19 September 2005

on 19 September 2005 at 07:00

Out of the jolly buses and into the slow fire

As I write, there is a bus strike in Norfolk. On the letters page of the Eastern Daily Press are two letters complaining about bus services – one concerning overcrowding and charging for a child’s journey that should have been free, and the other a familiar story about waiting for a bus that never came.

A third reader points out that her car is essential because there is no bus service to her village, and a fourth complains about a plan to close Cromer bus station.

So we can assume that public transport is in a less than satisfactory state in our fine county, despite the rather stylish new bus station in Norwich and the pretty new teletubby buses.

And as we approach winter, the disadvantages of bus travel come into focus: long, cold, frustrating waits at bus stops; the sweaty exchange of coughs and sneezes when on board; and the manhandling of awkward parcels and whimpering children.

Yes, there is something romantic about a bus: the community spirit, the risk-taking, the introduction to new places that comes with circuitous routes, and of course the jolly drivers. But when it comes down to it, it is quite nice to use a mode of travel that takes you painlessly from where you are to where you want to be at a time to suit you – if the journey is short, that may be walking or cycling, but for any distance, it’s a car.

What about petrol shortages? Well, we all know there weren’t any. I suspect the panic was triggered by the same anti-car factions that scuppered the Norwich northern distributor road.

Unfortunately the same factions seem to be in charge of speed limits. When I drove back to Norwich along the A11 last weekend, I encountered two laughable speed limits: 40mph along the Attleborough bypass, where there was no encroachment on to the road whatsoever by adjacent road works (which in any case were inoperative); and 30mph for the last mile or so into Norwich, purely because the two lanes did not spread into three or four at the final roundabout.

It is hard to explain how absolutely ridiculous this is unless you have actually tried to drive on a clear dual carriageway at that speed.

Such idiocy does not help convince drivers that other speed limits are appropriate, such as the 50mphs that are sprouting at an alarming rate on roads around Norwich where 60mph is perfectly safe.

Suffolk County Council, which has imposed entirely inappropriate temporary 50mph limits on most of what was not long ago a trunk road – the A140 between Scole and the A14 – is now asking us whether it should be made permanent.

A correspondent writes that “the usual case in long-drawn-out 50mph limits is that all too many drivers become so frustrated by official negativity that they indulge in very hazardous bunching, reckless overtaking and mindless tailgating”, and this is what happens on the A140.

If you would like to tell Suffolk County Council so, go to www.suffolkroadsafe.net/a140.htm

Mysterious movement of the unpegged abbey

Following my remarks last time upon the mysterious undipped headlights phenomenon on the road approaching Hingham from Wicklewood, I received the following letter.

While it makes no direct mention of the well-known time-space distortions in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham – or indeed the notorious mineral, anchor, that holds certain Norfolk towns and villages in place – the experienced reader will be able to draw his (or indeed her) own conclusions.

Sir

I was alarmed by your story about the Wicklewood Triangle, not for what you wrote, but for what you left out. Never mind the foreglow, there is something even more worrying and strange about the Wicklewood chicane (as some locals call it).

Everyone around here knows – and the chicane (much beloved by boy racers, incidentally) helps to prove it – that Wymondham Abbey actually moves. Driving towards Wymondham, and upon entering the chicane, the Abbey is clearly on the right; upon emerging, the Abbey has moved to the front. Why has no-one ever mentioned it before? Has anyone actually seen it in the process of moving? Have the Abbey tried using tent pegs? What is the meaning of it all?

Yours sincerely,

Befuddled of Wicklewood

PS I have come across this phenomenon before. I have repeated almost identical journeys along almost identical routes only to find that both Kerdiston, and for that matter Tibenham airfield, are never in the same place twice.

Inquiry into time phenomenon on Breakfast TV

An official inquiry has been launched to find out why time regularly runs out on breakfast television.

Alert viewers will have noticed that whenever a topic threatens to get even mildly interesting, one of the presenters announces that they have “run out of time” and moves quickly on to something else.

Inquiry chairman Prof Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam, who heads the School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing at the University of East Anglia, said that several theories had already been put forward. The most attractive was that there was a kind of black hole through which time escaped from any kind of discussion of the news – rather like a puncture – especially early in the day. It later reappeared in reality shows where it expanded rapidly until there was a kind of explosion in many people’s heads.

Prof V A R Scheinlich of Hingham, who has been co-opted on to the inquiry because of his expertise in time-space distortion, said he felt the kind of repetition involved in breakfast news programmes created delusions in the minds of the participants, so that they felt mistakenly that something important was always about to happen.

“In fact there is almost no risk of this,” he added.

Appalling waste of space criticised

The McCorquodale family have had enough of Norfolk and are planning to move back into parts of London, where they came from.

Disappointed by the huge areas of uncontained sand and expansive flooding at Hunstanton, and by the poor drainage facilities at Hickling, which they found to be dominated by a large puddle with floating birds, they have been visiting other parts of the county in the hope of finding a properly organised modern way of life – without success.

“One fellow had loads and loads of turkeys running around,” said Wendy McCorquodale last night. “It’s ridiculous. Why can’t he get them from the supermarket, like everyone else?”

