Our friend Simon has recently renamed his blog “Where Everybody’s Crazy”. Working overseas, it is easy to move into “rose tinted”mode and to think of the UK as a hub of sanity and civilisation. This is of course not true. It’s just that UK-brand craziness feels normal to us, because it’s ours and we know how to react to it, whereas here we are learning to deal with a whole new species of nuts. So just to prove the point that no culture has a monopoly on loopyness, today’s story comes from England. Thanks to the Hertfordshire constabulary for (unwittingly) providing it, and to my mother for passing it on….
The road that my parents live on has been closed all week for work to be done on a water main. There is one lane left (mostly) open for access to the business estate, but the road is totally closed at the other end, so all through traffic has been diverted. Hence there is not a lot of traffic, and what traffic there is travels at about four miles a fortnight, and because the diversion signs were initially confusing, quite a number of drivers end up turning around in a side street part-way down, and going back the way they came, further slowing down the already crawling queue.
“So yesterday morning, just before noon, two policemen brought their mobile speed camera vehicle and parked it in its designated spot on the grass in front of our house. Having set it up, they normally leave it unmanned to run for a couple of hours or so – and that’s exactly what they did yesterday. Bless them. Maybe they couldn’t read the signs on the barrier blocking most of the road about five yards away “Closed except for access”.”