New dog, old tricks….
The one thing above all else that I hated about my working days was the commute.
I hated the endless traffic jams, the endless traffic lights and of course the idiot drivers.
Nearly every day since I left the shackles of employment behind me I have revelled in the lack of commuting. I sneer at rainy days. I laugh at icy roads. I delight in the kids going back to school. In fact I just thrill at not having to put up with all those little events that would forecast an hour or two starting at the back windscreen of the car in front. Some days I even listen to the traffic reports on radio to cheer myself up.
Today I had to go into Dublin. Coincidentally it wasn’t that far from my old place of work. The downside was that I had to be there bang in the middle of the fucking rush hour.
Nothing has changed.
Fifteen or so years on and it’s the same old people playing the same old tricks, causing the same old confusion and getting my piss up to boiling pint. Only the cars are newer and the drivers look a lot younger but they have to be the same idiots I used to be lumbered with.
There is the same Twat who has to stare at the traffic lights after they have turned green, waiting to see if they get any greener.
Then there is Twat’s brother who stops in a queue which is fair enough, but when the queue starts moving again he sits and stares at the receding traffic presumably in the fear that the car in front of him will suddenly slam into reverse at any moment. Mind you, that’s not as improbable as it may sound knowing rush hour drivers.
There is my old friend Flasher. He who decides to change lanes and works on the assumption that switching on his indicator light will somehow miraculously create a vacant space in the adjacent lane, which doesn’t in reality exist and causes much screeching of brakes and blaring of horns.
Hopper was still there too. He is still under the illusion that the other lane is always faster than his present one so will spend his time switching lanes backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards and eventually proving himself right when my lane moves faster than his and I overtake him.
They were all there, all causing the same old chaos and near misses. It was like being back on the old familiar territory.
I’m back home now.
I shall listen to this afternoon’s traffic reports with glee!
Grandad,
Yup, they’re everywhere – including that driver terrified of letting you get more than a fag paper width ahead of him/her.
I dropped in to let you know that, should you be interested, SoftMaker are offering Office 2018 beta download for free right now. Not sure about Linux…
As for graphs, I used graphs once and once only in a stability program I glued together using SoftMaker for a three legged jack-up afloat. It’s only a simple thing and graphically shows the result of the calculation regarding drafts, trim and heel when afloat.
I’ll add a screen capture of the graphic on the bottom of tonight’s post for you info.
I thought all of my old friends would have been killed off by now but apparently they managed to spread their seed before ending up in a pile of twisted metal on the dual carriageway.
As for FreeOffice – it’s funny you should mention that. It managed to fuck up a couple of my spreadsheets, which fortunately I had backed up. I think I’ll stick with Excel! [The only Mickeysoft yoke I still use, and yes – I do run it on Linux! 😉 ]. Coincidentally I only removed FreeOffice last night. There must have been a bit of ESP at work there?
There are,of course, lousy drivers everywhere…I only have to look in the mirror to see one but here in Norfolk we have some unique and special ‘flowers’. Here an article I wrote a while back:
1. The Major
Easily identifiable from the driving cap, tweed jacket and driving gloves. He will almost certainly be driving a large British car. Probably at least ten years old (which was when the Brits stopped making cars). Very likely it will be in British Racing Green and be the top touring model. He lovingly washes and waxes it on Sunday morning.
Once a year he’ll take it out of the garage and he and the “Mem-Sahib” (his wife) will take the “Old Girl” (the car)out for a “run” down to somewhere like Canvey Island or Buddley Salterton.
It isn’t that he’s a bad driver
, he just drives the way he votes. Its 1950 in his mind. He’s the only car on the road, England still had the “Uhmpire” and the country wasn’t over run by “Darkies” and “Fuzzy Wuzzys”. He doesn’t understand that his high end touring car will cruise comfortably at 100 mph. Mentally he’s still driving his Wolsey or Daimler.
The complex rules of modern driving simply don’t apply to him, he’s been driving accident free since that little smash (“which wasn’t his fault don’t you know”) back in 1954.
He’ll pull in where he likes to let the Memsahib out to do her shopping. May well really have a been major in the Guards but might just have been a bank manager.
2. The Wing Commander AKA “Biggles”
Has much in common with The Major but you’ll find he’ll add a white silk flying scarf to the Major’s apparel. And unlike The Major he is genuinely ex forces. He flew spitfires in the war (he means WW2) or Tornados in Suez or Harriers in the Falklands.
He’s the one driving the Aston Martin, the Morgan, the Bentley Sports. Infact anything FAST (even a ‘hot hatch’ if he’s fallen on hard times). The wing commander is a SPEED FREAK. Unlike The Major he knows exactly how fast his car will go and exactly how fast he can take each corner on his way home from the Pub…with 6 double scotchs inside him.
Somewhere over the fields of carnage he lost all fear of death. The police long since gave up arresting him for not wearing a seat belt. The female passenger in his car isn’t his wife, he never married.
He will continue to drink, “roger” , drive like a mad man and read the works of Siegfried Sassoon until his liver gives out or he wraps his
car around a tree for the last time.
If you are ever overtaken by a grandad in an open top sports car who shouts “Tally Ho!!” as he passes you then y=
ou can be sure that was The Wing Commander, white silk scarf flapping behind him, still dodging the Hun.