Her husband John was equally disturbed by what he called the “appalling waste of space” everywhere.

“There are hundreds of fields full of funny-coloured grass, or weeds or something,” he said. “Why on earth don’t they cut it all down and build houses – or at least turn it into playing fields? It’s so uncivilised.”

5 September 2005

on 5 September 2005 at 16:15

Stressed out with stars on their plates

The compulsion to force everything into league tables – together with the accompanying targets, stars and stress – has now spread to restaurants.

It’s a pity the system could not be applied to something useful, like weather forecasts (no stars) or rubbish collections: one star for turning up on the right day, another for removing some of the rubbish and minus three for leaving the street in a worse state than it was before. But wait, I hear you say. Isn’t it a really worthwhile thing to sort out the good restaurants from the ones that give you food poisoning?

Yes, it would be, but I can’t see the star system helping. Either a restaurant serves edible food, or it doesn’t. What does two stars actually mean? Food poisoning only likely on Thursdays? If a restaurant is serving dodgy food, I want to see it closed down, not have a twinkle extracted, with or without anaesthetic.

I suspect that what is really involved here is bureaucratic procedure. Like Ofsted inspections, which are supposed to be about teaching but are in fact about writing interminable policy statements, maybe these inspections are about staff training, checking food hygiene certificates, ticking boxes to demonstrate that freezer temperatures are monitored (whether they are or not) and fulfilling a thousand other legal requirements that plague the life of anyone who sets up a business nowadays. If not, why is the council’s website full of that stuff?

Judging by the two long-faced inspectors I spotted leaving an excellent city restaurant the other day, I suspect they may be under just as much stress as the owners. The chief constable of North Wales, Richard Brunstrom, has ludicrously told his traffic police that they must arrest at least eight drivers a month or be disciplined: are the food inspectors under similar pressure to award the dreaded “no stars” to a minimum number of fooderies? Surely not.

Meanwhile we shall all pore over the stars awarded and make misleading judgements based on them, like clueless parents scanning school league tables.

It will all end in tears. Meanwhile, a small mystery remains: why have the inspectors completely omitted their own City Hall canteen from the list? We should be told.

Failure to dip blamed on space-time distortion

Most of us have been annoyed at some time or other by approaching cars failing to dip their headlights at night.

A recent survey has shown, somewhat surprisingly, that this occurs most in an area known as the Wicklewood triangle, where it abuts the Autonomous Republic of Hingham.

The study found that on the B1108 there are many bends, but although “fore-glow” enables you to see other vehicles coming towards you at night well before you confront them, very few drivers dip their lights early enough – markedly fewer than in other parts of East Anglia.

Researchers blame this on the space-time distortion common in the Hingham area.

“Maybe light waves are affected,” said radical cleric the Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick, who is on the team. “At first the cars seem to be going across the field, and then they are in front of you. It’s as if they’ve gone through a kind of wormhole.

“Some people might say it was a miracle, but of course that is theologically dubious. Or it would be anywhere else.”

Professor V A R Scheinlich was unavailable for comment.

Hickling puddle worries McCorquodales

John and Wendy McCorquodale, who arrived in Hunstanton from parts of London recently, have now moved to Hickling – but are still disappointed at their surroundings.

“There’s this massive great puddle dominating the village,” said Wendy. “It’s big enough to sail a boat on.

“If I’d known the drainage was this bad, we would never have come here.

“It’s a nightmare for the children – and birds get caught up in it too. I’ve seen no end of them floating about.”

Explorer struck by big energy problem

Noted Norfolk explorer Richard “Volcano” Meek is having energy problems.

He is particularly concerned, he tells me, about the recent report in the EDP which mentioned a pensioner “hit by a huge energy bill” and wonders if some gas companies are resorting to strong-arm tactics.

His second suggestion, that it might be something to do with an atomic duck, is clearly fanciful, especially as it did not happen anywhere near Wymondham, home of the only duck worth mentioning.

But the energy situation is worrying. I myself have been approached on several occasions by women in my local supermarket. Normally I would welcome this, but they seem unusually interested in who my gas supplier is – information I am reluctant to reveal unless the woman in question is particularly persuasive.

Meanwhile the intrepid Mr Meek has decided to go prospecting for “both natural and unnatural gas”. He has been inspired by the earlier news story of the Chinese woman who keeps a fortnight’s gas supply in a large bag after liberating it from the local well. Wishful thinking, I call it.

But if I was in charge of Bacton, I would be keeping a careful lookout.

Blackmail added to northern distributor mess

I see that Labour MP and Home Secretary Charles Clarke has added a spot of political blackmail to the disgraceful hotchpotch that is the ruins of the northern distributor road. As if being offered traffic calming instead of a dual carriageway were not bad enough for long-suffering residents and drivers, the all-powerful Mr Clarke will not back the road, he warns the Tory-controlled county council and the Lib-Dem controlled city, unless there is an integrated green transport system in Norwich. Let me see, now. What was the perfect opportunity to put an integrated system in place, with bus station and rail station side by side?

Yes, it was the Riverside project. And who was in charge of Norwich City Council when the blank-slate opportunity was irrevocably bungled? Oh, yes. It was Labour.

Someone should jog Mr Clarke’s memory.