29 July 2002

on 29 July 2002 at 08:00

Author takes steps to follow road back

Roads have been wallowing for quite a while now in the slough of negative publicity, orchestrated by strange beings who feel we would be much better without them.

But the romance of the road has a long history. While a road under construction is an eyesore, a completed road quickly becomes a pleasing part of the landscape.

Only if there are too many of them in too small a place is the picture different – and the same is true of people, but sooner.

Bruce Robinson, an author who used to work on the EDP, is a bit of an expert on roads. Among many other books, he has written The Nowhere Road, which surprisingly is not the A47 but Peddars Way.

Norfolk County Council was so taken by this title that it has decided – by judicious use of signposting – to create many more nowhere roads in the county.

Unfazed by this brush with fame, Mr Robinson has spent some time recently following The Norwich Road, which is not a road at all, but a book he unearthed in a second-hand bookshop.

Written by Charles G Harper a century ago as one of a series, it tells stories of the 112-mile coaching route from Whitechapel and Stratford in east London through Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich, Scole and Long Stratton to Norwich.

Inside the book he found the original sales invoice and receipt. The volume had been purchased by a Mr G E Cower of Gower Street in London, in June 1902.

How can you follow a book? Mr Robinson, something of a romantic, chose to return to the bookshop that sold it exactly 100 years to the day after it was sold.

“Astonishingly,” he says, “the bookshop is still there. At least, a bookshop now occupies the same site in Marylebone, though it is no longer Francis Edwards but Daunt Books, which specialises in publications for travellers.”

In an area of London that has changed little, he then decided to go to the heart of the matter, and knocked on the door of the house once occupied by Mr Cower, the purchaser of the book. Sadly, it was empty, though a nameplate described it as the Bloomsbury Centre.

It was clearly a step too far. He had run out of clues. Or had he? Just down the road from his home in Wicklewood was a milestone bearing the inscription “London 100 miles”. The plot thickened. He reached for his walking boots.

Glimpse of the future through blurred glasses

Obviously I was as reassured as everyone else to read that BT was removing only “surplus” phone boxes from our countryside – in much the same way, presumably, that Dr Beeching removed surplus railway lines back in the 60s because they would never, ever be needed again.

That was one of the more spectacular examples of getting the future wrong in recent history. No doubt many others are in the pipeline, disguised as white papers, visionary targets and economy measures.

Reducing everything to the bare essentials is never the right policy. If the world had been created with the bare essentials for survival, we would certainly not be here now. Nor would the world.

I do hope that in 10 years’ time someone doesn’t discover that mobile phones really are killing us and are bad for the environment too. In that case the search would be on for the phone box graveyard to which the 174 uprooted Norfolk boxes will presumably be consigned, in an environmentally friendly sort of way.

Or will they be used to hold the tonnes of mail that it will soon become too expensive to deliver?

Short-sightedness is the curse of the age. When it is linked with the plague of measuring everything with money, disaster is the only possible outcome.

Road number? Hang on, let's see if I'm really here

It was revealed in the EDP recently that the police find it hard to cope with 999 calls outside urban areas unless you can tell them the number of the road you are on.

Not only that, they are apparently under the impression that “most members of the public know road numbers”. This is in fact only true if they are following a map, and then only sometimes.

A correspondent observed that “it is my experience, culled from 45 years working with the public, that a large percentage of the population cannot even give you their own address adequately, never mind name roads they rarely, if ever, travel on”.

Surprisingly, things are even worse than that. I can reveal that in a gathering of 14-year-olds, many of them do not even know if they are there or not.

This became clear when teachers in a school I know attempted to allocate Year 9 children to groups, for reasons that need not detain us.

Many were creatively absent, and so it was necessary to call a register. The inability of most to call out “Yes” in a way that made it distinct from “No, she’s absent” was wonderful to behold. And of course it wasn’t their fault.

I do hope they have no cause to make a 999 call. The police would have a real problem on their hands.

Fast food for woodpeckers

An alarming trend has been spotted by woodpecker-watcher Richard “Volcano” Meek.

