesus’ disciple and Mr Jones’ bayonet. I would in fact like to use Mr Jones’ bayonet on certain people, but being Jesus’ disciple, I can’t.

Furriners must larn Norfolk, say Houseago

A radical plan to bar anyone from Norfolk who does not adopt its language and customs has been adopted by New Layby, the county’s government-in-waiting.

“We are being overrun by furriners,” said New Layby spokesperson and druid Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, a long-time campaigner for Norfolk values.

“If yew want to come to Norfolk fer the best part of some time, do yew hev to learn the language,” he said.

“If yew can’t tell a dwile from a bishy-barney-bee, or if yew pingle on the strand, we will simply fye yew out.

“Cor, blarst me!” he argued.

“Them furriners’re all on the huh. They just talk squit.”

He added that it was in everyone’s interests that we all spoke the same language, because it promoted understanding and was a good defence against incursions by great crested newts and other amphibians.

New Layby leader Len “Kissme” Hardy, of Hindolveston, was unavailable for comment. “He’s out troshin at Swaffham – all fer nothin,” said Mr Houseago.

New Layby, who attracted a record number of votes in the recent Tuttington and Brampton by-elections, will be insisting that everyone entering Norfolk reads and memorises a copy of The Merry Mawkin, newsletter of the Friends of Norfolk Dialect (Fond).

Asked if this might not cause hold-ups on the A11, Mr Houseago said: “Yes, it might not. But that would be a darn sight wuss if we raised the old drawbridge.”

New Layby is also campaigning for more places to park safely.

3 December 2001

on 3 December 2001 at 08:00

UN bid to sort out hotspot in town

Several people have pointed out that the United Nations has a presence in North Walsham.

A UN vehicle, which is presumably engaged in peace-keeping activities, is parked in a garage on the Norwich road.

While not widely known as a hotbed of unrest, North Walsham is, I am told, seething under the surface.

This may mean that Seething is correspondingly north walsham deep down, but this is a moot point. However, rumours of feuds between local warlords such as the Houseagos and the Hicks are accelerating. Veteran campaigner Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago agreed yesterday that there “had been incidents”, but his aunt, Mrs Hicks of nearby Erpingham, refused to comment.

Mrs Hicks spends much of her time in Little London, near Corpusty, where she is said to be mayor, but witnesses have placed her at North Walsham on several occasions.

Another Little London is situated on the Bacton side of North Walsham, and it is feared that Mrs Hicks may be launching a takeover bid. A spokesman said that all Little Londoners should be united, and everyone else thrown out. Mr Houseago, who is well used to repulsing expansionist plans – mainly from great crested newts – said he would stand firm.

Meanwhile great crested newts, backed up by Austrian cave salamanders, are believed to be lying low in a protected enclave adjacent to the A11, where dualling work is under way. Fencing has been erected for their own safety, but also to protect nearby residents from possible expansion. No one from the United Nations was available for comment.

Mysterious movements on Riverside

I hope readers were able to catch city councillor Eamonn Burgess’ fairly helpful letter to the EDP last week, in which he explains the new Riverside complex and the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge.

However, he may not have quite got to grips with the nature of the problem I outlined last time.

Clearly I know that Riverside contains something other than huge retail warehouses, and that these smaller places are accessible fairly easily on foot. This, I am happy to agree, is a Good Thing.

I am also aware that another bridge will be built much closer to the city centre. This too is a Good Thing and makes sense.

What is less clear is why it remains unbuilt, when it would link a part of the site that is already fully functioning with a spot quite close to the city centre. The current delightfully proportioned bridge links a muddy and unkempt part of Riverside (at present) to the end of Rouen Road. Mr Burgess, interestingly, regards that as the city centre.

To say Riverside is on the ring road is a trifle misleading. A small part of it stands adjacent to the ring road but is not accessible from it by car. The rest of it is accessible by vehicle at one point only on the inner link road.

The result is obvious: even more congestion, together with pollution. Lovely.

As to the 50 buses he sees going on or near the site every hour, he will have to forgive a hollow laugh. Only one bus route goes on to the complex as far as I know, and his definition of “near” must be as bizarre as his definition of “city centre” or “hour”.

But since buses would bring even more pollution and congestion, this is probably just as well. On a point of detail, I did not, as Mr Burgess states, “wonder why the council doesn’t put a bus station on site”.

What I do wonder is why a bus station was not an integral part of the site from the outset. Blaming the Tories because they are now back in control of the county council is not so much thin as transparent. Since Jasper – sorry, Eamonn – is such a busy man I completely understand his getting my first name totally wrong throughout his letter (it was kindly corrected by the sub-editor).

