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Maundering
Feb. 18th, 2007 03:25 pmI just got back from Tufnell Park, N7, where I drove to pick up a couple of paintings. Now, note this; Tufnell Park, N7. Just off the Holloway Road. Quite central.
I live in Lewisham, SE13, not off the beaten track.
It's Sunday, and it took me an hour to drive there. I can get to Stansted, or Gatwick, or even Dover (at a push) in that time.
No wonder cab drivers don't want to come to the South East of London. Our road system quite definitely doesn't work. Forty minutes to London Bridge? I could run it in that time.
My mood wasn't the best when, within a couple of minutes of leaving, I arrived at the top of the hill to turn left onto the A2. There's a steady stream of traffic here, but you get out eventually. I saw a driver signal left and waited a couple of seconds for evidence that he was slowing down with the intention of turning left (rather than intending to turn left at some unspecified point in the future - a habit of some Sunday drivers). Within a second. I swear, within a second, a white-van-man behind me tooted his car's horn (I'm sure that has a different phraseology in American, but I can't think what it is at the moment. And I'm sure that what I typed was vaguely obsence in American, mainly because most things in American are vaguely obscene or are some reference to homosexuality. In fact, the large number of words which pertain to homosexuality make me rather curious about the American psyche, closets, and the like).
It's at times like this that I feel like getting out of the car and explaining, in words of one syllable, to the probably fat donkey behind wheel of said white van, why I hadn't zoomed straight out into the road as soon as I noticed that the car was signalling an intention to turn left. However, I have received advice to take a scratchbook and to just draw pictures of said offenders, and then to scrawl obscenities beneath said pictures.
After crawling all the way to New Cross, you have the farce of the Old Kent Road. Theoretically, this is a "Red Route", with no stopping. Except that the local shopkeepers objected, so the masters of compromise allowed parts of the red route to be parked on for short periods. Add to that the ever-stopping buses and you have a major road that is basically a single lane in either direction for much of the route. Laughable.
But, well, I got there and got back in one piece, unlike two cars, which seemed to have had a minor disagreement over which should be in a particular lane (or perhaps the drivers were conducting an obscure experminent in practical physics). Whatever, a raft of police cars were pulled in to bring peace to a situation which, so far as I could see, involved a disagreement between two Africans. New Cross is not yet, as far as I know, in Ghana, but from the goings on in the aftermath of this particular collisaion, you would be forgiven for thinking that it might be.
++++
As if I haven't got enough to fill my time, getting reacquainted with the joys of Photoshop is definitely something I should still clear of. THe problem is, it's so much fun playing with all the things that Photoshop does.
Right, I need a nap.
I live in Lewisham, SE13, not off the beaten track.
It's Sunday, and it took me an hour to drive there. I can get to Stansted, or Gatwick, or even Dover (at a push) in that time.
No wonder cab drivers don't want to come to the South East of London. Our road system quite definitely doesn't work. Forty minutes to London Bridge? I could run it in that time.
My mood wasn't the best when, within a couple of minutes of leaving, I arrived at the top of the hill to turn left onto the A2. There's a steady stream of traffic here, but you get out eventually. I saw a driver signal left and waited a couple of seconds for evidence that he was slowing down with the intention of turning left (rather than intending to turn left at some unspecified point in the future - a habit of some Sunday drivers). Within a second. I swear, within a second, a white-van-man behind me tooted his car's horn (I'm sure that has a different phraseology in American, but I can't think what it is at the moment. And I'm sure that what I typed was vaguely obsence in American, mainly because most things in American are vaguely obscene or are some reference to homosexuality. In fact, the large number of words which pertain to homosexuality make me rather curious about the American psyche, closets, and the like).
It's at times like this that I feel like getting out of the car and explaining, in words of one syllable, to the probably fat donkey behind wheel of said white van, why I hadn't zoomed straight out into the road as soon as I noticed that the car was signalling an intention to turn left. However, I have received advice to take a scratchbook and to just draw pictures of said offenders, and then to scrawl obscenities beneath said pictures.
After crawling all the way to New Cross, you have the farce of the Old Kent Road. Theoretically, this is a "Red Route", with no stopping. Except that the local shopkeepers objected, so the masters of compromise allowed parts of the red route to be parked on for short periods. Add to that the ever-stopping buses and you have a major road that is basically a single lane in either direction for much of the route. Laughable.
But, well, I got there and got back in one piece, unlike two cars, which seemed to have had a minor disagreement over which should be in a particular lane (or perhaps the drivers were conducting an obscure experminent in practical physics). Whatever, a raft of police cars were pulled in to bring peace to a situation which, so far as I could see, involved a disagreement between two Africans. New Cross is not yet, as far as I know, in Ghana, but from the goings on in the aftermath of this particular collisaion, you would be forgiven for thinking that it might be.
++++
As if I haven't got enough to fill my time, getting reacquainted with the joys of Photoshop is definitely something I should still clear of. THe problem is, it's so much fun playing with all the things that Photoshop does.
Right, I need a nap.
