bigbluemeanie

Navigation

Home | Links |

About This Site

About | Bluemeanie | Scarlett
A personal weblog with photographs and comments. Quiet ramblings, quite rambling...

• I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

Members

Login | Register | Why?

Most recent entries

• Artificially green
• Watching the traffic
• London Mayor
• Wet and muddy
• Looking Greenwich up and down
• On my bike
• Making Hay
• The previous cycle route
• Back to Woldingham Viewpoint
• The nasty way to travel
• Heaven and hell
• Berlin cycle lanes
• Kurbelstange (deformiert)
• Ebbsfleet International Railway Platform
• Police incident in Tandridge

Recent entries with comments

• London Mayor - (1)
  
• Looking Greenwich up and down - (2)
  
• Police incident in Tandridge - (2)
  
• British War Criminals - (2)
  
• Checkpoint Charlie - (3)
  
• Oxted from the “Woldingham Viewpoint” - (5)
  
• A figure of defiance - (1)
  
• What really happened in Croydon? - (3)
  
• Bike hire in Berlin - (1)
  
• Brandenberg Gate - (1)
  
• Three Way Chess - (1)
  
• Gamelan instruments - (2)
  
• Oh no! John! - (2)
  
• “Bells and Smells” Mass - (1)
  
• Turn cash into less cash - (6)
  

Feeds

• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• Atom

Categories

• Europe
  • Czech Republic
  • England
  • France
  • Germany
  • Ireland
  • Luxembourg
  • Netherlands
  • Scotland
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Wales
• Asia Pac
  • Australia
  • Indonesia
  • Japan
  • Middle East
• Americas
  • Cuba
• Africa
  • South Africa
  • Swaziland

Monthly Archives

• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004
• February 2004
• January 2004
• December 2003
• November 2003
• October 2003

Links

• Full linklist
• Bluemeanie.org
• Scarlett's weblog
• GeoURL
• Blogflux
• LS Blogs
• Blogwise
• Wikablog
• Technorati
• Blogarama
• Oxted Frappr
• Bloggernity.com
• The Blog Directory
• 
  
• 
• 
• 
• The Green Providers Directory

Lately listening to

Site Statistics

• This website has been viewed 365518 times
• Page rendered in 0.7701 seconds
• 43 queries executed

Site Credits

• Powered by: ExpressionEngine
• Based on a design by:
  BlogMoxie
• 
  The original content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

This photograph is the one that triggered the unpleasant incident with the man with yobbish tendencies. I took it in Nursery Way in Oxted. As a private road it does not appear on all maps (e.g. Streetmap) but it is visible on Google Earth), and I wonder if the friendly parking attendants will be able to enforce the private parking regulations on this road. If there is money to be generated in issuing parking tickets then I am sure that the answer is yes.

As I took this photograph I felt quite sorry for the motorists who had parked there. I had discovered that there was no parking available in the designated spaces in the town centre as they were all full. When the man came and suggested he would kick my teeth in, my compassion faded: I saw the immediate benefits of a zero tolerance approach to crime. Prosecute the bastards for parking on yellow lines, before they move onto more serious crimes, like kicking teeth!

On a more serious note, I was concerned that down this private road is a nursery school. If there was any urgent incident the car of the man with yobbish tendencies would potentially be blocking access by the emergencies services: fire department, ambulance, etc.

This photograph shows 3 delivery vehicles and 2 cars parking contrary to parking regulations in Station Road East.  Shortly after I took the photograph a third car pulled into the space behind the white truck to make it 3-3.  When I took the photographs I had been hoping to see (and speak with) the local parking attendants at work. However they were only due to start the following day (28 September 2006).  Perhaps scenes like this are already a thing of the past.

It’s a wacky suggestion - but another way to alleviate the problem might be to provide more loading bays and parking spaces. If they ever get around to dismantling the unused gas cylinder, that might provide space for a few cars, or a multi-story garage.  Another suggestion would be to pedestrianise the high street, plant trees down the centre, and a cycle lane down one side.  I’m not sure what the traffic impact would be on the surrounding (residential) streets though, especially as it would probably mean reducing the total amount of parking available. Some space could be reserved for short-stay parking, taxis and loading bays. 

This is the delivery van blocking half of the high street (Station Road East) in Oxted a day before local parking attendants arrive on the scene to enforce parking regulations. It seems as if the new local supermarket has a loading area round the back, but many of the existing shops rely on the ability of their suppliers to flout the parking regulations.

