Whacky Signs.

[PatB]

13 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

There's a lot to be said for sending busloads of kids for an automated wash.

I am reminded of another Perth incident, when a kids' water playground (basically, lawn sprinklers with ideas above their station) was opened as part of a fancy waterside development in the city centre. Because it was the usual Perth half-arsed, cheapo bodge job, badly designed and constructed, and signed off in a hurry to meet the Minister's packed ribbon cutting schedule, it had numerous problems. Chief amongst these was that, after a week or two, the water was found to be harbouring assorted nasty microbes that thrive in a hot climate in damp conditions. Rather than admit they'd botched the whole thing, there were serious proposals from the powers that be that children entering the play area should be forced through a bleach shower so they wouldn't contaminated the water.

I'm pretty sure the whole thing was quietly torn up after only a few months, and is never to be spoken of again.

[kevinlms]

9 hours ago, PatB said:

I am reminded of another Perth incident, when a kids' water playground (basically, lawn sprinklers with ideas above their station) was opened as part of a fancy waterside development in the city centre. Because it was the usual Perth half-arsed, cheapo bodge job, badly designed and constructed, and signed off in a hurry to meet the Minister's packed ribbon cutting schedule, it had numerous problems. Chief amongst these was that, after a week or two, the water was found to be harbouring assorted nasty microbes that thrive in a hot climate in damp conditions. Rather than admit they'd botched the whole thing, there were serious proposals from the powers that be that children entering the play area should be forced through a bleach shower so they wouldn't contaminated the water.

I'm pretty sure the whole thing was quietly torn up after only a few months, and is never to be spoken of again.

Sounds as successful as the Melbourne Star! Except that it hasn't been dismantled yet, due to the cost.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Star

Edited April 24 by kevinlms
Typo

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Sounds as successful as the Melbourne Star! Except that it hasn't been dismantled yet, due to the cose.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Star

Manchester had its big, spikey piece of "art." Unfortunately the spikes started falling off...

[B1uejay]

Staying firmly OT but water-related, I remember this in Bristol a while back: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/pranksters-create-foaming-fountain-after-3346513

 

The fountains have long gone... 😄

[steve1]

6 hours ago, B1uejay said:

Staying firmly OT but water-related, I remember this in Bristol a while back: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/pranksters-create-foaming-fountain-after-3346513

 

The fountains have long gone... 😄

 

Used to happen in Slough when there was a fountain in part of the High Street.

 

I dare say it’s happened everywhere with a public fountain at some time or another.

 

steve

[J. S. Bach]

I know very well about one in Baltimore, MD many years ago. TIDE brand soap packets  were .........................................

[The Johnster]

The fountain outside City Hall, Cardiff, between the clubs and where the students lived, was a frequent victim.  Back in the 70s when it was still fairly new, I had a flat in the middle of student territory, in Colum Road, and was walking home from Canton shed at about 03.00 one balmy summer night in 1976, passing through the subway under Boulevard de Nantes that comes up next to the fountains, which were switched off for the night by a timer mechanism.   
 

It was a pleasant warm night, great to have some respite from the relentless heat of the day, and I was enjoying the walk, more a stroll. As I passed through the subway, I noticed a small inspection hatch door, about 5 feet up on the right hand side and open.  I’d never noticed it before, and, being the sort of cove that takes in interest in things if I’ve never noticed them before, I stopped to see what amazing piece of secret subway technology was in there that had to be concealed from the great unwashed by a door. 
 

It was a brass tap, well weathered and a bit battered.  ‘What’, I wondered to myself, ‘would happen if I turned it on?’.  I turned it on, and to my mild disappointment, water came out of it; I was expecting some sort of magical brew or something, water seemed most mundane, why would anyone hide that behind a door.  ‘I suppose I’d better turn it off then’, I continued my internal discourse; as I say it was a warm night and getting a bit splashed held no terrors for a ruffytuffy Canton goods guard!  
 