Quite unimportant in itself, but it is a little disturbing that someone so used to dealing with planning matters should be so imprecise about something in large print immediately in front of him.

Bid to track down missing Church land

News that the Church of England has in the course of the last 100 years mislaid about 1.5 million acres of its land, worth up to £10 billion, has shocked some people.

Whole food chef Len “Kissme” Hardy, of Hindolveston, has already put together a working party to look for it and was last seen heading south towards the mysterious area known as The Saints, where he feels almost certain that some of the land may have ended up.

I’m not worried. A vicar I know describes the Church of England affectionately as a joke, and it is a good joke indeed if it has been surreptitiously preaching the Gospel all along, and not guarding its worldly wealth at all.

Slow mud hazard resurfaces

I am sorry to have to report the return of an old hazard to life on the roads of Norfolk and Suffolk. Slow mud has been sighted near the border, and reader Paul Garton of Wingfield is understandably concerned, especially as the sighting – usefully signposted – was only 20 miles south-east of the Autonomous Republic of Hingham.

Prof V A R Scheinlich, a Hingham-based expert in all supernormal activity, says there may be some connection with the “enormous” traffic reported in Norwich during the run-up to Christmas.

He feels that larger than normal traffic may be evolving naturally in order to deal with the mud menace more easily. Of course, being enormous, it could hit things coming the other way. In that case the fittest traffic would no doubt survive

19 November 2001

on 19 November 2001 at 08:00

Mystery of the bridge to nowhere

Some people call Peddars Way the nowhere road, because it is unclear where it comes from or where it is going to, and therefore the reason for its construction remains uncertain.

Norwich now has a nowhere bridge.

It is an extremely pretty bridge, and provides me with an alternative walk home. But I cannot believe that the city council went to all that expense just for me. Indeed, if we are to believe reports, the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge was built to provide a link between the city centre and Riverside.

Not a bad idea, if it was built in the right place. What it actually provides is a link between the bottom of Rouen Road (main architectural feature: a tower block) and the back wall of Boots’ warehouse-style superstore on Riverside (main architectural feature: well, nothing really).

So if you actually want to get from, say, a restaurant or cinema on Riverside to the city centre you have to venture out into the wilds of something that looks like an industrial estate, cross the river and then struggle all the way up to the top of Rouen Road before you hit even the prospect of a shop.

Intriguingly the new bridge is also supposed to help ease traffic congestion, presumably because you can get out your bike and cycle across it instead of taking your car. Unfortunately, super-stores tend to sell things that you can’t carry on a bike. Superstores are designed for car users, which is why it is odd to find them in such an inaccessible place as Riverside.

The only way you can get there by car is on the city’s inner link road, which the council promises to make even less usable by blocking alternative routes through the city centre. When the Big W monster opened, hordes of lemming-like drivers who couldn’t think of anything better to do on a delightfully sunny Sunday than go to a superstore totally blocked the traffic-light-strewn link road for hours from beyond County Hall to somewhere near Anglia Square. I wonder what plans the council has to deal with this. Build another cycle bridge, perhaps?

One final question. If the council really wants to discourage people from using cars, as it claims, why does it connive in the creation of such a car-friendly enormity in a strategic and potentially beautiful spot that could have provided a delightful pedestrian haven – not to mention a bus station? We should be told.

Knocking showers on the head

Fellow walker and diarist Robin Limmer – editor of the Merry Mawkin – shares my concern at showers that gang up and get organised. But he has noted that weather forecasters have gone further in their attempt to explain the vagaries of weather to us: they are telling us that these showers are now getting knocked on the head. Well, sometimes.

Reassuring, no doubt, but the similarity to Saturday nights on Prince of Wales Road, Norwich, is disturbing. There, too, showers of drunken youths gang up, occasionally get organised and are often knocked on the head.

Is meteorology imitating human behaviour?

One thing you can rely on: whatever happens in the way of weather can be put down to global warming. The mild October was a result of global warming; so was the stormy weather that followed, and the rainfall. No doubt a prolonged freeze next spring would have the same cause.

Everyone “knows” that rising sea levels are also caused by global warming, despite the fact that in some parts of the world sea levels are falling. And I suppose all those heavy goods vehicles and power stations in Roman Britain caused the influx of the sea over so much of what is now dry land.

So of course it’s worth spending millions of pounds on jolly environmental conferences in places like Morocco to make jolly pointless protocols which, even if everyone kept to them, would have no effect on climate whatsoever.

