I got told off in the swimming pool yesterday. I had had this bright idea. Having found a really large float, practically the size of one of those small surfboards - bodyboard? - I decided to lie down and rest my head on it.
The Lifeguard told me 'no floats past this point'. I was miffed. I also considered it double standards because I had previously done two lengths with a (smaller) float - to concentrate on my legs.
Then, I thought, actually, despite the rule being daft and unpublicised, she was actually applying common sense and discretion. Someone using a float to do lengths is a swimmer, someone using one to rest their head is 'playing'.
Is it any surprise that people in 'authority' don't use discretion and common sense, when they then get accused of inconsistency. Not that I accused. I complied, but I had silent thoughts.
There are ongoing roadworks in Brixton Town Centre, largely to do with widening the pavements, which is a good thing. The process isn't so great, even though the end result is looking good. For a period of time, it meant that it took a long time for buses to filter through, so it made sense to get off a stop early and walk.
I was amazed at how many people I saw. Not randoms, but people I 'know' - maybe people who in the past we spent time together. People to say hello to, maybe how are you. Not close friends. People who, if you got the bus with, there'd be mutual awkwardness...I don't know this person well enough to spend an entire journey in conversation.
The other day, we walked from the town centre to Halfords. Not a great distance, but far enough to observe several instances of people on foot and bike greeting slight acquaintances and old friends.
It's a small and trivial thing, but it's about being part of a community, of society. Those who move about only in a carapace miss out on that. Their loss; the community loses, too.
SatNav is rubbish/SatNav is brilliant. For a few weeks there were roadworks by my house. These involved an enormous dirty big trench being dug across the road, closing the junction due to the sheer innavagability of it. The roadworkers helpfully put up big signs saying
- Road closed except for access
- Turn here to get to t'main road cos t'junction's closed
- You don't want to go this way you don't
- Here be dragons
SatNav, in all its wisdom, showed the junction as clear, traffic-free etc. So the fuckwits drove towards the trench, scratched their heads at the cones, fences and barriers, sat there for a minute or two, and turned their cars round.
Now, I know all the arguments about SatNav being great because it manages to get you from A to blah-de-boring-blah blah blah without having to read a map because that's, oh, so difficult.
I think there should be a new law that says anybody who follows the instructions of SatNav regardless of roadside signs and obvious hazards is clearly way too stupid to be allowed out alone and thus must be banned from driving and made to re-sit their test.
Not so long ago I witnessed another example of a long articulated lorry (Seville and Amsterdam) attempting a turn that would be total nonsense (for those that know Clapham - Parsons Corner into Park Hill). Yes, I know it's a cut-through, it avoids the main roads. But you know, there's a reason they're called 'main roads'.
It's actually really difficult to get a small saloon along the residential double-parked side streets let alone a lorry full of oranges and tulips. At what point does a full-time driver wake up and think - this SatNav keeps sending me down narrow twisty country lanes and chichi urban drives chocka with Chelsea Tractors; maybe I should use a road map? What is the point of a navigation system that doesn't allow the user to enter constraints such as 'big lorry'?
