HomeOn the road
A summer ghost story
This post is subtitled A summer ghost story, but it’s not a story, in that it’s true, it’s something that happened to me a few days ago.
Symbolic Forest
A homage to loading screens.
Blog : Posts tagged with ‘driving’
Ambulance
It feels like there’s an awful lot of year ahead; January moves very slowly.
Talking of time travellers…
In which we analyse a police suggestion
Ah, snow. You can’t beat it for sending people a bit mad and panicked. Yesterday the roads were gridlocked for half an hour at lunch time, because of the number of people who rushed home at the fall of the first flake. Last night, the news was full of dire warnings. Don’t travel if you don’t have to. Stock up your car. Make sure you take a shovel, blankets, a flask of tea, a flask of soup, sandwiches, cakes, a propane stove, three woolly jumpers and the complete works of Proust, because you never know when you might get stuck. Make sure you have a propane stove and not a butane one because, as all hardy campers know, the boiling point of butane at standard pressure is only around freezing, so in cold weather butane stoves get sluggish, give up and go to sleep.
Too Much Information
In which something in the neighbourhood has changed
Not long after we moved here, we started to notice one particular car that was often parked in the neighbourhood. We noticed it because it had distinctive stickers in the back window. On the nearside, “Born-again Pagan!”. On the offside: “Bondage. It’s knot for everyone!” We’ve seen it again many many times since then, and speculated as to who would own a car with stickers like that; but we’ve never seen it moving. An aging hippyish type? A purple-haired couple? All sorts of stereotypes floated up into our heads.
Overheard
In which we spot something to tempt a thief
Or, rather, overseen.
Return Of The Guided Bus
In which I discuss the likely and hoped-for death of the Bristol guided busway plans
Regular readers – local regular readers, if there are any – might have noticed that it’s a while now since I’ve mentioned “Bus Rapid Transit”, the West Of England Partnership’s unloved and highly expensive scheme for a South Bristol guided busway to replace the current park-and-ride route. Because, you know, the way to improve bus services in Bristol is to replace the bus routes that are, erm, already the best bus routes in the city, with slightly different buses* on their own private roads. If you’ve not heard about this: you might want to read this, this, and this, in which – with a few misconceptions which got sorted out along the way – I demonstrate that it will be rather tricky to build the thing.**
Speed
In which we drive sensibly
People round here often say: ooh, I don’t like going down to London. I’d hate to drive down there. It’s terrible. It’s so bad to drive around London. All the drivers round there are such bad drivers.
Road safety
In which the area is notorious for something
You often see stuff about road safety on the telly. Less often, things about specific roads. And it’s very rare for this area – the Forest, if you like to think of the Symbolic Forest as a physical place – to get on the telly at all. So when I heard that there was an hour of Channel Four last night solely devoted to road safety in this area, I had to watch it. Even more specific than that: it was purely about one road, the one from here down to Somerset.
Skill
In which we think we know how to drive
I seem to be becoming a worse driver.
This title will make sense with tomorrow’s post
In which summer breaks through the fog
When I write posts on here, I normally write the title first, then ramble on about it.
Friday again
In which my cynicism is exposed for the cynical, hollow sham it is
Well, good morning. It’s the end of the week, and I’m glad. One more day to get through, though.
I’ve no eye, dear
In which we keep well out of the way
News story of the week: a chap has been arrested in the West Midlands for driving whilst blind.* It wasn’t just that his sight was a bit fuzzy – to quote the police officer who stopped him:
Friday again
In which Big Dave breaks the law
I’ve been thinking about having a new feature on the site: Readers’ Letters. I get you to write in with questions that aren’t suitable for a normal comment-box entry, and I answer them. I was thinking of doing it today, in fact, but I couldn’t be bothered to make all the questions up as well as the answers. So, if you have anything you want to ask, email my usual address: feedback at symbolicforest.com
Statistical
In which we get lost
I took a snap decision in the middle of last week, to take a couple of days off and visit some friends Down South, in a little suburb just inside the M25.* I’m lucky, really: I might whinge about my job constantly, but there are some good things to it, and one of them is that there aren’t any anal restrictions on giving notice when you want a holiday. My boss is completely fine with either me or Big Dave walking into his office on, say, a Tuesday, to say: “can I have a couple of days off at the end of the week?” and as long as the other one of us isn’t already planning to be away, he’ll just nod and grunt in assent.
Pressurised
Or, when I am quicker than the Internet
On top of the timezone confusion, work is getting a little pressured this week. I’ve been driving about between branches carrying equipment backwards and forwards, because if you’ve got a large amount of data in the wrong place, the quickest way to sort things out is still to put your computer in the boot of your car and drive it down to Another Part Of The Forest’s branch office. Squeezing it down an internet pipeline takes all day; driving to the other side of the county only takes an hour.*
Explorer
In which we make an intrepid trip to the office
Driving in snow isn’t something I’ve ever done before, as far as I can remember. Today, I had to shovel a couple of inches off the windscreen before slowly trundling off towards the office.
Panic Buy
In which I have trouble finding petrol
The car went in to the garage this morning, following the crash a couple of weeks back. The car I was loaned, of course, didn’t have any petrol in. Hardly any at all. The warning light was very definitely on, and the needle was barely lifting off its stop.
Crash
In which I am driven into
It’s Friday lunchtime. I’ve popped into town just to get out of the office for an hour, and now it’s time to head back to work. Into the car, and I’m gently drifting through the car park towards the exit with an Add N To X album playing loudly on the stereo, when…
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