Stuff and Things.

[HigashiJun]

@rubber_jonnie @mrbombermillzy

Guys, you really have to deal with winners...

I can't imagine such a service here.

A lot of things are badly going wrong in Europe.

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie @mrbombermillzy

Guys, you really have to deal with winners...

I can't imagine such a service here.

A lot of things are badly going wrong in Europe.

It's not just the post.

When I go to the office, I have to travel into Canary Wharf. To do this I park at my father in laws house in Romford and walk from there to the station for the 2nd leg of the journey. On a good day I leave the house at 06:00 and I am at my desk by 08:20. A long journey but palatable, and at least only once a week.

At the moment due to the massive reconstruction going on at Gallows corner, a roundabout I'd usually cross, I can't and have to take side roads. They are now also digging up the only alternative route for the next 2 weeks and will have traffic lights in place. I expect that rather than an extra 40 minutes it will take an extra hour or more.

You couldn't make this stuff up. What with the current governments incompetence around everything, the complete and utter incompetence shown by the people delivering roadworks and othe public services, plus the general shift away from people being decent to awful, I'd happily move over to our place in France if it were feasible.

And yes, I know that France has it's own governmental issues at the moment, but at least out where our place is, people are decent, it's peaceful and you don't have to deal with a ton of crap.

Rant over...

[HigashiJun]

@rubber_jonnie

Wow, I'm really astonished...

Didn't imagine that the situation was so bad.

And between us, I can tell you I'm always feeling better when I come back to Japan from a trip to France.

Small places are for sure quiet and peaceful, but not bigger towns.

[exxos]

I hear'ya @rubber_jonnie

There is a slip road literally ten seconds around the corner from here.. It was blocked because of roadworks.. If you miles up the road you could really do a U-turn and get around the back of the estate to avoid it all.. But of course that road was also closed as well because of roadworks..

Basically took me almost an hour getting lost because the diversion signs abandon you midway.. Just to literally go around the corner ! You could not make this stuff up ! Then you run into traffic lights and other roadworks whether traffic lights are not even working.. I have literally sat at traffic lights on red for twenty minutes before now before just going through anyway.. Others either follow behind or start beeping their horns loudly at me because I have gone through on red whoever maintains the traffic light equipment needs to be sacked because half of them are simply not working at all.

There are that many roadworks and diversions around here I've given up trying to diagnose it all. It's like a road will be closed, so there will be a diversion where that road will also be closed, and there will be another diversion with a diversion route takes you on the first road which is closed.. It really is incomprehensible. I think they just have a five-year-old drawing on road closure maps at random.

496004365_1226857102146661_7239082229973746863_n.jpg (54.5 KiB) Viewed 287 times

The A50 has been closed at night for like 2 years now. I just end up coming back from my girlfriends at 6pm, in rush hour, to avoid the road closures. Royal PITA! I mean they are just constantly patching it up all over the place and it never seems to last more than a couple of weeks. They redo whole sections and then two weeks later there is holes in it all again. The road was almost never closed and now it is closed pretty much permanently at night time these days.

Surely someone at the top has figured out the repairs simply are not working but they just keep repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again...

Mix in the "nightly crash" where you get stuck for hours, or see half the road closed and police with flood lights looking in the ditches at overturned cars.. Even one lane closed causes massive tailbacks......

I remember when the new A50 was being built. I was pretty much the only car on it for the first couple years. Was great.. Now its total carnage every night somewhere on it.

Actually same to my mother as we was doing my tax return last couple of weeks that it seems stupid because the amount of work I actually do travelling versus the amount of diesel I actually spend... The differences phenomenal..

I went to a customer's house last week.. I mean she did actually say there was 2 number 4s close to each other but did not actually specify HOW close.. I went to the first one in the list on satnav.. wrong house.. So went to the other number 4 listed in granny flat-nav.. At first it looked like it was just going to be around the corner.. 20mins later.. Driving on roads which are questionable if they are even roads.. twatnav said I arrived, but couldn't find it.. Went more miles out of my way.. Gave up, rang the women, she said im miles away.. So went back to the first number 4 I went to, I kid you not she was like 5 houses down the road!!

