Alan's Blog

That volcano again ...

Maybe not the best joke, but I liked it:

Message from Europe to Iceland: "We said send us CASH, not ASH!"

Pet peeves 8

Two blog posts in one day! What is the world coming to? Will the server take the extra load?

This peeve involves shop and restaurant signs placed with no regard to passers-by. Going to lunch today I found that a new example of London's seemingly-ubiquitous roadworks had been started. This involved closing half the carriageway and part of the pavement (US sidewalk). However a shop and a restaurant still put out their signs which caused the pavement to become even narrower. Pedestrians passing the signs needed to walk in single file, waiting until no-one was coming the other way, before being able to get past. Since the street is fairly busy, that caused quite a bottleneck.

As I walked past one of the signs I pushed it closer to the wall of the shop to make more room; on my return journey I saw that it had been put back in its original position.

Poor timing

I bet the politicians are annoyed. We had the country's first-ever televised debate last night between the leaders of the three main parties. However, the news on TV and in the papers is dominated this morning by the plume of volcanic ash from Iceland that is drifting across Europe, causing the cancellation of virtually all plane flights in the UK, and widespread disruption across Europe.