Monday, February 11, 2008

A photo filled weekend

A relatively busy weekend I spent most of Saturday morning snapping pictures of the pot-holes in Stourport. To be honest I don't know why I bother, I could just repeat the same ones I've already taken as the majority are all in exactly the same places. The patches seem to last around a month (or less) before they start to sink or break up taking more of the surrounding area with them and we're left with an even bigger hole.

[Update pictures start here]

Same old, same old; Dunley Road opposite Harold Davies Drive, Areley Common turn and as an added bonus on Areley Common at the Hermitage Way turn though those have all been thoughtfully pointed out with orange spray-painted arrows. The road edge for the drain on the corner of Lion Hill and York Street is really starting to fail a real pain for those of us who at least attempt to pretend York Street is two lanes. Oh and we have a new one on the Bridge Street island, again only really noticeable for those of us who drive around the white circle rather then over it like everyone else.

The covers on the newly resurfaced Bridge Street are still recessed so I'm expecting those to start to fall in with repeated use as we've already got one large cover clonk-clonking as it's driven over. Again am I stupid or something - "Hey the best place to put these covers is just off-centre of the lane rather then in the centre of the lane or even the centre of the road"

Speaking of which I didn't manage to get a shot of the collapsing cover in the middle of the road close to Cook's on the Worcester Road. But, you say, if it's in the middle of the road how is it collapsing? Because it's next to a row of houses that often have cars parked in the road so it takes a hit every time they're overtaken.

Heh and speaking of that type of thing the pavement markings next to the bays in Bridge Street finally caught my attention (I'm trying to decipher what they mean). These are the ones where instead of veering the lane divider out to allow both streams to pass it was 'decided' to keep the lane marker where it was so everyone coming up Bridge Street has to overtake the parking bays. Understandable if the road was narrow except...

Oh and we had a traffic warden out doing his job in Hight Street. I took a snap and he walked up to ask what I was doing -

"Just taking a photo; you know you doing your job, hard at work"
"I'm sorry that's a breach of my Human Rights"
"Ookay there we go deleted"

I could have argued that he was in a public place and therefore could hardly be expecting privacy, I could have pointed to the numerous CCTV cameras around, but I'm fundamentally a nice guy and if someone objects to their photo being taken I can relate. My only annoyance is that in my criss-crossing through town he seemed to make a special note of me as if I'd try to get a sneaky shot of him.

Popped into the Sweet Jar for my fix and a chat. Again the major plug all the sweets you remember as a kid and Sugar-Free ones too. So for me my Jelly Beans, Mint Imperials, Rum Truffles, and a new addition Mint Crumbles (very nice too). Anyway the owner mentioned the dings he had to take out of the skirting of his new mini-van going over speed-bumps, the leaking suspension something (hey for me car equals thing with four wheel) from the pot-holes and the £300+ bill for the broken spring going up to Shrawley after he missed avoiding a Dr Foster style hole. I mentioned my father having to have something knocked out when he went through a water filled pot-hole. I'd also like to blame the number of times my clutch cable's gone on them too, but I'd don't think I legitimately can.

Missed seeing my cousin, his wife, and Devil Child on their visit; though apparently he was the worse for wear having dragged himself in from a pub-crawl at 5am and Devil Child spent most of the time asleep. So little to miss.

Sunday was some more shopping in a forlorn quest for Beef Jerky which I couldn't find on Saturday. I swear it was sold everywhere until someone asks me if I can find some for them, ah well.

I then tried out a demo of Drake's Fortune on the PS3 which left me underwhelmed, which I'll blog about later (no doubt before I get to a full review of HalfLife2, it's coming I promise).

Found yet another bug in Killzone (PS2) which led to me restarting a level about 10 times, which gets recorded on my profile.

Blast from the past with Devil May Cry (PS2). Were the camera angles and controls this frustrating when it first came out?

Tried to stay away from Oblivion. Succeeding so far, but may lose the fight when they finally release the expansion disc in Europe.

Oh and I wake up this morning to the breakfast news still going on about what the Archbishop didn't say.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pity you only photographed Stourport potholes, if you have been in Kidderminster you could have photographed the exploding man-hole!

FlipC said...

Woah what a poorly written story.

He was driving along yesterday [scans down] so Sunday 10th; the firefighters got there are 1pm, so the explosion occurred at um?

So what caused the explosion if it was just a short?

Anonymous said...

Thought I should mention I posted a tangentially related pothole story on my blog recently.

Anonymous said...

You know like the saddo that I am I managed to start a debate at work on taking photos in public. Although I disagreed the consensus was that you do need permission to take someone's photo in public. CCTV (surveillance) is deemed not for public broadcast and so is exempt from this rule.

However my case in point was that Fat Boy Slim has a CD cover with a fat kid on it. Apparently it was publishable in Europe but in the USA they needed permission from the kid (who they didn't know) so the US version of the CD has a different cover.

FlipC said...

The question to ask is "Do you think that all those TV reporters 'in the street' get disclosure notices from all the people who happened to be walking by?".

My understanding (IANAL) is that you can only expect such considerations in an area that would be regarded as private.

Ah here's a non-canon PDF file; first page, fourth column, second and third paragraphs.