So basically their houses are exactly on the same stretch of road went 123456123456 kinda thing. Same post code!! So even twatnav maps was missing the other number 4.. But yeah is even worse because that number 4 which was twenty minutes away was also on the same postcode !! I mean you really could not make this crap up!

The was saying the postman is always confusing their house and the other how so few hours she had not actually mentioned to me there was another number 4 miles away.. But she was fully aware of that because sometimes the postman mixes that house up as well and she has to ring her mother-in-law up to go pick the packages up!

I mean seriously

So basically I was driving around for about an hour to do a journey we should have owned actually taken about five minutes.. And this is crazy because the amount of diesel I use in finding people's houses is phenomenal compared to the actual distance it should have been.. More thinking of just putting all the receipts through the books because actually paying them as a business expense but if I was ever checked up on I doubt they would believe I spent like £50 on diesel to go like 5 miles up the road.. But this is how it is

Its also why just trying avoid going anywhere because whole thing just drives me nuts !

[HigashiJun]

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie

Wow, I'm really astonished...

Didn't imagine that the situation was so bad.

And between us, I can tell you I'm always feeling better when I come back to Japan from a trip to France.

Small places are for sure quiet and peaceful, but not bigger towns.

Not sure where you go in France, but we are out in the middle of nowhere, so way more peaceful than at home. Also, whilst we have neighbours directly across from us, they are retired, friendly and quiet, and there is a least 60 feet either side of our place left and right before any other houses. It's bliss.

[rubber_jonnie]

@exxos

Yep I hear ya and that pic is precisely what seems to be going on at the moment. Sounds particulalrly bad where you are.

You really couldn't make some of this up.

Where we live there is a road running parallel to us (Wheatsheaf, we live on Barley). Our road comes round at 90 degrees and crosses Wheatsheaf at a T junction and carries on to the exit of the development.

If you are at the T junction where Wheatsheaf joins Barley, the houses on the left have an address of Wheatsheaf, and those on the right have an address of Barley. There is similar shenanigans going on in other parts of the development.

[stephen_usher]

Talking about road works. The road which skirts the housing estates here at the edge of Oxford, and also acts as a partial outer ring road, is called Grenoble Road.

A couple of months ago we had a leaflet through the door saying that National Grid were going to be digging it up to lay some new high tension cables. Fair enough.

So, traffic lights turn up and works begin. Trenching is done. A bit annoying but OK.

Then a second set of works and traffic lights appear. Another, bigger trench is made running parallel to the first trench... And the two construction teams seem to be vying for the same bits of road. It turns out that Southern Gas Networks (SGN) are also installing new infrastucture, but they're getting in the way of National Grid. Why couldn't they have liaised and dug one big trench and lain both utilities at the same time?

At the moment there are only two (long) traffic controlled sections, but there have been up to four on a 1 mile stretch, each three way with a long "red time" on each. Actually, one is a 4-way at the moment as it's on the roundabout with the entrance to the sewerage works.

[rubber_jonnie]

Talking about road works. The road which skirts the housing estates here at the edge of Oxford, and also acts as a partial outer ring road, is called Grenoble Road.

A couple of months ago we had a leaflet through the door saying that National Grid were going to be digging it up to lay some new high tension cables. Fair enough.

So, traffic lights turn up and works begin. Trenching is done. A bit annoying but OK.

Then a second set of works and traffic lights appear. Another, bigger trench is made running parallel to the first trench... And the two construction teams seem to be vying for the same bits of road. It turns out that Southern Gas Networks (SGN) are also installing new infrastucture, but they're getting in the way of National Grid. Why couldn't they have liaised and dug one big trench and lain both utilities at the same time?

At the moment there are only two (long) traffic controlled sections, but there have been up to four on a 1 mile stretch, each three way with a long "red time" on each. Actually, one is a 4-way at the moment as it's on the roundabout with the entrance to the sewerage works.

Just so ridiculous.

[mrbombermillzy]

@stephen_usher wasnt there a Carlsberg advert in the 80s/90s, ridiculing this exact problem?

In the advert, they had the different utilities liaising to dig the hole just the once (as opposed to the 'normal' chaos you describe above).

Good to see nothings changed for the better over the years.