Pulling into St. Hilda’s; off of The Plain last week …
Here’s map of my route…
The Crucial bit is where I’m leaving the The Plain, passing the Iffley Road, but then heading into Cowley Place.
Now, I was always taught to indicate *only* when you were adjacent to the previous turning – which in my case, was Iffley Road. Whilst I realise that the distance between those two roads is ‘slight’, it’s A) better to obey the highway code in case of an accident, and B) if I were to have indicated opposite the Cowley Road, and then crash into something coming out of Iffley Road; well, it’d have been my fault.
So, there I was taking it very easy around the roundabout, and then signalling left as soon as I was able – opposite Iffley Road; and there he was too; a damn cyclist, evidently late for a lecture, or just ‘pumping peddles’ in training for a possible trip in an Oxford Eight. I saw him, and hit the brakes, and he saw me, and did the same. Now, four disk brakes at a speed deemed below their mildest interest vs. 2 times 4 wet rubber blocks against a wonky wheel made of tinfoil. Guess who won? Yes, I pulled up – having done nothing wrong; saving his life perhaps. Was I annoyed? No, Was I annoyed when he gave me a ‘you wanker’ look through the rear end! Yes!
So, I wound down the Window and shouted ‘What!?’, ‘What’s your problem?’
He replied, ‘You indicated too late!’
Now, let’s just recap a bit on the turning I wanted. Probably, coming down from the High Street, 50% of traffic goes on to the Cowley Road, and 49.9% goes onto the Iffley Road — um, very few cars turn into what is actually a dead-end street, but that happens to lead to an Oxford College. ‘I indicated too late? Rather than you never expect a car to go down this road, and don’t even bother to look 99.9% of the time! I’m a driver who sticks to limits; whilst you’re a young man who’s late and doesn’t usually encounter someone coming around that roundabout doing a 270. And, even in that 0.1%, you either beat them, or they beat you — yet you say ‘you didn’t indicate early enough’!’
So I described how I could have not have indicated any earlier, as the Iffley Road turning is quite stupidly close to the one I wanted. To be fair, given that most people never go this turn, it was a reasonable bet that I wouldn’t! Still, if it hadn’t have been good brakes – and my expecting an idiot to arrive at any moment, I would have ‘had him’ – but there he was giving me that ‘you wanker’ look. We exchange another few words about how he’d been lucky, and about he was a safe cyclist, and I just decided that there were too many witnesses to my killing him!
Less fun today for a Sunday: according to The Times, Clarkson is on holiday.
What with that, and the bloody clocks, my Sunday has only been slighted elevated by the rather nice weather [I hope it holds on into the evening so we can watch the ISS and its 5 ton robotic-shadow pass overhead from Cleeve Hill around 22.30. Hey, maybe a ‘roll’ down hill could be on the cards too!]
I love this time of year, especially this, the first day of Spring, when you just can’t but remark, out-loud, “how pleasantly light it is for seven o’clock!” But of course, only to be observed and then remarked upon if you’ve altered your clocks.
And that’s the bit I hate about today.
I’m especially displeased with my new Nokia 6500 Classic [bought very recently as a ‘Blue Tooth Buddy’ for my TomTom]. Why oh why is it that such a modern device can’t update its own fugging clock automatically!?
Ah, it can!
… it has an ‘Auto Update Time’ feature – that was switched off by default [why!]
… a while later…
Ah, it can’t!
03, Tele-O or T-For-Two, or whatever the name of the network is that I’m on, doesn’t appear to broadcast the time of day [or even the day]!
Now I just cannot bring myself to believe this; I mean you would surely think that knowing the time would be something a mobile-phone would, um, enjoy knowing – but T42 obviously think differently. Although, that said, mine would just continue to remind me to ‘Water the Plants’, one second past the stroke of midnight on a Friday evening – and always, always, when I’m having a rather erotic dream :- that I know I ‘had’, but then can’t quite recapture: thirty seconds past midnight! Bloody, sodding phone!
