28 April 2003

on 28 April 2003 at 08:00

Digging for the fantasy figures

There is a disappointing lack of fantasy in most parts of the current Norwich Area Transportation Strategy review document.

One would normally look to this kind of thing for all sorts of bizarre pronouncements, but sadly it seems to be quite sensible in the main, though a bit short on urgency and solid solutions.

But the fantasy is there if you know where to look for it.

It is not in the statistics for vehicle use in Norwich which, despite talk of expanding car journeys, reveal that the number of vehicles crossing the inner ring road during the day have fallen quite substantially since 1989 – down from 105,264 to 89,225. For the outer ring road the figures are slightly up on 1995, but slightly down on 1998 and 2001.

But this doesn’t quite tie in with the Future Travel Patterns section, which states that “businesses and individuals are travelling more often”. No doubt they are travelling somewhere else.

And right here is where we find the fantasy, subtly contained in the forecast figures for the projected growth in the number of trips in Norwich.

Compared to the figures for 1996, there will apparently be a 98pc increase in walking by 2006. This hops to an amazing 99pc by 2011, which presumably means that while there was a huge step forward for mankind in the first 10 years, there will for some reason be only a one per cent increase in the following five years.

Strange, Holmes. But what about cyclists? Even stranger. The figure in each case here is 99pc, which presumably means that cycling will have almost doubled in 10 years, but won’t increase at all in the next five years.

Something odd going on here. What are they keeping from us?

Perhaps it’s not so much what they’re keeping from us as what they’re trying to sell us. Interesting that the figure for cycling is 99pc and not 100pc or 101pc. That’s what I call precision forecasting. Can it be coincidence that the figure for cars (despite the fall noticed earlier) is predicted highest at 113pc and 120pc?

I don’t know who produced these figures, but it is disappointing in the arena of fantasy to see such a sad lack of imagination. They are all far too close together. Let me see now, I predict that in the next 10 years there will be 58pc more walking, 33pc more cycling and 25pc more motoring.

There will also be a 150pc increase in the number of percentages plucked out of the air by planners and a two per cent likelihood of any of them being anywhere near the truth.

I think you’ll find that’s pretty much spot on.

So that’s where they went . . .

Regular readers of this page are both observant and concerned citizens. One anonymous gentleman from Lowestoft , for instance, is worried about the small number of sensible cyclists on the road.

He writes: “True, there are youngsters on mountain bikes using pedestrianised areas as slalom practice grounds – which is highly entertaining to people laden with shopping or endeavouring to control a buggy and two other children simultaneously – but where are those we could call, for lack of a better term, normal cyclists who tend, among other things, to be law-abiding?”

The answer is a little surprising, he suggests. It is to be found in “those little rectangular blue Cyclists Dismount signs that you find in the most unlikely places”.

These are purely advisory signs, but many cyclists follow their advice. Unfortunately, my correspondent points out that there is no such thing as a Cyclists Remount sign.

This inevitably means that most law-abiding cyclists get off their bikes and never get on again. Another mystery solved.

Shutting the barn door after the house is gone

I have lost count of the number of readers who have been concerned about the frequent absence of Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 104, from this page. I think it was one, or maybe two.

But there are good reasons.

One is Mr Houseago’s concern that a new, younger leader is needed to counter the insidious campaign of great crested newts to distort and degrade civilisation as we know it.

He feels that the newts have become so adept at disguising themselves that he can no longer cope.

This decision followed a distressing incident when he attacked a small owl near Wimbotsham.

But the main reason is his fear that the newts will somehow expose another embarrassing mistake, which occurred when he attempted a barn conversion, which he had been told was a fashionable thing to do.

The work took some months, and visiting friends became more and more mystified as it progressed.

No one said anything, however, until Len ‘Kissme’ Hardy dropped by. In his usual forthright style, he broached what he saw as a major flaw in the project.

“I think what you have here is a major misunderstanding of a rather basic detail,” he said.

“And what would that be?” inquired Mr Houseago.

“The idea is that you convert a barn into a house. You appear to have converted your house into a barn.”

Mr Houseago is not available for comment.

Waitrees mystery

My occasional comments on the misuse of English never fail to provoke a response from readers.

Shop notices are a frequent ground of complaint: one chip shop in Yarmouth , for instance, worried one reader with its “Wanted Waitrees” in the window.

What exactly this means is open to debate. Does it mean customers, or is it a type of potato? We may never know.

What we do know, however, is that in the language of shopkeepers there is no such thing as a potato.

There are usually lots of them, in which case they are potato’s, or in the rare case when there is just one, it is a potatoe.

Another reader argues that this is perfectly permissible, because it is in a different language: greengrocer’s English. I rather like this idea. If there were an A-level in it, results could improve dramatically.

Fun? Try reading the story

The campaign to convert the Easter period from a Christian festival into another boring shopping opportunity continued apace this year.

But used as we all are to this kind of thing, I must admit I was taken aback by the invitation from a local shop to partake in “all the fun of Good Friday” at their emporium.

I wonder what fun they could have been referring to: would it be the betrayal, the angry mob, the torture or the agonising death?