Climate will always change for various reasons. Sea levels will rise and fall. Using the money to feed the starving would make a great deal more sense. It would probably also have a much more profound effect on our future.

Website propaganda plan by warty newts

Readers familiar with the long-running campaign by great-crested newts to destroy Norfolk life as we know it will be as disturbed as I was to discover that there is a BBC website featuring the devious amphibians.

It reveals, however, that the newts – who are determined to expand across the county, preferably using dual newtways – are also called warty newts, which is much more appropriate somehow.

To show how fair-minded I am, I will reveal that the newt site can be viewed by mature adults at www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/your/extra/newts.shtml.

Anyone wishing to read about the fight against newt expansion waged by Norfolk veteran Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago can read his diaries exclusively on this site at http://back2sq1.co.uk/houseago/default.htm. You can’t say fairer than that.

Moving mountains

It was not until last week that I realised the Norfolk Mountain Rescue Team was set up to rescue mountains and not, as I had thought, to rescue people.

The idea, apparently, is to remove mountains piece by piece from places that have plenty, and place them carefully in Norfolk, where we need them desperately. Winterton and Caister have been suggested.

Meanwhile at Hopton the 60 steel steps carefully installed at a cost of £5000 by the parish council to make access to the beach safer have been deemed dangerous by the Health and Safety Executive because the treads are too narrow.

It’s a good job the mountains haven’t been fully transferred yet, or the HSE would have them taken back on the grounds that they are too high and steep. The words “waste” and “space” spring to mind.

Buses' extraordinary behaviour

The Autonomous Republic of Hingham, near Norfolk, is being hit again by mysterious fluctuations in space and time. I am told by an unimpeachable source close to the parish council that the bus stop moves for no good reason.

The official timetable claims it is outside the garage, but it has been seen near the church and at other unexpected spots. Residents wishing to travel into Norwich therefore have to gamble.

Hingham expert Professor V A R Scheinlich puts it down to “a new wormhole phenomenon upsetting the fabric of space-time”, but others blame the bus drivers. I personally find that hard to believe.

Reports reach me from elsewhere, however, suggesting that Hingham may not be alone in encountering bus troubles. Readers of the EDP Saturday magazine will know that my colleague Neil Haverson is encountering extraordinary bus behaviour.

In fact I could scarcely get beyond mentioning the word “bus” to any regular bus user without provoking a stream of extraordinary stories: Extra-dimensional buses that appear only fleetingly and then vanish; Whole series of buses that do not exist at all in the physical world; Buses that do not relate in any way to real time.

These phenomena pale into insignificance compared with the overwhelming impression that the entire bus network is a joke being played on people without cars.

5 November 2001

on 5 November 2001 at 08:00

Untrained teenagers in search of a brain

Every time I live through a school holiday, my sympathy for teachers deepens – as does my anger at that ever-growing band of parents who seem to think that bringing up children to behave in a reasonable way is an option, and not a responsibility.

At half term, I took a train from Yarmouth to Norwich. In the seats in front of me were four young teenagers – two of each sex – who were not exactly unpleasant. They were more or less unpleasant.

They spent the journey jumping around from seat to seat, occasionally simulating sex in an unconvincing way and keeping up a permanent, shouted conversation with each other, using a variety of monotonous swearing and blasphemy. Eventually they switched to ringing each other up on their mobile phones and continuing the same pointless talk.

During the entire journey there was no sign from them of intelligent life. They behaved as if they didn’t have a brain between them, or if they had, they had never been told how to use it and had mislaid the instruction booklet.

It was not their fault. Someone should have told them what life was about – and how fortunate they were even to be alive, especially in a country like this.

Some parent or other responsible adult might have added that respect for other people is in fact rewarding, that scenery or reading can be interesting and that thinking has its supporters.

But what comes across is barely restrained anger – as if they know that there is more to life than this, but no one will tell them what it is. Unfortunately it takes a parent to do that properly. It is a pity that so many of them can’t be bothered.

Teachers may be their only chance: but they are hamstrung by paperwork and by the insane removal of the means to enforce discipline.

Later I passed a woman sitting on a fence outside the Social Security office, speaking on a mobile phone. Her son, aged about 10, was trying to ask her something. She told him to go away. She did not use those words.

Blinkered way to lose battle for hearts

I see the Pedestrian Association has changed its name to Living Streets, presumably so that it appears less...well, pedestrian. Since over-pedestrianisation frequently leads to closed shops and a fall-off in trade, a more appropriate title might be Dead Streets, but I can see that this might not be so attractive.

