Oddities

  • Pointless paving

    One thing living in Bristol for nearly 4 decades has taught me is that Bristol City Council is profligate and lacks competence.

    This was once again brought sharply into focus earlier this morning in a dead-end street called Clifton Street (map) leading to the back entrance of Easton CofE Primary School where I encountered the roadworks shown in the photograph below.

    image of dropped kerbs and textured paving on a dead-end street
    Bristol’s most pointless dropped kerbs?

    The view shows the entrance into the staff car park of the school, the approach to which has just been enhanced by 2 dropped kerbs and textured paving on each of the street’s two footways as part of works to replace the street’s kerbstones.

    There are only going to be two times in the day on weekdays when there is likely to be any traffic at all on Clifton Street – before and after the school day.

    As for the use of textured paving, this is generally installed to assist the visually impaired and I cannot see many visually impaired people using dead-end streets in Easton anyway.

    I wonder how much this municipal largesse by the city’s highways department has cost the public purse.

    If the city council really wanted to spend money on roadworks in Easton, there’s plenty of other stuff that needs attention, as shown in the example below.

    damaged Stapleton Road pedestrian refuge
    Picture courtesy of Hannah Crudgington

    The damaged pedestrian refuge shown above is on Stapleton Road, just a couple of hundred metres away from Clifton Street. Local residents have been attempting to get the council to repair it for over 6 months, after it was damaged by a bus driver with delusions of driving competence. These efforts have so far come to nought.

    In the recent TidyBS5 residents’ rubbish summit (posts passim), it was stated that council officers frequently intone the words “It’s the inner city” as an excuse for lack of action. Clearly this only works one way, i.e. when the lack of action concerns something either highlighted or desired by residents; when the initiative comes from within the council, there’s apparently no object, no matter how pointless what is proposed. I’ve encountered this ‘not invented here’ syndrome before in local authorities.

    It’s normal to see a spate of daft council spending in March each year, just before the municipal financial year runs out. This year it seems that Bristol City Council is providing the residents of Easton with an early Christmas present in the form of dumb expenditure.

  • Turnip Prize shortlist announced

    The Cheddar Valley Gazette has announced the shortlist for this year’s Turnip Prize.

    toy sheep in a cardboard tray labelled ewe-kip
    Ewe-Kip, one of the works on the Turnip Prize shortlist

    This annual award goes to the person who has created something they perceive to be rubbish art.

    The shortlisted works for this year’s award are: Ewe-Kip by Drunken Shepherd; Gogglebox by Abby; Pensive by Leafy; Stick another Shrimp on the Barbie by Aunt Sponge; Ginger Nut by Trees R Green and Breast in Plant by Mike Atkinson.

    The Western Daily Press has a gallery of all the shortlisted entries.

    The presentation of this year’s Turnip Prize will take place at 6.30pm on Monday 1st December at The New Inn, Combe Batch, Wedmore, Somerset.

  • Everyday sexism: Barbie can’t code

    As is well known, the world of IT is a preponderantly male world. For instance, over at Wikipedia, under 20% of users who edit articles are women. Elsewhere, women tend to be thin on the ground at any professional IT gathering.

    However, telling girls and young women that IT is not a field for them is just wrong. It isn’t; I know of many excellent women coders and programmers, ranging from web developers to those who write the code for microprocessors and mobile phone chips (although I shall refrain from identifying them here. Ed.). Indeed, the person regarded as the world’s very first programmer, Ada Lovelace, was – unsurprisingly given her name – a woman (posts passim).

    It’s therefore with a sense of exasperation that I came across the image below this afternoon.

    image showing Barbie calling for Steven and Brian to code up her game idea

    Mattel, makers of Barbie since 1959, should be ashamed of themselves if they are responsible for putting out the message that the world’s most prominent promoter of all things pink needs the help of 2 men to code up her game. It helps reinforce the erroneous stereotype that IT isn’t the done thing for girls or is too hard for them, especially as Barbie is aimed at young, impressionable minds. What’s more, the gender role stereotyping is further reinforced by having Barbie sat in a kitchen… Oh dear!