Apparently woodpeckers have turned their backs on their traditional summer food of insects – notably ants and beetle larvae – and are flocking to bird tables in search of fast food items like peanuts. Ornithologists, I undertand, are worried on two main counts:

Will we be plagued by reprieved ants and beetles? Will the woodpeckers become hyperactive through excessive use of junk food and turn into juvenile delinquents – boring holes in doors, instead of just knocking and flying away?

I myself will not be losing any sleep over it. Before we know where we are the bird tables will be taken over by a chain, and the peanuts will reach the table so slowly that it will be quicker to go to a pub.

Or back to the trees, of course.

15 July 2002

on 15 July 2002 at 08:00

Knot theory problem for string scientists

Today sees the start of a major conference at Cambridge University on string theory, which many scientists believe could lead to a unified theory of everything.

But one key man has not been invited to Strings 2002: Professor V A R Scheinlich of Hingham, whose pioneering work in the same area has shocked many of his contemporaries.

Prof Scheinlich claims to have already discovered a fairly unified theory of almost everything. Fellow physicists, however, have refused to accept his unorthodox methods and have tried to prevent him from publicising his ideas.

He claims that this is because his own version of string theory – knot theory – uses the concept of multi-dimensional universes to explain a variety of phenomena, including the Hingham wormholes, the Pondhenge goose, the Ditchingham chickens and Schroedinger’s cat.

Asked why his theory was only fairly unified, he said that he had just about got it together, though it tended to unravel at times, rather like string. “In time it will be unified,” he said. “Time being a relative term in knot theory, and especially in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham.”

While scientists have searched for a theory to explain everything, even road humps, Prof Scheinlich has been content to go for almost everything.

“There is no way we can explain everything,” he said. “If we said we had explained everything, we would then have to explain how we could explain everything, given that the explanation would be outside everything else and, according to knot theory, inexplicably extra-dimensional. Like the cat.”

While Cambridge scientists work on oblivious to the ground-breaking theories of Prof Scheinlich, support for knot theory has come from an unexpected quarter – the UEA’s School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing.

Professor Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam said last night: “I have the greatest respect for the work of Prof Scheinlich. He is undoubtedly the greatest living expert on Hingham, and if you can understand that, you can understand anything.”

Mrs Hicks was unavailable for comment.

Resurgence of newt power on horizon

A battalion of great crested newts is said to be blocking the line of the proposed Long Stratton bypass – thus preventing relief reaching the beleaguered town.

This resurgence of newt power comes as a shock after the apparent success of the campaign led by Norfolk veteran and druid Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 103, to oust the amphibians from positions of power in the county following the legendary Wymondham war.

Veterans of that encounter still speak in hushed tones of the newts’ expansionist ambitions. But their subsequent alliance with Austrian cave salamanders failed to break new ground, and Mr Houseago has been enjoying a fairly quiet retirement.

He is now expected to campaign on the Long Stratton issue and has already called for the UN peace-keeping force that was recently deployed at North Walsham to be moved south.

Meanwhile, great crested newts inconvenienced by the current dualling of new stretches of the A11 are receiving £250,000 compensation in the shape of special land guarantees.

“The battle is not over,” said Mr Houseago. “Newts never let up. We will continue to fight for our rights as true Norfolk people. We shall never surrender.”

Leap of imagination

The most dangerous road in Norwich – Prince of Wales Road – had 62 accidents in three years, most of them caused by pedestrians who had drunk too much.

The solution is obvious, when you think about it: the city council is planning improved pedestrian crossing facilities.

It takes only a small leap of the imagination to see drunken persons diligently searching out the crossings in a subdued way instead of hurling themselves loudly and aimlessly into the road.

Lynn a fine town - expert

Richard Meek, the expert responsible for alerting Norfolk to the possibility of a volcanic eruption near Sheringham, is concerned at my passing reference last time to the state of King’s Lynn.

I would like to assure readers that Mr Meek has the highest regard for Lynn. He does not feel its present state is the result of a prehistoric volcanic eruption. It is, he says, a fine town.

Personally I tend to see it as a curate’s egg of a town. Parts of it are very tasty, and would probably not be improved at all by a layer of ash.