More might be achieved if so-called sustainable transport groups like this were not so fanatically anti-motorist.

Cars are perfectly sustainable. They pollute less than buses and lorries, are the right size for roads, and if we all stopped using cars tomorrow it would make virtually no difference to carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Asthma is frequently blamed on cars, but in fact is much worse in the countryside than in cities.

Car use will grow far less than these groups suggest, and most of the congestion we are familiar with is created by anti-car policies like street closures, ludicrously low speed limits and traffic “calming”. (I was delighted to hear that the citizens of one South Coast town are planning to burn an effigy of a road hump tonight.)

And yet when the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Community Conference discussed transport last week, they apparently chose to spend much of their time discussing getting people out of cars generally.

They would probably have been more usefully employed discussing how to give a conference a sensible title – or even how people were going to get to the North Norfolk Coast without cars – but their actual preoccupation was not surprising, given the heavy input by Transport 2000. This “sustainable transport group” is about as blinkered as it is possible to be, as a survey of its website will quickly reveal.

We are told constantly that the battle is for hearts and minds. As a keen walker, frequent traveller by train and rare car user, I can tell Transport 2000, Living Streets and their friends that they are losing it, because of their misdirected carpet bombing of what they think is the opposition. We are all on the same side really – human, more or less.

Four miles away from Mundesley

Readers prone to wandering in North Norfolk have reported an unusual phenomenon: according to a number of signposts, almost everywhere is four miles from Mundesley.

Various explanations have been offered to account for this, but it seems likely that a deterioration in the quality of anchor is to blame.

Anchor is a mineral which keeps Norfolk communities stable, and it can be affected by unusual atmospheric conditions, like global warming and asteroid impact.

A spokesman for Explaining Away Inc said his best guess was that an apprentice at the signmakers had become too enthusiastic, and the results of his labours had been offloaded at random. This is unusual, even in the Mundesley area.

Finely calculated parking levels

Close observers of the new Forum in Norwich will be aware that there are three levels of parking underground. I know this because I watched a BBC2 programme on the construction process, and one of the building supervisors said: “It has three levels of car parking. The lower level, the upper level and the middle level.”

I suppose that rules out the possibility that it could have a middle, an upper middle and a fifth level, though I wouldn’t put it past the council to signpost it like that.

Bonfire on loose

A bonfire is believed to be on the loose in Norfolk. Sightings have been reported from areas as far apart as Holt, Sheringham, Briston, Hempnall and Diss, and concerned groups have told reporters that they are concerned.

Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 101, who runs the Society for the Protection of Bonfires, told a reporter today: “People don’t stop and think. Bonfires are delicate things that can be easily frightened by cats, dogs and even hedgehogs. Not to mention newts.

“This one is obviously terrified. It’s all over the place.”

Police have warned readers to stay on the alert and not be complacent. If they see the bonfire they should not approach it but call the emergency services, who will soothe it by letting off fireworks.

An expert bonfire trapper, Prof V A R Scheinlich of the Hingham Autonomous Republic, has been contacted and should reach Norfolk within days, wormholes permitting.

22 October 2001

on 22 October 2001 at 08:00

Hurtling on towards destruction

It's a great time to own a car in Norfolk. The county council and the Highways Agency are making sure you can’t get to hospital, the city council is doing its best as usual to make you uncomfortable in the city, and the police are putting film back in their speed cameras.

At the same time the Norfolk Coast Partnership is about to host a conference on transport which unbelievably has as its opening and closing speaker a representative of the fiercely anti-motorist Transport 2000. This in North Norfolk – an area where public transport is meagre at best, and no one appears to be speaking for car drivers.

Meanwhile, anyone who has changed lifestyle in response to the ubiquitous anti-car propaganda can relax in the knowledge that park-and-ride fares are going up by a whopping 17 per cent. This has been justified by comparing it to the sharp increases in car parking charges in Norwich, which is interesting logic: we’ll hit you because other people have hit you.

What can you say? Not a lot, according to a reader who attended a public meeting of the county council planning and transportation committee when the proposed Sprowston park-and-ride was discussed. His conclusion: “The decision had already been taken, and the meeting was a formality. Arguments and suggestions were dismissed out of hand.”

No change there, then. One change with the speed cameras, happily, is that you can now just about see them – but the obvious temptation to put them in revenue-generating spots, rather than dangerous ones, continues to be worrying.

And the same flawed back-up figures are being rolled out. All drivers, apart from the odd lunatic, are in favour of reducing accidents and casualties, but there were 2684 fatal or serious-injury accidents on Norfolk roads last year, and only 657 of these were caused by excessive speed or loss of control. No one mentions that speed and loss of control are not at all the same thing, or that excessive speed is not the same as exceeding the speed limit.