    Update 21/11/2014: Mattel has since apologised for its crass mistake, according to CNET, to whom Lori Pantel, vice president of global brand marketing for Barbie gave the following statement:

    “The ‘Barbie I Can Be A Computer Engineer’ book was published in 2010. Since that time we have reworked our Barbie books. The portrayal of Barbie in this specific story doesn’t reflect the Brand’s vision for what Barbie stands for. We believe girls should be empowered to understand that anything is possible and believe they live in a world without limits. We apologize that this book didn’t reflect that belief.

  • Man wins boring competition with boring entry

    Selby District Council’s website is not one of your correspondent’s regular online haunts. However, last week’s news section of the site carries a report with exclusive spectacular news: a Mr Steve Wadsworth has won a competition to name the new Selby Leisure Centre, which is due to open in 2015, by naming it, erm, Selby Leisure Centre!

    There was even someone armed with a camera to record this historic event, whose like has probably not been equalled in that part of Yorkshire since the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. πŸ˜‰

    photo of boring winner getting prize

    Hat tip: MJ Lee.

  • The pyromaniacs

    It’s been 10 years since Trinity Community Arts first asked me to help with their then new annual fireworks party, which has taken place ever since. Only once in a decade has the event been badly marred by rain; that was in 2013 when the bonfire had to be lit and the fireworks fired in a steady autumn downpour.

    For the first time in those 10 years, Emma from Trinity had the presence of mind to take a photo of the fireworks crew. Onj – the handsome chap in the red boiler suit – is the fireworks half of the crew. Your correspondent is in charge of the bonfire department.

    Steve Woods and Sparkker Onj on site at Trinity 2nd November 2014
    Picture courtesy of Emma Harvey

    It was a truly great event this year with a good crowd of some 1,250 people, plus food and fantastic music (you forgot to mention the spectacular fireworks! Ed.). The event also raised £1,100 for Trinity, which will go towards buying new drapes for the main hall. Your ‘umble scribe finally got home feeling very tired but happy at 11.30 pm after extinguishing the remains of the bonfire.

  • The British pub – undergoing gastration?

    I’m a great lover of no-frills, working-class pubs. They’re what I grew up with and frequented when I first started drinking. Indeed I still give them my custom and can often be found at the Little Russell in Barton Hill, Bristol (posts passim).

    One worrying development in recent years is the rise of the ‘gastropub‘.

    Eagle_Gastropub_Clerkenwell_2005
    The Eagle, Clerkenwell, London, reputed to be the first victim of gastration. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
    The term gastropub is a portmanteau of gastronomy and pub, and originated in the United Kingdom in the late 20th century. The establishment itself is defined as ‘a bar and restaurant that serves high-end beer and food‘.

    My Bristol Wireless colleague Rich has devised the verb ‘to gastrate‘ to describe the phenomenon of converting boozers to gastropubs. I would define the verb as follows:

    gastrate (v.) – to ruin a perfectly good pub by converting it to sell small, overpriced portions of food.

    See also: gastration (n).

    The process of gastration is also being actively encouraged by the media, as shown in a piece last week on the Bristol Post website.

    Will traditional drinkers soon be struggling to find traditional boozers if this trend continues?

  • Exclusive: Bristol Mayor loses trousers in Easton

    Yesterday, returning from Trinity Community Arts, I came across an unusual sight in Bannerman Road, Easton.

    a pair of red trousers abandoned on the footway

    Who could have left them there?

    Someone who’s not heard of the local TidyBS5 campaign, to be sure.

    The obvious candidate is Bristol’s elected Mayor, George Ferguson, a man not unknown for his penchant for red leg coverings (posts passim).

    What could George have been doing in Easton to have fled minus his trousers? Answers in the comments below.

    Of course, as a politician George sometimes risks more than the loss of his trousers; he’s wagering the shirt off his back on 2 potentially huge white elephant projects in Bristol both being funded by municipal borrowing – the Bristol Arena and Metrobus/BRT, whose costs keep escalating out of control.

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