1 July 2002

on 1 July 2002 at 08:00

Elephant big clue to Norfolk volcano

Norfolk is at risk of an imminent volcanic eruption, according to an investigator who has been carrying out excavations on the slopes of Mount Beeston in North Norfolk.

Complex calculations have revealed that Sheringham and Cromer could be completely obliterated under 12 metres of volcanic ash, says expert Richard Meek. He points out that this could badly disrupt the tourist season.

According to a revolutionary new theory from Mr Meek, the Runton elephant may not be a fossil at all, but the remains of a beast caught out by the last major eruption, which also marked the end of a frequent bus service to the area.

If this is so, plans to turn the massive elephant into the star of a new multi-million-pound visitor attraction may have to be put on hold while Mount Beeston is ‘plugged’.

Estimates of the age of the animal may also have to be revised, but residents have been advised not to panic.

Mr Meek’s theories also cast new light on the ‘startling and unique’ discovery announced last week of the remains of mammoths dating back to the Ice Age at a quarry site in South Norfolk.

Prof V A R Scheinlich, of Hingham, has already proposed that the mammoths are victims of an earlier eruption, which resulted in a shrinking of the original Mount Beeston between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, when it was an amazing 20,000 feet high and erupted most Thursdays.

The effects on the Hingham area are still being felt, says Prof Scheinlich.

Meanwhile, archaeologists excavating the medieval Red Mount Chapel at The Walks in King’s Lynn have found a multi-dimensional 18-sided wall but no mammoths or elephants at all.

This indicates that the eruptions did not affect the Lynn area; so some other explanation must be found for the state the town is in.

Is mystery officer behind nanny craze?

Conker trees, window boxes and bouncy castles may be just a fading memory, but at least we have advertising boards.

The Labour administration at City Hall, Norwich, became so notorious for its overprotective approach to citizens who might be in ‘danger’ that some have blamed the nanny approach for its failure at the polls.

But now we have the new Lib Dem supremos getting all het up about advertising boards tripping people up in the streets – and the Labour has-beens getting all superior about it, presumably because they didn’t think of it first.

Odd, or what? Maybe the councillors are not to blame after all. We know they are easily led by devious officers. Obviously someone in there is determined to carry on his or her bizarre campaign of over-protection, whoever is in charge and ostensibly making the decisions.

I am tempted to carry out an investigation, but instead I will follow Norfolk police strategy in cases of serious crime, and invite the guilty party to confess.

Schroedinger fears in hunt for missing black dog

The story of Bungay’s mysterious black dog was back on television yesterday, and this has alarmed one citizen, who is concerned at a possible influx of enthusiasts into the town.

Anyone searching for the curious canine is likely to be disappointed because, as Geoff Went points out, “we have no black dog.

“He was last seen disappearing down Trinity Street on the back of a Suffolk Council lorry almost two years ago.

“Nobody seems to know where he is. I’ve asked the Town Reeve and the Town Mayor, but they don’t know, although the rumour is that a refurbished one is available.

“In other words, the original is lost, and they are offering us a pup.”

Mr Went would like readers to help find the dog, which is known as Shuck and is quite attached to lamp standards.

I am a little concerned that this could turn out to be a similar case to that of the elusive Norfolk big cat, which I suggested recently could be Schroedinger’s cat – a feline that all physicists know is both dead and alive, unless you look at it. Dogs like to know where they are, and would react badly to that sort of thing.

Adrift in the wild

Here we are on Blakeney Point to observe the habits of holidaymakus sealboatus, many of whom congregate here at this time of year, possibly on the way to warmer climes.

Months of painstaking research has established that while on the mainland this species wanders around, apparently aimlessly, but is attracted to boats. These invariably take them out close to the seal beaches and often land them on the point, where they are presented with nature in a wild, uncluttered state.

They have only an hour to enjoy the dunes and beaches before the tide forces them back. But here is the mystery. With a golden opportunity to explore a beautiful peninsula that is usually inaccessible, what do they do? They go and buy a cup of tea at the tea shop.

We can only wonder at the lack of curiosity and assume that some very basic urge is involved here. Has tea addiction become a reality? Further research will clearly be necessary . . .