Last month the 10 most dangerous road junctions in Norfolk were surveyed. Of the 59 injury accidents reported, the main cause of only one was excessive speed. By far the most common causes were inattention and ignoring road signs.

I wonder how many accidents are caused simply by exceeding the speed limit. Any at all? And is anyone doing anything to tackle the cause of serious accidents definitely not caused by speed? In Norfolk last year these must have numbered anything between 2027 and 2683. That’s between 75 and 99 per cent.

Feeling on the tilt as showers gang up

The sneaking suspicion that the world is falling apart stems not from huge international events, but from indications nearer home.

The ability of spin doctors to bypass democracy, for instance, is depressingly obvious, but in the background is an even bigger spin: the imminent reversal of the earth’s magnetic field as predicted by those ancient and knowledgeable central Americans, the Maya. This is scheduled for 2012, I am reminded by regular reader John Salthouse.

I am already checking my compass. I have been feeling on the tilt, but had put it down to global warming – a view strengthened by the peculiar behaviour of rain recently. Here I rely not on my own observations, but on the pronouncements of weather forecasters, who are constantly talking about showers “ganging up” and “getting organised”.

Admittedly it is risky to put one’s faith in people who get excited by precipitation, but the phenomenon of shower organisation is clearly one that could shake our lives. Unless we can negotiate with them, we could be in for regular soakings.

Meanwhile, on a much lower level, I was in a city store the other day when I noticed a file labelled “Manual Handling Operations Regulations”. I don’t know what was more disturbing: discovering that staff had to be told how to handle something manually, or that there were rules about it (wash hands manually first, for instance).

This sort of thing can tip you over the edge, if you happen to be standing close to it in the first place. Unhappily I was right on the brink, having just discovered that 25 out of 40 applicants who wanted to be journalists had scored less than 50 per cent in an English test.

I don’t blame them. They had probably been taught how to handle manually, and you can’t cover everything.

Still in the dark there

Sometimes you don’t see things that are in front of your nose. Literally, in this case. Friends from Nottingham pointed out when arriving for the weekend that they had been unable to phone us from their car and warn us of their imminent arrival because of the lack of roadside illumination.

Apparently the occasional street lamps at roundabouts did not illuminate the numbers on their mobile phone long enough for them to dial before they were plunged into darkness again.

This is clearly a serious problem, and one that I had never considered, largely because I don’t have a mobile phone – or maybe because I just accepted that Norfolk was dim and dark, just as I accept that it’s slipping into the sea, as another “foreign” friend would have it.

There is a rumour going round Nottingham that Norfolk is short of electricity. Could it be true? I have put consultants Houseago Associates on the case, but I am not optimistic. And lowest priority comes last

Overheard on an early morning local BBC television news broadcast: “Tickets will be sold to priority groups before any other tickets are sold.” Yes, I suppose they would be.

Peddar's Way

A stretch of the Peddar’s Way that has been missing for over 200 years has been photographed by a Norfolk man.

Bruce Robinson, who is an authority on the Peddar’s Way, the Norfolk Coast Path, Poohsticks and a number of different stiles, took this ground-level picture in late autumn last year, on a day when it was raining and the field was being ploughed.

Although the missing stretch, no longer walkable, has been revealed on occasions in aerial pictures, the pale cropmark visible in this photograph is a rarity.

Mr Robinson tells me: “The missing link at Ringstead runs roughly from the Docking road to the Holme road, to the east of the village, from East End Farm to the houses at the junction of the Holme road. Again, to the east of the parish church and the Gin Trap pub.”

The picture, together with many startling revelations about the 2000-year-old road, will be found in his new book, The Nowhere Road, which is due to be published by Elmstead Publications in mid-November at £12.99. As a keen walker, ever keen to get out of my car, I shall be forming the nucleus of a queue.

8 October 2001

on 8 October 2001 at 08:00

People fall behind in race for best value

There are a number of irritating buzz phrases that enjoy a period of fashion in corporate and government circles before going belly-up and being brushed under the skirting board. Among the more recent ones are total quality and employee empowerment.

As one commentator observed, why bother to employ such phrases if quality is already good and employees can make meaningful decisions? You wouldn’t even think about it – unless of course it was in fashion.

The current buzz phrase is “best value”. This usually means simply cheapest, but it can be adapted to justify all kinds of disruptive changes – the most obvious of which at the moment is Norfolk County Council’s plan to dispose of its 32 residential care homes to the private and independent sector.