3. The Kett’s Rebel or Revolting Peasant.
In 1549 Kett led a rebellion of norfolk farmers and peasants against the ‘furriners’ in London (ie the government).
This is the guy fifteen crawling cars infront of you in his tractor, sugar beet lorry or LARGE piece of agricultural machinery. Always to be found on Norfolk roads at the most busiest
times of the year. By rights he should pull over when he sees that there is
a tail back behind him but he’s still fighting the rebellion in his head.
No retreat, no surrender, he’s got another 15 miles to go before he reaches
the turning for Upper Nosebleed and the ” townies” (ie anyone not from his particular nest of inbred web footedness) well, “thay ken bloody wal wair boo-i” (they can bloody well wait, boy)
He is a moving obstacle and the real danger he presents is that everyone will overtake him at the slightest opportunity. By the time the paramedics arrive to cut you out of your car because you met someone overtaking him head on, he’ll be at home having his tea.
He learnt to drive a tractor at age 7 while you were trying to ride a
bike with stabilisers.
“I’m from Norfolk and I’m alright, I can’t read and
I can’t write but I can drive a tractor” is his battle cry.
4.The My Speed Idiot.
(a writer whose name escapes me first described this breed many years ago).
For some people driving is a natural Opiate. They reach a certain speed, their speed, and happiness just overtakes them. And having reached their speed then they stick to it religiously. Doesn’t matter where they are or what the conditions are they will drive “their” speed.
This is the guy infront of you who does 45 on the main road where 60 mph is allowed but then continues to do 45 driving through Lower Colostomy Bag where the speed limit is 30.
Some of the most dangerous drivers on the road who manage to alternate between being an obstacle and a high speed menace (through villages).
5. BOBORS (Bloody Old But On Road STILL)
80 years young.
For years Norfolk has been a major retirement destination, a real God’s Waiting Room or as we call it “The Departure Lounge”. These drivers put the
‘die’ in the phrase “Come To Norfolk And Die”.
Let me give you an example.
Last year I was in a small seaside town on the Norfolk coast when the foll=
owing occurred. I swear every word is truth.
An old biddy was coming out of a side road and wanted to join the main road through the town. Instead of turning right and joining the traffic (one way street) she shot clear across the road, on to the pavement on the opposite side (scattering pedestrians) and crashed into the wall of the church yard. Luckily for her said wall was only two foot high. However that’s two foot of solid stone.
Having successfully ‘parked’ her car she calmly got out, walked round to the boot and got her shopping out…
These drivers scare me the most. Give me Boy Racers any day. At least I know the Boy Racer is capable of seeing me.
Put me down as #2, or, if I have had a bad night [i.e. hangover] #5. Tally Ho!
[*damn, but I’m in trouble when the comments are longer than the post…..*]
Just by the by I posted that from a different laptop, albeit a Win7 one, and still got the WordPress capture with your url. However it did let me solve it and post…i’ll have to fire up Minty Fresh Breath 2.0 or whatever it is called and see if it happens on ‘nix.
My father, who finally gave up driving when he was 94, was one of the “I’ve been driving since 1934 and I’ve never had an accident” types. How many accidents he caused is another matter. He used to sometimes say, despairingly: “I don’t know why it is, but every time I go out for a nice quiet drive in the country, there always seems to be a dozen cars following me closely and trying to overtake…”
And when joining a motorway from a slip-road he would slow right down as he got to the motorway to check for a gap in the traffic, causing great consternation to the cars behind who were speeding up to match the speed of the traffic flow on the motorway so they could blend in seamlessly.
I used to dread the times when I had to passenger with him.
Reminds me of the old joke – My Uncle died peacefully in his sleep, which is more than can be said for his three passengers.
I once, in an email, made a similar comment about 80 year old Norfolk drivers to Anna Raccoon, in her reply she said this, which might interest her fans, short as it is it is typical ‘raccoon’:
Only 80 year old’s? You can drive til you peg it in France – we have 102 year old’s still on the road. What is worse, until about 25 years ago (a mere quarter of their lifetime) the rule was ‘priority on the right, which meant that you could be bombing down the N7 at 100 km an hour when a battered Renault was approaching from a small side road on your right and just pulled straight onto the main road – he had priority. they’ve changed that now, with ‘Halt’ signs and much publicity – for those who can read. Trust me, it is a fool who assumes that the small Renault approaching the dual carriageway from a farm track on your right is actually going to stop at the main road and not sail out as he has done for the previous 103 years……in addition, are the electric cars – no licence required….so every alcoholic in France has got one, average speed 40 km per hour, and invariably forgotten to put his lights on…..
When I was first in Australia they had that ‘priority on the right’ malarkey. And just as AR says, you could be hurtling down a main road, and if someone pulls out from an unseen track on the right, and you hit them, it was your fault. Thankfully they changed the rules not long after I got there, and started putting ‘Stop’ and ‘Give Way’ signs on the small roads. But when I was first told about it, I thought they were pulling my leg. I mean, what person in their right mind invents a law like that? I guess it was just unchanged since the days of bullock carts.
There is the same Twat who has to stare at the traffic lights after they have turned green, waiting to see if they get any greener. always seems to time it so only he gets through before they change