It was at this point that my control over events slipped a little; the tap was jammed open and could not be turned off.  A puddle of water was spreading because this was 1976, it hadn’t rained for months, and the subway drain was blocked with dust and rubbish, so I decided that the best thing to do was to leave it in case I made matters worse; if it was hidden behind a door, clearly it was not the business of the likes of me, unqualified to deal with it as I was. So that’s what I did, went home, had a shower, and went to bed to sleep the off-duty sleep of the just and the guiltless…

 

Later in the day, refreshed and content, I had occasion to go back into town by the reciprocal of the same route.  As I passed in front of the City Hall I noticed that the fountains were empty, and a group of council workmen were clearing up the last of the flood that had closed the subway during the morning rush hour.  ‘Woz ‘appened yer, then?’, I asked one of them, with my best completely innocent face on.  ‘Firkin’ stoodents innit, emptied the firkin’ fountains, dinnthey, ‘stards thinks it’s funny, firkin’ useless the lot of ‘em’, was the reply, prefacing a general rant about kids deze daze and how a spell of National Service would do ‘em all a bit of good, teach ‘em some respect &c &c (and how to blow things up), which all seemed reasonable enough.

I still think of this every time I pass the spot, and smile inwardly…

 

 

Edited April 24 by The Johnster

[2750Papyrus]

You are truly a wicked man!

[The Johnster]

Mwa ha ha ha ha…

[Hroth]

As the saying goes, "Never blame a student when there's a BR employee about...".

 

Though you wouldn't want to be branded as a knob twiddler* either!

 

* Or the Phantom KT to boot...

 

Edited April 25 by Hroth

[30801]

[J. S. Bach]

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 ...snip... It was a brass tap, well weathered and a bit battered.  ‘What’, I wondered to myself, ‘would happen if I turned it on?’.  I turned it on, and to my mild disappointment, water came out of it; I was expecting some sort of magical brew or something, water seemed most mundane, why would anyone hide that behind a door.  ‘I suppose I’d better turn it off then’, I continued my internal discourse; as I say it was a warm night and getting a bit splashed held no terrors for a ruffytuffy Canton goods guard!  
 

It was at this point that my control over events slipped a little; the tap was jammed open and could not be turned off.  ...snip...

Just what did you open it with?

[Sidecar Racer]

 

The handle , same as everyone does .

 

 

[The Johnster]

Exactly, and water came out of it.  Then I couldn’t turn it off.  I didn’t open it fully, just enough to see what it did, but it came on with some force and stuck.  The real problem of course wasn’t that the tap was stuck, it was that the drain was blocked; ‘76 was a full-on drought and there had been no rain for months and very little over the winter, so the drain was solid with fag butts, crisp packets, general carp, and a lot of dust.

 

Apart from flooding the subway, of course leaving a tap running contravened all sorts of emergency regulations because of the drought. 
 

There were rolling water cuts but in Colum Road they’d surfaced over the stop tap and couldn’t find it, so I had a continual water supply throughout the drought.  That meant a summer of girls wrapped in towels and nothing else borrowing my shower; it was hell, but I coped, somehow….

[30801]

Sod off buses!

 

[The Johnster]

Yeah, sod off buses, with your lcd destination panels and poor timekeeping, and your uncomfortable seats with no leg room, and your spine-jarring (lack of) suspension, and your screaming children, and your bad-tempered drivers, and your passengers that stand by the door in my way when there’s seats for them to sit in further back, and your no room for prams.  Nobody likes you, you’re just a reminder that my life is a failure and I can’t afford to run a car or get a taxi, sod off!!! 
 

Actually, don’t, I need to go to town later…

[Steamport Southport]

Yeah, sod off buses, especially those Welsh ones!

 

Seriously. I was on the bus yesterday and all the signage was in Welsh!

 

I don't know what was scarier, the fact it was in Welsh or that I could understand it....

 

BTW this is supposed to be a Wales flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 looks strangely like the England flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🫤

[Hroth]

They're creeping over the border, there were some Welsh trains parked up at Birkenhead North depot the other day!

 

[Steamport Southport]

Just now, Hroth said:

They're creeping over the border, there were some Welsh trains parked up at Birkenhead North depot the other day!

 

 

Funnily enough I noticed them yesterday.

 

I had a Saveaway so went on a flying visit to New Brighton to scout for pubs, then Birkenhead to watch a Sex Pistols tribute band!