The reasoning behind this is that the private sector would run them more cheaply and free up money for other exciting schemes.

Norwich City Council would understand that. It wants to lose community development workers to fund a jolly summer play scheme. But is it best value? The county plan has already caused sinking hearts around the county among people with experience of compulsory competitive tendering – the brave new (now old) scheme to allow private firms to bid for council contracts like school cleaning with the aim of saving money.

The result of compulsory competitive tendering is too well known to be stated. But it certainly did not result in increased staff satisfaction and better cleaning.

Some private care homes are excellent, but there are obvious fears that corners are cuttable and staff exploitable. However, this is not really the point.

The point is the value of the people involved. When councils speak of “best value” they do not think of people at all.

In the homes are committed staff who see the changes as a threat to their security; and the residents themselves – people who towards the end of their lives cannot deal with change, who are physically and mentally affected by uncertainty and who deserve to live in a secure, loving environment.

Councillors say they must go for “best value” to save council taxpayers’ money. What they mean, presumably, is that they don’t want to antagonise voters, or perhaps their Whitehall masters. What they should be concerned about is the happiness and security of the people involved.

It is people that count. Newts, coypu and councils only measure cash.

Culture confidence hits Norfolk

Two new contestants will be trying to thwart Norwich in its heroic quest to be European Capital of Culture for 2008.

While Norwich will be the obvious cultural choice of every right-thinking Briton and city councillor, Hingham and Little London, near Corpusty, will be pushing it hard.

Mrs Hicks, Mayor of Little London, was confident yesterday. “We have everything Norwich has except the nightclubs,” she said. “And the traffic congestion. And the Castle Museum, the Millennium Library, the cathedral, the bypass and a red light district. I don’t see how we can lose.”

While Little London is well known for its culture and vote-rigging, Hingham too has many backers.

“We don’t rig votes, but we can sell things,” said culture rep Professor V A R “Varry” Scheinlich. “And since we are familiar with time distortion, we can probably get in first.”

Hingham has attracted attention in recent years for the famous wormhole effect, which produces odd experiences for most visitors. However, since it is an autonomous republic with indigenous coypu, some doubt whether it would qualify for the contest.

“Really Norwich is the obvious choice,” said Professor Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam of the UEA. “You only have to walk down Prince of Wales Road on a Saturday evening to soak up the culture – and possibly a few punches as well.

"The costumes are great too. We’re unbeatable.”

Scapegoat voles not reason for dualling rejection

Most astonishing story of last week was the news that the A47 Acle Straight is not going to be dualled.

Well, to be honest, it was not quite the most astonishing: it came in 5493rd.

I blame the voles. That’s not quite true either: the voles, whose habitat might be affected by building a new carriageway, were very close to the weakest excuse put forward for not making improvements that would undoubtedly save lives.

The real reason, as usual, was money. And, of course, that is far more important than lives.

When it comes to making absurd decisions, the Highways Agency has a great track record. The words “new” and “hospital” spring immediately to mind. But this time they have an answer: to save lives, they are going to reduce the speed limit to 50mph.

Brilliant. I don’t remember the last fatal accident on the A47 caused by excess speed. A reduced speed limit is more likely to cause accidents than stop them, because it will create the potentially fatal conditions of tiredness and tedium.

Never mind, if they install speed cameras, they can make some money out of it.

Happily there is public consultation before all this is implemented. The next most astonishing story will be the ignoring of everyone’s objections. Well, maybe not most astonishing: say about the 5493rd most astonishing that day.

Effective front moving in

The great thing about global warming, if you like that sort of thing, is that it is a wonderful source of media stories.

Think of something that happens in summer now and consider the likelihood of it happening in winter soon – cricket . . . sunbathing . . . mowing the lawn – chuck in a couple of dire warnings and Bob’s your uncle, or at least a very close relative.

And so we have instant propaganda for the scary faction, fulfilling the avowed aim of distinguished global warmer Scary Stephen Schneider: “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

His approach has obviously convinced my favourite weather presenter, Isobel Lang, who was quoted as saying we would probably see a rise in temperature of six degrees in the next century.

This is roughly four times what the scientists reporting for the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change say is likely, but never mind. It is the figure that the politicians put about, for their own dubious reasons.

And who do you trust? It’s hard enough to get the weather for the weekend right.

24 September 2001

on 24 September 2001 at 08:00

Cherokee glimpse into the skyscaper

When the end of the world knocks at our window, our first instinct is to find someone who can explain what is going on. All the certainties of daily life disintegrate, and panic sets in – not so much from the fear of death or injury as from the unknown. Where can we go from here?

