Traffic Lights To Be Set To Red In London

Cars, like Brexit and Marmite, polarise people. It seems that the middle-aged Jag driving sort are on one side and the pink-haired environmentalists are on the other. Real life is, as ever, somewhere in between the extremes.

The latest battle ground is traffic lights with the news that some parts of London will see the traffic lights set to red to give priority to pedestrians. The status quo is that the default position for traffic lights is with a red man telling people not to cross.

The new trial will see the lights resting with a green man and it will change to red when traffic is detected.

It’s only a trial, which means it is too early to know if this is a good idea or not but that won’t have stopped people making their minds up already.

Anything that saves me having to push the button to cross the road is a good move. That was a gross activity even before a pandemic. Who knows which nose-picker just used that button before you.

One worry is that more cars will have to idle. If you are worrying about saving the planet you don’t want cars burning petrol to go nowhere. One argument is that making life less fun for the motorist will make more of them stop driving, but if you follow that logic the London Mayor should bring in a system where anyone using a car has to submit to a titty twister when they cross the North and South Circular.

Better flow of people should be the goal but that doesn’t have to be people in cars. A plan to increase and improve walking in London would be worthwhile. I’m just not sure that waiting at traffic lights is the reason people stay home. I have never thought about going for a walk and talked myself out of it because of crossings. I have worried about crime, safety, and even the quality of the air. I would pick a route down the back roads. Red traffic lights will line the streets with iddling vehicles so walking would be even less fun.

There is one issue with this idea that my mind keeps coming back to. If you’re going for a walk, you come up to a cross where the red man is doing his thing but there are no cars around. You’d walk across.

If you were a car, pulling up to a red light but with no pedestrians there, you can’t move.

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The Dominic Cummings White-Board

Before the 7 hours of ranting began Dominic Cummings had tweeted out pictures of the white-boards that were used for the Government brainstorming and planning stage. This was before lockdown 1. There are some shocking details including the question, "Who do we not save?"

In the video below we take a look at some of the pictures and comments on the board.

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Belarus Hijacking Plane – The Musical

The West has been shocked by the actions of Belarus by effectively hijacking a Ryanair plane from the skies. It was heading to Lithuanian from Greece but was forced to go to Minsk, which from the point of view of Ryanair is close enough. Normally they’d put on a coach and leave you too it.

The man they were after was opposition journalist Roman Protasevich. He has since been seen on video confessing to crimes, but the crimes he has fessed up to are mainly about organising a protest against the government.

It’s hard to imagine what that would be like. In the UK people protest all the time. People protest against the Government telling us to wear masks. People protest against the Government for not telling us to wear masks enough. And then people protest about the protests.

One theory that is definitely wrong is that Belarus is upset because they were banned from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest and are acting up because of it. Is that a motivation behind a rogue state? Probably not, but it let us work on this song that Belarus wanted to perform, which you can watch below.

I'm glad that #Belarus didn't take part in #Eurovision2021 when you think about the #hijacking of that #Ryanair plane. pic.twitter.com/xyR731TcOL

— Steve N Allen (@mrstevenallen) May 25, 2021

[Video taken from the Comics Solving Problems comedy show]

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Less Lockdown = More Rude Stuff

This week the Mirror newspaper ran a headline saying it won’t be long till we are hugging grannies again. I don’t actually have any grannies left, so this could be the strangest giveaway a national newspaper has ever done.

Meanwhile the Sunday Times reported that "Lovers liberated after lockdown spark sexplosion". Given that sexplosion isn’t really a word it’s hard to know exactly what they mean by this. Is it something that will show up on the seismographs or simply leave a mess?

Whatever it is we know its cause. The end of lockdown has brought about an increased demand for condoms and morning after pills. It’s an interesting effect of getting our freedoms back and also makes you realise that over the last year a higher proportion of people buying condoms were doing it to smuggle things in.

At the moment the rules state that you can go on a date with someone and have a drink outside but you are not allowed to take things into the bedroom. It’s like much of the dating I did in my twenties but with slightly more handwashing.

The increased sales figures tell us that either more people are breaking the rules and nipping to the bedroom with their new friend or there are some very dodgy things happening in pub car parks. Or both.

It’s difficult to complain about people’s actions. If there is one lesson the Great Doing Nothing of 2020 taught us is that we should embrace life whenever we can. You don’t know when the next plague will come along and take life from some of us, so if you can have a moment of pleasure with someone you should get stuck in, which I am told is not the way to phrase it just before the act.

Yes, I know that any rule-breaking could lead to an increased spread of COVID that could lead to older and more vulnerable people catching it but if you’re spending more time in bed you’re spending less time visiting older people, so the effects might cancel.

Whatever you do, do it safely and wear protection. And I don’t mean a mask. But I also don’t not mean a mask, if that’s what you’re into. Get stuck in.

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