22 April 2002

on 22 April 2002 at 08:00

Gullibility test better than code

Parish councillors are understandably upset that the Government wants to foist more paperwork on them in the form of a code of conduct.

This of course simply brings them into line, because the Government, being of a dictatorial persuasion, would like anyone and everything to be transparent – open and empty, without content and without intelligence, but with plenty of targets and preferably on a bus.

Parish councils are not yet like that, and councillors even less so, give or take the odd newt. Their powers are very limited, and it is hard to believe that a code of conduct would make much real difference – especially as most parishes have a very detailed knowledge of their councillors’ interests. Word of mouth is a wonderful thing.

However, given certain parish councillors’ compulsion to push for unrealistic speed limits and bizarre traffic mismanagement, it would be interesting to see how many of them are closet members of anti-car groups like Transport 2000. So a more limited code of conduct would be useful, possibly involving a gullibility test.

One of the more recent statements from Transport 2000 made it clear that the group is against bypasses and the widening of trunk roads.

This means, presumably, that it is in favour of residents in unbypassed towns and villages suffering from heavy goods vehicles rattling past their houses (perhaps with the additional thump and pollution of scattered road humps), and in favour of the increased danger to pedestrians inevitable in such a scenario.

Presumably it is also in favour of keeping up the road casualty rates, since wider roads and dual carriageways are intrinsically safer.

Despite emotional media coverage of anti-bypass campaigns involving hole-digging, tree-climbing and beetle-saving, bypasses are desirable in almost every respect.

Recent research on the effect of the Newbury bypass – so vigorously opposed by “environmental” groups – shows that it has been widely beneficial. Journey times, and therefore congestion, have been reduced; there is much less traffic in the town; and even wildlife is prospering.

Good roads are no threat to the environment: the sprawl of housing estates into green fields is a much bigger worry.

Go west if you must, but north is easier

Complaints about the lack of east-west internal flights from Norwich International airport are only the tip of the travel iceberg.

The truth is much more sinister: there is a conspiracy to prevent people travelling east-west at all.

Even in Norfolk this can be clearly seen. Any number of roads go south-north, but how many go east-west? The north Norfolk coast road, which is a joke, and the A47, where obvious needs for dualling have been consistently rebuffed.

You can get to north Norfolk easily enough by train, but try getting to Dereham, Swaffham or King’s Lynn. All right, you can get to Yarmouth, but where do you go from there?

This is not simply an East Anglian phenomenon: nationwide, all the best roads go north, and so do most rail lines. It is easy enough to get to Liverpool from Norwich, but Coventry is a real problem.

Further north, there is unreasoned opposition to making the A66 a viable, safe route.

Why should this be so? New research reveals that travel east-west is much harder because it is going “against the grain” and can result in headaches. East-west roads and rail tracks cost more to build because of the increased sickness among constructors, and the fact that the land “lies” north-south.

In Norfolk, anchor – the stabilising mineral that keeps towns and villages in place – is always found in a north-south configuration, and something similar may be true elsewhere.

Further research was needed, said researchers, enclosing an invoice.

Norfolk takes a shot at the impossible

Apparently Norfolk is going to be in the forefront of a project to halt global warming. While we’re at it, we might as well have a go at reconfiguring the solar system, cooling down the sun, raising the dead and walking on water.

The earth’s climate has warmed and cooled throughout history, and no amount of compliance with any protocol is going to make a difference. Even admirers of Kyoto will admit that any effect would be minimal, and that’s probably a wild exaggeration.

While residents of Cutting Edge, Norfolk, should be happy to care for the environment in reasonable ways, such as recycling and avoidance of waste, they should beware of people trying to place restrictions on their freedom for no sound reason.

Governments love global warming because it enables them to make money and to place petty restrictions on their citizens. When a company is required to rebuild a window to comply with a prediction that will probably never be fulfilled, it is vital that someone sees through it.

This road is dangerous, so let’s talk

The A140 between Norwich and Ipswich is one of the county’s most dangerous roads, but it will be all right soon, because Suffolk County Council has launched a consultation exercise.

I’m not sure exactly who will be consulted, but I am sure of one thing: it won’t be me. And I’m pretty sure it won’t be you either.

Regular users of the road will have their own views of what causes so many accidents. One factor is undoubtedly the number of difficult junctions; another is the fact that the road is not suited to the amount of traffic using it.

The council, after consulting, will decide that the problem is speed. I agree. Because of the inappropriate speed limits and the lack of overtaking opportunities, what happens is a string of vehicles travelling too slowly, their drivers gradually losing the ability to concentrate. The result: too-slow reactions to someone braking for a junction, or frustration resulting in a risky overtaking manoeuvre.

So of course Suffolk County Council will slow everyone down even more, just as they have already done when you approach the A14 and emerge from a particularly slow stretch on to a dual carriageway. This, amazingly, has a new speed limit of 50mph – and, of course, a camera. Because it is just the spot where you will catch someone.

Pointless, irritating, but worst of all dangerous. The county’s obsession with reduced speed limits has already resulted in an appalling statistic: in 2000 there were 58 deaths on Suffolk’s roads; by the end of September 2001 there were 102.

I suggested last time that Norfolk Wildlife Trust might have closed a short-cut alleyway next to its Norwich headquarters to protect something nesting there.

A photograph just received by this page more or less proves this to be the case. It shows Trust staff with the bird in question, which I am told is cygnus cartheftus, a type of swan I had not previously encountered. It may be related to the Pondhenge goose or the Wymondham duck.