Thinking about how my mobile phone has failed me today – with a simple clock – I’m reminded of a rant I once had, all to myself, a while back when driving from Stow-on-the-Wold, back to Cheltenham. Now, a gorgeous road it might be – beautiful countryside, sweeping bends, decent cambers; even the odd straight! But, and this is normal for the Cotswolds, it’s a road that’s also prone to the odd ‘up and down’ – the “woldness”-‘downs’ of which killed my phone every sodding time!
However, losing the signal and ‘dropping out’ didn’t stress me: nope, it was the fact that I knew, just knew that T42 didn’t have a damn clue that, A) it had happened, and worse, B) *where* it DID happen, and I found myself once again going ‘hello, hello – are you still there …, HELLO?, … BOLLOCKS’. Actually, I don’t know this for a fact [not the BOLLOCKS bit - that happened], but given the technical-ineptitude that our mobile-phone network and operators display daily, I’d give anyone odds of 20:1 that I’m right!
How much better that they knew I hadn’t hung up [and could refund me for the call perhaps] – and, even better still – knew just *where* I happened to find that I was talking to myself [again]! Perhaps they’d see quite a few of their customers ‘drop-off’ the airwaves in the self-same location? And maybe, just perhaps, they’d consider improving reception in the many black-holes that are scattered about this green and pleasant land wold? Here’s an idea for all the phone operators – monitor this shit, and do the ‘right thing’!
Anyway, for now, back to the ‘time’ to finish.
Years ago I wrote to the Prime Minister [his Tony-ness I think it was] detailing how ridiculous all this jiggling about with clocks twice a year was. I mean, what’s it all for anyway – just so as some kilted, beardy-farmer in ‘Scawwtlund’ can find his sheep without a torch! I think they should all stay in bed myself – I do; and I bet the sheep don’t give a shit either way!
I’ve discovered why Sunday drivers are such pains in the arse – they’re all in neutral!
Today, Easter Sunday, *I* was in neutral; and judging by all the people who were sat right on my ahole [rear bumper], I assume that, as this is a ‘typical Sunday driver scenario’, all Sunday drivers must be in neutral too? However, my excuse for doing no more than 10 mph at times was that I was attempting a rather cool, gravity assisted experiment. Hmmm, maybe Sunday drivers are all trying something similar then [nah]?
What was I doing you ask? Well, it was a ‘super feat’ … endeavouring to coast the entire length of the Cleeve Hill, from the top, down into Prestbury High Street!
Cleeve Hill is fabulous; great views, superb walking on the common [an added bonus here is that as the public have the right-of-way you get to annoy all those ‘ruining a good walk’ golfing types]. It even has a groovy pub in the shape of the Rising Sun. But undoubtedly nice as it is, for me there’s always been one thing missing – in the hundreds of times I must have driven down this hill, I’ve always wondered if I could simply roll down it instead! You would ride the crest at the legal speed limit, and then, feathering the brakes as and when necessary [not much!], make it to the bottom, and Prestbury High Street. And I’d love to tell you whether or not this is all possible, but as I always trip over some ‘waste of a licence’ type doing 25 mph, I’ve never managed it. And needless to say, I didn’t manage to test my theory today either.
What goes through these people’s minds? “Oh f**k, it’s a hill!!! Throw out the anchor, floor the ‘go slower’ peddle” … you know I’m sure they must jump out their skins as the mountain bikers, tractors, 2CVs, ramblers and little old ladies with Zimmer frames all simply whiz past them!
In the end, and having normalised my speed in a second attempt, i.e., to try the last little bit from the 30 mph sign, we pretended to be looking for something – like trying to find a house that’s only got a name instead of a number. Well, I mean you have to pretend you’re doing something acceptable – when you’re doing 5 mph through the shops and waiting for the last little bit of a slope down to the white blobs that pass for roundabouts at ‘the finish’! Once you hit those, you yell ‘Rally!’ and, with a little bit of right foot, the world returns to normal – as does your blood pressure!