At such a time there are always people who can tell us. The trouble is, they are all telling us different things.

There are bucketfuls of prophecies about the end of the world. Some of them seem to involve New York itself. Others are more general, more obscure, or just silly.

Perhaps the two most interesting are a Cherokee Indian prophecy and one from an American Romanian Christian called Dumitru Duduman, who died as recently as 1997.

Duduman described one vision this way: "There were a handful of comets in the sky which looked to be peaceful. Suddenly three of them, all different sizes, began to head toward the earth. When they hit the ground, there was total devastation.

"As I looked up, the sky turned black and I saw thunder. The thunder was also black. A dark cloud lifted up and it began to rain. When I looked closer I saw that it was not rain but drops of blood." Even more striking is a Cherokee Indian prophecy, which talks about the "sign for the Third Shaking of the Earth".

This apparently comes after mankind "will build a house and throw it in the sky. When you see people living in the sky on a permanent basis, you will know the Great Spirit is about to grab the earth.

"When this house is in the sky, the Great Spirit is going to shake the Earth a third time, and whoever dropped that gourd of ashes, upon them it is going to drop".

It doesn’t take much to identify the house in the sky as a skyscraper, and the ashes as the result of bombs or explosions.

After talking about villages of stone growing up from the ground – and people living there not being able to see beyond the village – the prophecy concludes: "There’s going to come a time when in the morning the sun is going to rise, and this village of stone will be there, and in the evening there would just be steam coming from the ground."

Of course the ironic thing about prophecies is that they are so much clearer looking back.

Target: get rid of league tables

Recovering from the general election fiasco in which she polled no votes, Mrs Hicks, Mayor of Little London, is putting together a manifesto that she believes will receive overwhelming support from the electorate.

Through links with her marketing organisation, Hixdotcom, we have been able to obtain a copy of the manifesto, on condition that we do not mention the general election fiasco, in which she polled no votes. We have agreed to this. We have also agreed not to name Mr Fox, with whom she allegedly attended a late-night Pondhenge barbecue party (pictured).

The main plank in the manifesto is the abolition of league tables. And the second is like unto it: the removal of all targets.

Mrs Hicks told a reporter yesterday: “League tables for schools, hospitals and similar organisations are a shocking waste of time and energy. They tell us nothing worth knowing, and they encourage manipulation. It is a victory of design over content – a gigantic illusion.”

She added: “Targets not only camouflage stupidity in management: they distract attention and effort from what needs to be done and encourage fairy tales. “You might as well give everyone a toffee apple.”

Mrs Hicks also aims to abolish mission statements, which she describes as “a toy for the self-satisfied”, and is looking closely at equal opportunity statements and health and safety policies.

“People are spending all their time recording pointless rubbish instead of taking action,” she said.

She has trialled the manifesto, which she also intends to abolish, at Corpusty, near Little London, and has received an overwhelmingly favourable response, well above target and at the top of political league tables.

'Not an option' not an option

As councillors get elected to the city council, some strange genetic operation must take place, deep in the bowels of City Hall – possibly conducted by newts and coypu bent on distorting life as we know it.

The operation transforms ordinary humans into creatures who are deluded into thinking they know better than anyone else. It also removes any tendency they may have to listen to the people who elected them.

A by-product of the procedure is a compulsion to act. How often have we heard councillors intone "Doing nothing is not an option"?

Of course doing nothing is an option. It should be the first option under consideration. But not for these genetically-modified men and women who are obsessed by implanting green spines into innocent cities, and diverting cyclists into the paths of helpless pedestrians.

"Traffic in the city centre is enormous," says Norwich highways committee vice-chairman Harry Watson. So the solution is obvious: close a road and cause an additional delay at a busy junction.

How do they justify it? Of course, there was a consultation exercise.

I wonder what the question was. "Would you prefer us to close Queen Street to traffic or demolish the cathedral?" I’m only guessing.

Happily, though, Mr Watson is able to reassure his electors: "It is not going to be a great in-convenience to cars." So that’s all right then.

Picture this: on second thoughts, don't

Words create pictures in our minds; so a good choice of words is important. I still haven’t recovered from the mental image bodged together by an item I glimpsed last week about an "indoor baby and child car boot stall sale".

Try not to think about it.

Hidden danger in buying caravan

My item last time about natural childbirth and the five-birth tent prompted reader Moya Leighton of Coltishall to be on the alert as she looked to purchase a small camper van.

