Every two weeks I spend a terrifying ten minutes standing on the edge of the school’s property watching what seems like the entire world pass by in symphony. There are around 1400 pupils who pretty much leave the site all at once. Through the narrow gates of what I have labelled the school castle.
Lorenz
At the same time there are buses, school buses and many cars trying to use all the roads entering the centre of the picture. It is horrifying watching cars in a hurry and kids who don’t look and buses fully laden navigate this chaotic corner.
My current working theory as to why there are not many accidents here is down to the nature of the corner. The exact fact that it is quite chaotic causes people to slow down and be more aware. I do think that if there was a zebra crossing or similar put here there would be more accidents. The exact nature of busy unpredictable systems is that people slow down and look more.
Ask yourself this. When driving on a motorway do you fully concentrate at all times? When driving near your home do you fully concentrate at all times? Of course you don’t. It’s human nature to diminish tasks when they seem routine. Do you turn the stereo down when getting close to an unknown destination? Of course you do. It’s all about applying brain power from one activity to another. I know that I almost lose the ability to talk when driving near junctions or when I need more observation power. It’s almost as if multi-tasking didn’t exist!
I’ve been known to investigate the northern and tidal reaches of the Medway, read here. Today I wandered the area near Teston bridge. For a small country park it was well organised and had loos. The paths were clear and the highland cattle were well behaved. It’s a lovely little area.
The photo shows the area that isn’t the park. The open access area is where I am standing. over the Medway is other stuff.
Teston Country Park
The lock is pretty impressive and looks quite new, for a lock. There was a boat navigating its way downstream as I was there. The genius of man never fails to impress me.
This is the weir next to the lock.
Teston Weir
I am slightly worried that these communications are becoming much like a travel blog but without the glamorous locations. My suspicion is that there are too many photos and not enough on here of an analytical nature. I will change that over time. I guess there are many pretty things that are worth sharing here. Whenever I am ranting it’s never a pretty topic or particularly clean language.
This communication considers one of my favourite pieces of fiction, religion. This is a place-holding communication as I struggle to write three other communications of a more serious note. I know what I want to say in those words but words are the problem. You might have noticed I am not a natural wordsmith.
MOAB
Nothing reported about the Pope criticising the death of many people or the use of weapons of mass destruction. The Massive Ordnance Air Bomb’s NAME shamed the pope. Perhaps the next bomb could be called “Get to heaven quicker”. Fuck you pope.
“I was ashamed when I heard the name,” the pontiff told an audience of students at the Vatican.
Nothing in the news about the thousands of priests accused of raping kids which the Vatican is actively covering up. Nothing about the misery and enforced poverty caused by a no-contraception rule. Nothing about the AIDS genocide caused by the no-contraception rule. Nothing about the deaths of babies at convents in Ireland. This man is meant to represent god on Earth. He represents an organisation of men who act just like men do when they are in charge – cunts.
Words
God needs the police to investigate this because he gets really upset when people are mean about him. Oh, poor little god. He hates it when people express true things. I watched this speech a few years ago and I think what shocked people the most is how angry someone can be at a god who allows all the shit mentioned earlier to carry on. Why are people still going to catholic church? Why do they still give money when they can see the harm it does? Selfish wankers, that’s why.
Driving home from a reasonably unsuccessful shopping session yesterday I saw smoke. While the shopping did not result in me buying anything I did gather information on what particular design of product I would like so more successful than unsuccessful but not a success. I chose to take the “country” route home which means coming off the motorway a junction early and using the new bridge. This is not a shorter route and nor is it quicker. When I was young we would have called this “one of mum’s shortcuts” which obviously weren’t. But, there is a wonderful corner. It’s a blind, off camber, over the crest corner. If you don’t know it’s there you won’t make it. It feels great to drive it although I would prefer a car with a more positive accelerator feedback system. In the diagram below you can see the bridge under construction [A], the corner [B] and the best direction of travel [C].
The Corner
There have been accidents here. The press have come out to take photos. But there are signs and you should drive sensibly. If you don’t know the road it will probably surprise you. If you know the road and come off then tough shit I guess, I just hope you don’t hurt anyone.
Before we had taken the corner I noticed smoke above the village and I tried to use some parallax measures to work out if it was from houses or the quarry just before the conurbation. It was definitely in the area of the houses. My next thought was I hope it’s not in Belgrave St because they won’t get a fire engine down there. It’s a Victorian street with just enough room for parking on both sides and a car’s worth of gap down the middle. Anything larger than a car won’t fit. I’d hate to live down there, emergency access would constantly bother me. I’d also have way more fire alarms than I currently do.
I think I’m probably a little paranoid about fire and escaping the house. I never lock the locks in windows. I keep keys on hangers by the door and even brief visitors about where these things are kept. I have plenty of fire alarms. Whenever I am in a new building I scan for emergency routes out. I honestly do count the rows to emergency exits on planes, forwards and backwards. I want to know how to get out.
Driving down the straight towards my village and it becomes apparent that the smoke is coming from roughly near my house. Given my predisposition to worry about fire I worried about the fire. I have an in-my-head scenario of driving home one day and seeing my house burning or just gone. As I turned down my street I could see people out wandering around trying to see what was happening and then a fire engine turned in behind me. I could see smoke rising from behind the terrace and realised it was a garden fire. I just hoped it didn’t spread to the houses. I sped up down the street so the fire engine could get in position.
The fire turned out to be a shed and some fencing that was burning furiously. The smoke was drifting past the back of my house. After parking I went in and looked out of the window at the back of the house. I could see firemen fighting the fire. I wandered down the street to look at the fire engine and see if more man-power was needed. A brief chat with the man operating the pump and then back to my house.
This morning there is ash in the garden slowly being washed away by the rain.
The best thing about this is that no-one was hurt.
This was the second fire in the gardens along this street. It was the first I hadn’t helped fight. It was the first during the day time. I’ll maybe write about the very first another time.
