Why Was This Idiot Allowed To Drive?
When I had my stroke, I was not allowed to drive until I’d proved I was safe. As my eyesight never returned to 20/20, I decided that it was probably best to give up trying to drive again. I suspect now, that I might be able to drive without any problems, but I couldn’t live with perhaps knocking someone over, even if it was impossible for it to have been my fault.
On the other hand, the idiot driver of the van shown in this report from the BBC, was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, who went on to kill a young mother and injure thirteen others. In other words he was a worse killer than the two who are accused of murdering Lee Rigby.
What doctor allowed him to drive after the diagnosis? He should be struck off at the least.
Is There A Cardigan Gene?
My father liked to wear cardigans and so does my son. So is this in our genes?
I obviously don’t have that particular gene, as I’ve never worn a cardigan.
On the other hand, C had lots of them!
Legible London
Legible London is described like this on their web site.
Legible London is a pedestrian wayfinding system that’s helping people walk around the Capital.
It does mean that information posts like these are turning up everywhere.
I’ve noticed these signs for some time, but it is only now, they’ve started to appear near me.
When the whole of London is covered, who will need a map on a mobile phone?
Drivers Are Being Persecuted
That’ll be the call that goes up after the government crackdown on bad driving. It’s reported here on the BBC.
Obviously, as a pedestrian, it doesn’t affect me.
But bad driving does!
I regularly cross the road at the junction of the Balls Pond Road and Southgate Road. several times, whilst crossing on the green pedestrian light, I have nearly been run over by someone turning right illegally out of Mildmay Park. Only buses are allowed to do this, but do it only rarely.
I also get very annoyed with drivers, who disobey Rule 170 of the Highway Code. This is the relevant advice to drivers.
Watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way.
Many don’t. Especially on one junction near me, where drivers think they are clever to take it as if they are entering the pits at Silverstone. Luckily, I now know the driving habits at that junction and check carefully, but quite a few drivers, don’t have the courtesy to use their indicators, so I have to wait to see their intentions.
So let’s persecute bad drivers and use the fines to improve driver education, public transport and walking routes.
Advice For Expectant Mothers
There is a widely trailed story today about what expectant mothers should avoid. It’s here on the BBC. This is the main advice.
- Use fresh organic food rather than processed
- Avoid food and drink in cans and plastic containers
- Minimise use of moisturisers, cosmetics, shower gel and fragrances
- Avoid buying new furniture, fabrics, non-stick frying pans and cars when pregnant or nursing
When C was pregnant with our first child, she was a student in her last year at Liverpool University. She actually did her exams at nearly seven months pregnant. She got a II-2, so she couldn’t have done badly.
She didn’t purposedly avoid any chemicals, but as the nice flat we lived in didn’t have a shower, she did at least avoid shower gel, which is on the list of products to avoid. As to the last point, we couldn’t afford new furniture or cars. our frying pan had been borrowed from her mother and was a well-used steel one, complete with a bit of added rust. Did it put iron into the food?
Neither of us smoked, although throughout her pregnancy, she had to endure the Capstan Full Strength cigarettes of her tutor; Robert Kilroy Silk.
But advice was different in those days. We went to stay with a family in Hingham in Norfolk, where C had been a mother’s help during University holidays. The mother, who incidentally was the daughter of a doctor, asked if she’d like a brandy before going to bed, as it would make the baby sleep better. She declined, but only because she was pretty abstemious with alcohol.
We also moved south just a week or so before the expected birth date and then in London, she didn’t have a hospital. I told that story in a post called Waiting for Apollo 11. Theses are the links to Part 2 and Part 3 of the story. We didn’t do boring, even in 1969.
We all survived and the only question, that sometimes comes to mind, is was the cancer that killed her caused by all of those smoky tutorials forty years before she died?
I do know that if she was here today, she’d be laughing like a drain!
The Anonymous Widower 