With picture laden travelogues and Crawley Town match reports being a main focus there hasn’t been any random blogging recently. Not to worry, random blogging is back
I’ll start with sprinklers, or any random way of soaking people. I had been dreaming of this kind of thing before the sprinklers at Crawley Town came to life at some point in the second half of a recent game. It was originally about the noisy youths who sit drinking, shouting, and generally being noisy twats late at night / early in the morning in the park at the back of the house. I was thinking what a great deterrent a remote-controlled sprinkler system would be. If they suddenly got soaked every time they got a bit rowdy, then perhaps they’d fuck off somewhere else. Then there is the water feature in Queens’ Square in town. It doesn’t seem to be on very often, and I always see people walking across the area where the little jets are. Imagine being in one the building surrounding the square and having a little button you could press as people are walking across the square, and suddenly they are surrounded by water jets. There is a reason they don’t let have these things.
Writing group is back, and this means a Maccy D’s breakfast is back as part of the routine. And that means a few minutes watching people. On the way in last weekend I saw a bloke wearing a uniform and hi-vis gilet over the top. On the back of it were the words “Civil Enforcement Officer”. Which of course brings me to ask the question, are there rude enforcement officers? Because I’m fairly sure that kind of job would be right up my street. “Excuse me sir, could you move your car please?” “Why?” “Because you’ve parked like a cunt.”
Next up was I saw a little boy bend down and pick up what looked to be a stick from something like a Chupa Chups lolly. I did think he was going to put it in the bin. But no, he decided his mouth was a much better place for it. His mum didn’t, she yanked it out of his mouth with the kind of hand speed that boxers would die for. And then the berating started. Which is fair enough, but the funny thing to me was the fact that the dad had a look around to see if anyone was watching before sidling off with the little girl of the family, so they were out of the beratement zone.
The stream of delivery drivers collecting orders is never ending. One of them did catch my eye as he left with an order. He had a Deliveroo jacket on but was carrying a Just Eat heat bag. I couldn’t see where he was parked, but it wouldn’t have surprised me to see him jump into his Uber car.
The drive to and from work continues to be a source of much “what the fuckness”? I could take any day and fill it with a litany of imbecilic driving, but I’ll pick yesterday as a general example. I hadn’t even gotten out onto a main road before it started. The picture / diagram below will help with what I’m trying to explain. I was stopped at the traffic lights at the bottom of Southgate Drive waiting to turn onto Southgate Avenue to head for the A23 (the red x). On Southgate Avenue waiting at traffic lights were cars who would be turning right onto Southgate Drive (the small yellow arrow). Then a BMW in the straight on lane who had green lights (the big green arrow), slows, puts their indicator on (a shock, I didn’t know they worked on BMWs) and stops to wait for anything heading north to pass. I thought they were just being impatient and were skipping the queue in the filter lane to turn into Southgate Drive. But no, why do that when they can instead do a U-turn.
On the way home I had a much more up close and personal insight into piss poor BMW driving. Just after Hickstead the A23 changes from two to three lanes, and there is a feeder lane onto the A23 which forms the third (and new inside) lane. So, as I’m coming to the merge point doing my usual sixty, a BMW comes up the feeder lane, and despite the lane in front of them being clear they automatically come across into my lane, totally ignoring the fact I’m already there. Beeping has no effect and I have to slam the brakes on to avoid being pushed across into the ten-ton truck in the outer lane, and the poor sod behind me nearly crashes into the back of me. Meanwhile the BMW is flashing their hazards as if they are saying thanks for letting them in. It’s probably a good job I don’t have some kind of James Bond-esque machine guns built into my headlights.
Beware! Moron Wagon.