Meanwhile I remain to be convinced that the presence of “friendly attendants” will solve the underlying problem of parking - a shortage of space for customers and businesses.

Not only is there a shortage of parking in Oxted, there is a shortage of loading zones too. Here we see a delivery to the shop Cook obstructing traffic for over half an hour as the delivery van parks on a yellow line, within a few metres of an intersection, and facing on-coming traffic.

This photo was taken at about 11am on the day before local parking enforcement was due to come into effect. I would like to go back sometime and ask the friendly parking attendants where a delivery van is supposed to park if there is no loading zone, and where a shopper is supposed to park when the parking areas are all full?  Perhaps the answer to the second part of the question lies in enforcing parking time limits - those things that stipulate you can only park for one hour, and may not return within one hour between 8:30 am and 6:30 pm from Monday through Saturday.

After my little rant the other day I decided to investigate the parking problem in Oxted, as I mentioned yesterday.  First up, above, is the to-be site of the new Sainsbury’s Local in Oxted. It was sweet of our local counciller to welcome them back with these words:

My wife and I have been living in the area for years so we can remember the first Sainsbury’s.

I imagine this one will be welcomed as it is a small store and I would have thought that would be very convenient for older people living on Beatrice Road. So it will be good for them, and good for the retail trade in Oxted.

I doubt a shop that size can survive just off the custom of Beatrice Road, so clients from further afield will need somewhere to park.  On the (weekday) morning that I did this investigation the public parking areas in Alice and Johnsdale Roads were full, as were all the marked bays up and down Station Road East (the high street).  My photo even shows a car parked illegally in the bus stop.

Earlier this week this man swore at me (the f word) and threatened to kick me in the teeth. He later denied it. His daughter then arrived, and also denied it. He threatened to call the police to report me for taking photographs (in which he and his wife appeared) in a public place. He accussed me of taking a photograph of his (grown) daughter (which wasn’t true) and suggested I might be a paedophile, adding that there was a nursery school around the corner (!). He said I must be a stranger, not from around these parts, which is an ironic accusation from a man who is is part of a multi-ethnic family. He asked me to hand over the film in my camera and seemed surprised when I told him there was no film in the camera (welcome to the digital age - ask your daughter to explain).  For about 15 minutes a very polite bystander tried to explain the law of taking photographs in public places to this aggressive individual.  It didn’t sink in - clearly the man with yobbish tendencies (and his family) believed that they enjoyed the rights of privacy that celebrities expect when on private property. The polite bystander left, after suggesting to me that I wasn’t doing my own case any good. Other bystanders suggested to me that the problem might go away if I left.  I did leave, after taking a close up photograph of the man’s car.



So how did I not do my own cause any good? I didn’t shout back at this individual, accuse him of any crime, or threaten him with violence. I simply refused to give him any explanation for what I was doing.  He had come at me shouting and threatening me, and I therefore felt I didn’t owe him any explanation whatsoever. In fact I had popped out to pick up a prescription from the chemist and was taking some photographs of the parking situation in Oxted town centre. (See upcoming post/posts). I wonder if the fact that this man was parked illegally, and partially blocking access to the childcare nursery (e.g. for emergency services), had anything to do with his unpleasant and aggresive behaviour?

Rumour has it that when they built the play area in Master Park in Oxted, they neglected to take into account the needs of disabled people. The local council is now rectifying this by building an obstacle course for people in wheelchairs at the Oxted Health Centre, next to the public library.

The saga with my webhost continues ... this site was completely down for about 20 hours yesterday. I have also had a couple of problems since upgrading the software that runs the blog. I have mostly sorted these out.

I spotted the unusual vehicle pictured above on the hard shoulder of the M25 last week. It is apparently not an ice-cream van, but is used to survey the road surface for maintenance projects. 

I can’t find anything in the papers about the recent incident. However last week’s local rags brought some other news. The Surrey Mirror offered us our

new “friendly” parking wardens.

So it seems I spoke too soon when I said I preferred the current situation to one where traffic wardens are used as revenue generators. It seems the Surrey Mirror is not yet au fait with this internet malarkey, because the story is not (yet) up on their website. The Sevenoaks Chronicle is more 21st Century because it covers both the parking story and the police station closure.  Maybe it’s me, but I
detect a whiff of Pravda in both The Chronicle and The Mirror. These are two controversial issues, yet neither paper presents any controversy. I wonder if it is because neither of these papers like to say anything that might offend their advertisers.

