Going shopping; going mad.

My nearest city is Worcester and yet I don't normally shop there, I head out to the shopping mall at Merry Hill instead; it's about the same distance, it's enclosed, all the shops are in one place, and I have this odd antipathy for Worcester though it's been so long I couldn't recall why. Well with one thing or another I popped in at the weekend and now I remember.

Worcester isn't a city, it's a giant spatial awareness test. Council officials hijack unsuspecting visitors, blindfold them, drive them into the middle of the city, then release them and tell them to find their own way out; they then start cackling as the poor visitor is driven insane.

So why is this? Well first a slight diversion - road signs; they're expensive. Firstly they're all one-offs, you can't order a hundred "Worcester next left" signs unless you've a very odd town. They then have to be installed - pavements dug up and posts fitted. Then you have to maintain them as lorries knock them over, people spray-paint witty remarks over them and failing that they just need a clean every so often. Finally if they're in a lit area they themselves need an independent light source, so you're paying every night for electricity to them. Again to put it bluntly - they're expensive.

I don't know where it first started, but I can imagine some poor soul slaving away over a set of city plans marking off where and what all the signs are when inspiration strikes "Why not paint the signs in the road?" Lower installation cost, lower maintenance, and no constant electricity bill. I'm sure they gave themselves a big hug for that one.

Sadly, like most plans that arrive from such desks, once out of the door it comes into direct conflict with what we lovingly refer to as "Reality". If you're reading this then you're obviously intelligent, as well as witty and attractive, so I don't really need to spell out the problems; if you've arrived here by hitting the random button then I'll try to use small words.

The less obvious problem is that drivers don't really pay attention to the road, they're too busy looking at the other vehicles and the pedestrians. When they do look at signs they look up, heck even the headlights on our cars are orientated that way. Signs in this position are facing us, that means we can see them from a distance, we can even slow down a little to read them if need be. Signs painted on the road can only be read at certain angles as you approach, miss this moment of opportunity and, well, too late.

The more obvious problem - cars aren't transparent. Start painting signs on the road next to junctions and inconsiderate souls have an odd tendency to stop on them, remove the other expensive signs and you're in trouble. Couple this with the inability to even make the signs that you do paint in any way useful and you're in serious trouble.

Want an example? I was heading out towards one of the bridges, which is on my left, therefore I want to turn left at some point. The three lanes I could choose from were - straight, straight, right. The two straight lanes turned left over the bridge, then turned left again. One of the straight lanes then carried on whilst the other straight lane turned right. Only painted road markings to help.

Another? The car-park was on my right, I knew that a small roundabout was up ahead where I'd turn. I almost missed the roundabout, stop and think about that for a second; how can you miss a roundabout? Easy; you don't put up any signs warning you that one is coming up, you don't have any signs telling you what happens if you pick any of the exits from it, and finally you offset it to the right of what appears to be straight road.

So finally I've parked, paid the exhorbitant fee the city charges me to leave my car unwatched and unattended, and now I can shop.

Worcester has some enclosed areas, by enclosed I mean alleys 'with roofs'. Some do have doors, though I suspect only as they were getting fed up with the RAF using them to test out their aeronautical designs. They're certainly not there to keep the heat in, it's basically outside temperature minus wind chill. In of itself this would be fine, you just wrap up warm as I did, it's when you step inside a shop that the fun begins. It's hot, compared to where you've just come from it's Saharan; and of course you start unwrapping layers. You browse and get acclimatised to the heat, then you step back outside and it feels like the Arctic. Rinse and repeat; its just not good for a body.

Well at least now I can recall why I don't go shopping there.