I would certainly not want to meet it in a dark alley. The Trust is to be congratulated on protecting the public.

8 April 2002

on 8 April 2002 at 08:00

Quick, quick, slow, and even slower

I was a bit nervous about driving in Italy, but the main problem turned out to be getting in the car.

Our travel agent assured us that Hertz would only need to see our invoice in order to spring into action and supply us with a pristine, all-singing, all-dancing little vehicle.

This was not quite accurate. At Pisa airport Hertz gazed blankly at the invoice in the nothing-to-do-with-us way that Italians have turned into an art-form and then passed us on to Avis – which, being number two, tries harder.

But they too gave us the blank routine, then suggested we ring our travel agent in Norwich and ask them to fax over confirmation.

This is not the sort of thing you want to get involved with on arriving in Italy for the first time, but needs must... A mere two hours and fewer than six calls later, we had our car and were trundling hopefully along the red road to Firenze.

Italians have only two speeds – very fast and very slow. Of these “very fast” was by far the easier to cope with, because it implied a degree of alertness that most Norfolk drivers have declined to even contemplate. It may be nerve-tingling, but at least you feel you are in the presence of people who have some idea what they are doing.

Not many drivers in Italy take the “very slow” option, but those that do are merely reflecting general pedestrian behaviour. You will never see a pedestrian hurrying to cross the road in Italy, or indeed hurrying anywhere, because it might crease their clothes.

This spreads into a general timelessness – or is it self-absorption? Queuing for tickets to the stunning cathedral in Pisa, we reached the very front of a long and rambling line when the one cashier decided it was time for a changeover. She counted all her money, filled in a form, and not long afterwards, really, another cashier took her place. She counted the money in turn and filled in a form, and only then, about 10 minutes later, could the queue get going again.

Oddly, I had been contemplating this kind of behaviour before leaving our shores, because I had noticed a lack of urgency making disturbing inroads into our own normally brisk and efficient country.

Two weeks before Christmas some men appeared at the top of our road and started building some steps. This was excellent, I thought: by Christmas we would surely have steps and a new pathway.

Then the men disappeared. By Christmas, little had been accomplished. Other men put in fleeting appearances, building bits of paths, then melted into the background. The embryonic steps and pathway had barriers erected, presumably in case we completed them in a fit of desperation.

Not long before Easter they were finished. Just in time, too, because Norfolk Wildlife Trust, presumably in a spirit of open access to the countryside, had acquired a nearby building in Thorpe Road and closed an alleyway next to it that had been used by local residents for decades as a short cut. I expect there was something nesting in it.

Scheme to give Norfolk what it's missing

Except for the weather, there is no real need for anyone to go abroad for a holiday. Norfolk has everything. Well, almost everything – except possibly a mountain range.

And reader Richard Meek has a plan to put that right.

His idea, which I have to agree is “stunning in its elegant simplicity”, is to organise a job creation scheme based in Diss that would use unemployed labour to dig a cave system on the county border – and use the earth removed to throw up a mountain range between Norfolk and Suffolk.

The advantages of this are obvious. Among the less obvious ones, Mr Meek suggests, are skiing in winter at Val Diss’ere, Hoxne on the Piste and a pot-holing centre at South Lopham. The latter, he suggests shrewdly, could be linked to the Hingham wormhole, but I feel this may be a trifle optimistic. Hingham is unpredictable enough on the surface, without digging bits out of it.

Mr Meek suggests that a lottery bid could be put together, but I notice that most successful lottery bids have something outlandish about them. Perhaps Counties of Culture would be more appropriate.

Truth comes a bad second

Frightening old world, isn’t it? You finally get someone to admit that using a mobile phone is one of the most dangerous things you can do in a car – or lorry. In fact, a survey shows it’s even more dangerous than being slightly over the drink-drive limit.

And what happens? A campaign to stop people using mobile phones? No, a complaint that people will now think being slightly over the drink-drive limit isn’t so bad.

Never mind the truth: the message is everything. A motto, sadly, for 21st century Britain.

Campaign to save gardeners

The Keep Gardening Special Campaign is hopeful that its campaign to keep garden centres open for 24 hours – or longer – every Easter Sunday will succeed.

“No one has anything else to do that day,” said spokesman Adam (Digger) Pitt.

“It is the biggest festival of the gardening year, and devotees must be free to worship as and when they will.

“This year some people could not get served when they wanted, and this was soul-destroying, not to say sacrilegious.

“Also we could have made lots of money.”

Garden Gnomes Anonymous is setting up a centre to counsel the thousands cold-heartedly prevented from buying plants, rocks and garden furniture.

Turbulence keeps penguins on the ground

As we were flying over the Alps, my wife – who is braver than me in just about every other respect – was alarmed by some prolonged turbulence.

Turbulence, in case you have not experienced it, has roughly the same effect as humps in the road, and is just about as useful. Because of it, my wife does not like flying at all, except in Cessnas.

But it does make me wonder about penguins.

If huge flying machines are rocked about by turbulence, birds must suffer similarly. This surely explains why some birds that would obviously be badly affected by turbulence are in fact flightless. The ostrich, for instance, or the emu.

These birds have tried it, and they don’t like it. They prefer to keep their feet on the ground. And the simple reason that penguins don’t fly is the huge amount of turbulence over the Antarctic – an area similar to the Alps in many respects.

I have since noticed that several other birds that can fly are in fact reluctant to do so. London pigeons, Ditchingham chickens and the Wymondham duck spring to mind. Norfolk expert Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 103, claims that the Pondhenge goose is a further example. He may well be right.