All four, perhaps.

14 April 2003

on 14 April 2003 at 08:00

Alien entities turn up everywhere

Intrepid Norfolk explorer Richard ‘Volcano’ Meek has been out and about, investigating reported sightings of aliens by Americans. Apparently an amazing percentage of our transatlantic cousins have had this experience.

I’m not quite sure precisely how amazing this percentage is, because it is currently being recalculated by the Transport Research Laboratory, but I suspect it will turn out to be at least a third, or in some areas nearly 100pc.

It is a pity there is so little evidence of these sightings on camera, but unfortunately as soon as cameras are installed, the aliens set fire to them or take pot shots at them, because they think their speed is being monitored.

However, I digress. Mr Meek’s attention was understandably drawn to the implications for Norfolk, which has its own share of bizarre sightings, especially in Norwich city centre in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday.

Many of the slightly less outlandish encounters have been around the recently discovered deserted village of Whynge, which is often on the coast. In addition, some people think that coypu, great crested newts, the Wymondham duck and the Pondhenge goose may be alien entities, not to mention the Tuddenham toad, the Ditchingham chickens and many HGV drivers.

Mr Meek suspects that Beeston Bump may have been constructed as a mooring point for alien spacecraft, though it has to be admitted that this does conflict with other theories that he holds. I was more attracted to his suggestion that the Acle Straight, when seen from above, is clearly a runway or Nazca guidance line for interstellar vehicles. This would explain some of the phenomena associated with the area, though the fact that Yarmouth is nearby is probably explanation enough.

It is no coincidence, I feel, that one third of Britain’s rabbits have been described by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals recently as obese. Clearly these are not native rabbits, because I am told they can easily outrun a cat. I suspect that they may come from Beccles, where we were informed not long ago that rabbits were exploding. It would be just like aliens to introduce exploding rabbits into Norfolk.

After a while, it could get quite depressing. Mr Meek feels that aliens have been part of the Norfolk landscape for a long time. They include Harvey of Yarmouth, who researched the circulation of sherry in the human bloodstream; Julian of Norwich, who starred in the original Carry On series; and Vancouver, who founded the first sports centre in King’s Lynn. Doing nothing is sometimes best

Doing nothing is an option

That old favourite “Doing nothing is not an option” has raised its head again. It is generally pronounced by people whose job depends on our doing something, and so we can hardly blame them.

This time it is Mike Hulme, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He is concerned, of course, about global warming. He has to be.

If it would help, I will gladly give him a hand to nudge the sun slightly further away, but really I suspect that doing nothing actually is an option. After all, the climate has see-sawed back and forward over the centuries, and we’ve never done anything about it yet. It seems a little arrogant to think we can.

Somewhat surprisingly, Mr Hulme adds that we will see unprecedented changes in the earth’s climate over the coming years and decades.

Unprecedented? Has he forgotten the Ice Ages, or is he expecting something more radical?

Who's at the door?

An eagle-eyed friend has been rather disturbed by certain buses, which carry warning signs from Norfolk Constabulary. The signs are directed against opportunist thieves, who knock at elderly people’s doors. One says “Who is Mum letting in today?” and another “Who is Dad letting in today?”

The problem is that it’s the same picture each time – of an elderly woman.

As my friend observes, “I would be less worried who Dad was letting in today than about what he was wearing today. But then, perhaps there would be fewer of these distraction crimes if the conmen were suitably distracted by the person opening the door. Instead of the slogan ‘If in doubt, keep them out’, Norfolk Constabulary might like to try ‘Give them a shock – wear a frock’.

“But that would only work for men, of course. Elderly women might experiment with donning a trilby and answering the door smoking a pipe.”

See for yourself

Some of you may have read the letter from Steve Hounsham, the communications officer of anti-car pressure group Transport 2000, not long ago and noted his claim that I believe the faster you drive, the safer you are. This is so patently absurd that I suspect few readers took any notice of anything else he said.

However, if you are still confused about speed and the causes of accidents, by all means look at the “findings” he mentions. And then visit an intriguing site that reveals how those findings are routinely distorted. It is at: http://safespeed.org.uk/onethirdemail.html

No doubt Mr Hounsham will accuse the presenters of this site of being fanatics, which in his language means he doesn’t agree with them. I make no comment at all: I am happy for readers to make their own minds up.

No prize's for grammar

I’m delighted to discover there’s still a strong resistance movement out there determined to fight for the basics of English. After my piece about superfluous apostrophes on signs in Riverside, Norwich, a correspondent bemoaned the similar excess in a city DIY store, where he encountered Toilet’s and Door’s.

And there were many similar complaints. A teacher I know has a theory. She suspects some people never grow out of the excitement of being introduced to apostrophes at an early age and feel they have to use them at every opportunity – in the way that if you give a linesman a flag, he feels obliged to wave it often.

It’s an interesting theory, but it doesn’t explain why another reader discovered a “to-peace” item in a local furniture store. This was an attempt to get across the fact that the item was in between one and three sections.

Clearly we are in dire need of a signwriting qualification that includes spelling and punctuation. Any offer’s?