Her eye was drawn to a newspaper advertisement that promised a caravan that was not only "six birth" but had a "twin wheel". Fertile ground indeed, and firmly resisted by Ms Leighton.

"I am looking for extra freedom to enjoy retirement – not the responsibility and expense of sextuplets," she said.

10 September 2001

on 10 September 2001 at 08:00

Problem with priorities for councillors

These are strange times on the streets of Norwich. Empty spaces at the side of the road, and our expensive solar-powered parking meters clearly worried (you can tell by the way they stand) by the prospect of shutting down through a lack of sun, like some of their colleagues in Nottingham.

Meanwhile the city council is planning closure of city centre car parks such as Unicorn Yard and Oak Street, which will presumably force drivers back on to the roadsides – except, of course, that people who use car parks want to stay longer than the meters will allow them to.

So they will have to use public transport, where they will face another rise in bus fares and a projected increase in park-and-ride fares too. This must be what they call an integrated transport policy: force people on to public transport and then fleece them.

Then there is the new bus station – or rather there isn’t the new bus station, because city councillors have carried out consultation on that and, according to transport portfolio holder Harry Watson, it was “low on the list of priorities for most passengers”.

You may think that strange, until you realise that this is the city council consultation method in action. Why did it come only fourth on the city list? Because ahead of it were irresistible options like reliable services and affordable fares.

This is rather like carrying out a survey on my life priorities and finding that I don’t like making love because I placed breathing and eating ahead of it. It enables the council to ignore real rather than manipulated public opinion – in this case a petition from hundreds of pensioners.

Even the county council is unconvinced by the city’s plan for handling buses – but the county too behaves in strange ways. It has managed to arrange things so that “a 21st century hospital is accessible only from a network of country lanes”.

These are the words of council leader Alison King, who describes it as “ridiculous”. She has also announced that the county will be putting to a reluctant Highways Agency three options for accessing the hospital from the A47 southern bypass.

Fair enough, but she also says that “each of these three options for the first time will be backed up with a properly reasoned case for a direct access from the A47”.

For the first time? What on earth has the county council been doing up to now on this vital issue? Throwing out wild suggestions with no supporting arguments?

Perhaps the planning and transportation department could shed some light.

Alert in Sprowston as newts are found in ditch

Rumours that great crested newts had abandoned Norfolk and were consorting with Austrian cave salamanders in an attempt to take over Europe were thrown into confusion at Sprowston last week.

The newts’ attempts to distort life as we know it and substitute a pseudo-totalitarian half-life controlled by government nominees have been fought by Norfolk hero Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 102, for years. He was distraught to discover that an influx of newts had been discovered in a ditch dug as footings for a new garage by a Sprowston man. “There were hundreds of them,” he exaggerated. “They’re back.”

When pressed, he exhaled sharply and admitted that the newts in question were probably not great, or even crested, but he insisted: “They’re an advance guard. We’re in a for a real fight this time.”

He pointed out that the newts were notoriously anti-car, and so would not want the garage to be built. Certain frogs also found in the ditch were “just pawns in the game”, he said. “Frogspawn, in fact.”

Other experts were not as convinced as Mr Houseago about the newts’ motives. One felt that it might have been raining newts and commented: “Hallelujah!”, but time distortion expert Prof V A R Scheinlich, on holiday in Sprowston from his home in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham, suggested that the newts might have hitched a lift under the Sprowston man’s car as he drove through the republic.

“They are undoubtedly asylum- seekers,” he claimed. A community power forum is believed to be investigating.

Family size matters

Over the years, the reduction in family sizes in this country has become somewhat marked. My father had seven brothers and sisters; my mother had four sisters. I myself had only two brothers, and – never one to buck a trend – I restricted myself to one son, with a little help from my wife.

Nowadays, of course, the desire of infertile couples to have a child has occasionally led to treatment that produces a brood far exceeding expectations. And the desire for natural childbirth – or birth in a natural environ-ment – has also blossomed.

All of which, presumably, explains the advertisement spotted in an Aylsham shop window: “For sale: Five birth tent. Used once in back garden.”

Watch out, we're on our way!

Sirens on emergency vehicles are becoming more and more intrusive for city dwellers, who sometimes wonder if their use needs to be so widespread or so prolonged. For police cars they surely must be counter-productive a lot of the time: one obvious result of turning up at the scene of a crime with sirens blaring is that the culprits will have ample warning to get away. Of course another result is that no arrests will be made, and thereby a huge burden of paperwork will be avoided. I personally would never subscribe to the view that sirens are an anti-paperwork device, but I know some people who do. They are not policemen.