 

Still don't like those glorified tram things though.

[Michael Hodgson]

19 minutes ago, Hroth said:

They're creeping over the border, there were some Welsh trains parked up at Birkenhead North depot the other day!

 

It's a mistake.  They were supposed to go to Penbedw.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

They're creeping over the border, there were some Welsh trains parked up at Birkenhead North depot the other day!

 

That's not very far over the border.

They go to Birmingham International from as far as Bangor or Pwllheli

[Mol_PMB]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

That's not very far over the border.

They go to Birmingham International from as far as Bangor or Pwllheli

It's a matter of some embarrassment that the only part of the TfW rail network that comes close to making an operating profit is the bit in England.

[Michael Hodgson]

27 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

It's a matter of some embarrassment that the only part of the TfW rail network that comes close to making an operating profit is the bit in England.

Nah.  The Welsh are proud of making a profit out of the English!

[Hroth]

33 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Nah.  The Welsh are proud of making a profit out of the English!

 

Its always been the way.  You should see the cluster of speed cameras on the A494 after crossing the border...

 

[The Johnster]

TfW is in many ways a political construct, formed in order to obtain funding from the Welsh Assembly Government.  There has never been an effective rail route between the north and the south of Wales, and there is only barely an effective road connection (A470).  Our Trawscambria coach network does not provide a through vehicle, you have to change at Aberystwyth and it is a long way round; back in the 90s this provided one coach per day between Cardiff and Holyhead, which too  nine hours via Swansea, Carmarthen, and Aberystwyth. 

 

The basic problems are the geography, which consists mostly of mountain ranges aligned SW-NE when the traffic flow is SE-NW, and the traffic levels; there are not sufficient people who want to travel between the south and the north of the country to make the provision of a through route entirely to the west of Offa's Dyke viable, in fact not even enough for such a route to even see the sky over viable.  By and large, if you live in the south or southwest, your destination is Swansea or Cardiff and your airport is Cardiff or Bristol, if you live in Powys it is Birmingham and the trains run to Birmingham Internaional, and in the north it is Liverpool and John Lennon airport, or Manchester. 

 

You could argue that Wales only exists as a specific entity becuase of the difficulty of the terrain.  The Diawl Saes hailed from the relatively level country of Northern Germany or Southern Denmark, and failed to overrun this difficult territory because they did not understand mountain warfare or that movement in such terrain depends on being able to access the tops of the mountains, and made the mistake of advancing up the valleys where our archers could pick them off at will.  The Normans made the same error, repeatedly; you could invade the country and subdue the opposition, but the costs were huge and you couldn't maintain dominance except from the boltholes of your castles for very long.  And of all the castles, only one, Pembroke, was effective and never fell to the Welsh at one time or another; the rest were ultimately a liability.  Owain Glyndwr set up his Senedd at Machynlleth because he could ride his horse along the mountain ridgeway tracks anywere in the country within 24 hours; the valley routes would have taken days.  This is the root of the English belief that he was a magician, able to be in two places at once, and he did nothing to disabuse them...

 

The road and rail networks, A40/M4 & SWML, A44 & Cambrian, and A55 & North Wales coast line, reflect this and cater to long established and engrained traffic patterns.  Nobody from Bangor would consider shopping in Cardff, they would go to Liverpool, obviously, it's closer, quicker, and costs less.  Most of the few that have to drive between Cardiff and Bangor do so by M4/A449/A40/M50/M5/M6/A55, which is about 100 miles off course for a journey that a crow could fly in less than 200.  The rail services inevitably mean a presence of bilingual branding and signage and information well east of Offa's Dyke, as far as Birmingham International or even Norwich, and occasionally Bristol or Manchester. 

 

As an indication of the difficulties even at the height of railway expansion, there was, in the Edwardian era, a daily through coach between Cardiff and Aberystwyth.  Its route was a validation of the Trawscambria tradition that much of the journey takes place at a heading 90 degress away from a direct route; Cardiff Bute Road/Treherbert/Neath (via R&SB)/Carmarthen/Aberystwyth. quite an adventure, and it was just as quick via Shrewsbury!