If we start with the parking, am I the only cynic who thinks that this is a rather strange way to deal with a parking shortage? Instead of providing better accessibility, the council employs two attendants who will generate revenue penalise offenders rather than solve the underlying problem. Furthermore, in my experience the worst and most persistent offenders are local businesses.  And this gumpf about
the parking attendants being “friendly” and “giving advice and directions to the public”? What do they take us for? This is blatant spin: Are we suddenly to believe that there is a need for this kind of service when everyone has coped just fine up till now? I don’t have a strong desire to defend the motor vehicle, or inconsiderate drivers. By all means pedestrianise the town centre, ban cars from within half a mile of the centre, and convert half our roads into bicycle and skating lanes. However these are issues to be argued, and debated, not reported as bland council press releases.

On the second issue, of the closure of the police station, the same sort of argument applies. The Chronicle article quotes East Surrey divisional commander Guy Darby as saying that all of the officers who currently serve Oxted will remain based there, and that a front counter with the same opening hours will ensure that they are just as, if not more, accessible.  The unspoken assumption is that (despite cut-backs over the years) Oxted is currently well served. Or perhaps a cynic might say that the cut-backs have already taken place and the station closing reflects that these changes have taken place over the past years? There may be no point keeping a police station if you have all but shut it down several years ago, but now you are considering selling off the building shouldn’t you be reviewing the decision rather than restating it as fact?  I have no answer, but it seems that our local journalists don’t either.

Note: Still having problems with my web host, and am unable to submit posts the normal way. This is getting ridiculous, and I’ve started looking for alternative providers.

I’m currently having problems posting to my blog. Apparently it is something to do with “over-zealous” mod security having being applied by my host. I am trying to solve the problem with them. I’m not sure how hard they are trying to resolve the problems from their end.  Normal service should be resumed in due course (even if I have to move to a different host).

If you can see this then my moblog settings are still working…

The photo above is of Boris Johnson‘s identical twin brother, who drives a bus in Hillingdon, London. Unfortunately I couldn’t manage to take a decent photo, so you will have to take my word for it.

I spotted this car recently sporting a sticker that contains both a Brazilian and Union flag, with the words No justice for British citizen in Brazil. In one of those strange examples of the way the brain works, I assumed for a few seconds that it must concern the case of the young Brazilian electrician who was executed by London police last year in an anti-terror investigation gone wrong. Some of the police blunders were only revealed due to the actions of a whistleblower in the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The most recent twist in this case is that the police officer in charge on that day has been promoted.

As the traffic stopped (and I reached for my mobile phone to take the above photograph) I noticed the smaller writing at the bottom of the sticker: freecraigalden.com. At that moment by brain processed the information on the sticker and I realised the obvious: the case concerns an alleged injustice done to a British citizen in Brazil. 

There was another police incident in Oxted. On Friday and Saturday a police officer stood guard outside this sealed crime scene in the Haywain. (Or more correctly sat guard in a car, reading cheap celebrity magazines).  As a reader of books, I fear the worst, however neither the police man (guarding on Friday evening) nor the police woman (guarding on Saturday morning) would give me any information about the incident. They both suggested that “it wouldn’t be fair” to do so. The latter suggested that I would be able to read all the details in the newspaper in the coming days, which made me wonder whether it would “be fair” for the police to give all the details of the crime to the newspapers.

Congestion on the M25 again yesterday evening caused long delays, and forced me to take an alternative route. I am thinking of getting a sattelite navigation system to assist me in plotting these cross-country journeys. The system would need to be linked to the Traffic Management System (available in UK, France, Germany) which would warn of upcoming congestion and road works and propose alternative routes. However I suspect that these systems are great when you are the only car on the road with one: what will happen when everyone is redirected onto the alternative route? 

I arrived at my client’s site this morning to find this man wielding a hot air blower.  I have noticed these units in operation before. Who could forget seeing Haguenau council workers both removing and replacing leaves on a road at the same time? It was the first time that I have seen someone using this tool to remove puddles from a road.

A week after the accident near Burgh Heath I took the same route to avoid another nasty accident on the M25.  I couldn’t resist taking the above photograph for comparison. As with last week’s photo, click on the photograph for a wider view.