Posts by Jolisa
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My only hope is it'll ghost-town in a matter of months due to traffic, and we can turn it into an aquarium or something
... skate park, planetarium, children's museum, skating rink, indoor velodrome, dance hall, gymnasium...
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Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to Tom Beard,
Tom, I just figured you were getting a jump on the eventual pronunciation shift. Just as "bloody" was once "by Our Lady," so too twatcock => twattock, over time.
(I've been pronouncing it with two similar vowel sounds and enjoying the assonance, as well as the glottal stop in the middle. Will experiment with rhyming it with hat-block, but new habits die hard).
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to Amy Gale,
I really liked your modest proposal, Amy ... and then I remembered that I live on a street where perhaps half of the houses don't have off-street parking (we don't) and thus no driveway.
This means there are always a lot of cars parked on the street, true. But there are also only half as many cars backing out of driveways across the footpath. Which, if you're walking or biking along the footpath, especially with kids, is a tangible improvement - e.g. I'm only half as hoarse at the end of an outing, from yelling "stop for driveways!" only half as often as on a regular street.
Still, I can picture a properly designed neighbourhood in which all vehicles park in private mews, located behind the houses, accessed by a smaller number of entrances onto the main roads. Parts of Salt Lake City operate this way.
And I dream of a city with properly designed cycling and walking paths that parallel or complement roads, crossing them where necessary at safe and well-designed intersections. And handily-located car parks that are actually park-like, with lots of trees, and full of ZipCars.
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Ooh Martin, you said the magic words, "another country."
At last I can post my ever-at-the-ready Copenhagen Cycle Chic link. Phwoaaar. Imagine. Heaven will be a little bit like this, except that in heaven, all the bikes (and those outfits) will be free.
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Oi Matt, I thought you were supposed to be on holiday? Go do some karaoke or eat some sushi or relax in an ofuro!
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Sheesh. It's like Mad Libs at the Herald.
For my part, I'm unsure if it’s either arrogance or stupidity that lead various [defeatist wombles] to insist on saying [miserable told-you-so buggers] have equal right [to my headspace] with [those who are eternal optimists about human nature.]
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Exhibit A: Dr G. Tiso
I rest my case.
Is there a more subtle way of saying ‘salivating?’
I probably should have said "Juicy in a 'meet a writer you haven't heard of yet who is quite awesome' sense, rather than a 'traditional holiday season literary scandal' sense." But that would have taken longer to type.
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Hard News: Do you like what we've done…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Because apart from the posts in the feature spot by Damian and Emma, I’m the only one who has posted.
Mea culpa... mega-shame. Coming soon. Once again deferred a frivolous post because it didn't feel right in the light of the news from down south. But I have a juicy literary post coming up. And it's not about plagiarism.
We’re thinking about also putting the featured posts in the list by default.
Yes, please, please!! I was just about to say this myself. If you're a multi-tab many-window browser sort of person (and who isn't these days?), you don't necessarily stick around to see all the photos (gorgeous as they are) as they go through their full cycle.
Also, I think we're all quite well-conditioned to scanning down the full list of posts, with newest at the top, and not being able to see the full list of current posts in order is a bit frustrating.
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Also, Greg's mention of slowing down to pass a school bus brought me up short. Over here, it's compulsory to STOP when a school bus is stopped. They even have nifty hinged STOP signs that come out the side of the bus, and flashing red lights to remind you.
Traffic must stop in both directions until the bus pulls back out into traffic. Once you get used to it, nothing else makes sense.
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And won't someone think of the children? UK poll of 9-13 year olds:
More than 60% of nine to 13-year-olds think the roads around their home and school are dangerous for those on foot or bicycles. And almost nine in 10 of these children reckon drivers go too fast in their community. ... 50% of nine to 11-year-olds and 61% of 11 to 13-year-olds have had a near-miss while walking or cycling
If you want even more competent, confident, environmentally friendly people on bikes and in cars 10-20 years from now, you've got to make it safer for Ruby to go on a bike ride with her Daddy today , dagnabbit.
All the people moaning about pelotons and cyclists riding two abreast should consider it useful practice for rounding a corner and encountering a handful of kids happily riding home from school the way my siblings and I used to. A chance to practice navigating cautiously and expect the unexpected.
I'd love to see a general return to basic defensive driving (and cycling) -- so much smarter and more polite than all this offensive kind. Maybe we could revamp & update some of the old defensive driving ads, to address our multi-user public roads ?
(Am also hanging out for a series of ads in which Ruby-age kids address the viewer directly: "That's my daddy/mummy/brother/sister on a bike/in that car/crossing the road. So keep an eye out. And slow the f^&*% down. Please.")