Room 101
Today I have shamelessly stolen an idea from a TV show. Room 101 sees celebrities share things which they really don't like that they think should be banished to room 101. Here are my three:
Inconsiderate Pedestrians
Walking along the street can be very annoying. It shouldn't be that difficult for people to be walking both sides along the pavement but so often this doesn't happen. You get couples holding hands or just people talking to each other and blocking up the entire footpath. You have little choice then but to step into the road and face the potential danger of vehicles. If nothing else it's just incredibly rude and gives an attitude that these people are more deserving of having space than everyone else.
Then there's the people who meet someone they know and stop in the middle of the footpath to have a lengthy and usually tedious conversation. For me the natural thing to do is for both parties to move across to the side away from the road allowing other pedestrians to pass easily. But this rarely happens and you find yourself either stepping into the road again or awkwardly having to squeeze yourself through the middle of the conversation.
It's even worse in supermarkets when the majority of people seem incapable of both steering a shopping trolley considerably and shopping. It seems obvious to me that if you are stopping to look at a shelf you move your trolley to the side of the aisle. But no, people seem to just park wherever they fancy and in some popular ailes there's a sea of trolleys blocking your way.
Why is it so hard for people to be considerate and allow others space to pass them? It's just selfish and rude not to think of other people.
People Who Combine Adverbs With the World Unique
Unique is an absolute term. This means that an object can only be described as unique or not unique and nothing else. I find it incredibly irritating when I'm watching TV and someone says "very unique" or "quite unique". It's either unique or it's not, that's it, end of story.
This is the most common example but there are other absolute terms where this happens too. Another major one is "perfect" but words like "pure" and "independent" suffer similar fates too.
I know in the grand scheme of things it's not important but once you start noticing it, I find you become fixated on the mistake rather than the content of what's actually being said. Whereas if someone uses the world unique correctly I can just nod happily to myself and continue listening.
Dr. Richard Beeching
Beeching was chairman of British Railways in the 1960s and his views led to massive reductions in the British rail network. Some 6,000 miles of railway was removed from the network thanks to this.
I like to imagine how lovely it would be if the local rail line still existed. I live in a heavily congested area and a rail connection would surely ease this. I would much prefer commuting on a train than maneuvering my way through traffic jams.
It's difficult to imagine what the UK would be like had the Beeching cuts never happened. Imagine what the country would be like if the railway system was expanded rather than cut. Many of the issues of modern day train travel would be relieved as the vast number of travellers would be dissolved into more lines. If a lot more people were able to travel my rail the roads would be much quieter and the air much cleaner. The cuts showed such an incredible lack of foresight.
The implications of a better and bigger rail system are huge. Trains are of course much better for the environment than cars. Surely fifty plus years of reduced carbon emissions from cars in the UK alone would have an impact on climate change. If the UK had a shining example of what a rail system could be like maybe it would have been copied globally and the difference of emissions could have been genuinely significant.
Basically, the world would likely be a better place were in not for one man's lack of foresight.
Inconsiderate Pedestrians
Walking along the street can be very annoying. It shouldn't be that difficult for people to be walking both sides along the pavement but so often this doesn't happen. You get couples holding hands or just people talking to each other and blocking up the entire footpath. You have little choice then but to step into the road and face the potential danger of vehicles. If nothing else it's just incredibly rude and gives an attitude that these people are more deserving of having space than everyone else.
Then there's the people who meet someone they know and stop in the middle of the footpath to have a lengthy and usually tedious conversation. For me the natural thing to do is for both parties to move across to the side away from the road allowing other pedestrians to pass easily. But this rarely happens and you find yourself either stepping into the road again or awkwardly having to squeeze yourself through the middle of the conversation.
It's even worse in supermarkets when the majority of people seem incapable of both steering a shopping trolley considerably and shopping. It seems obvious to me that if you are stopping to look at a shelf you move your trolley to the side of the aisle. But no, people seem to just park wherever they fancy and in some popular ailes there's a sea of trolleys blocking your way.
Why is it so hard for people to be considerate and allow others space to pass them? It's just selfish and rude not to think of other people.
People Who Combine Adverbs With the World Unique
Unique is an absolute term. This means that an object can only be described as unique or not unique and nothing else. I find it incredibly irritating when I'm watching TV and someone says "very unique" or "quite unique". It's either unique or it's not, that's it, end of story.
This is the most common example but there are other absolute terms where this happens too. Another major one is "perfect" but words like "pure" and "independent" suffer similar fates too.
I know in the grand scheme of things it's not important but once you start noticing it, I find you become fixated on the mistake rather than the content of what's actually being said. Whereas if someone uses the world unique correctly I can just nod happily to myself and continue listening.
Dr. Richard Beeching
Beeching was chairman of British Railways in the 1960s and his views led to massive reductions in the British rail network. Some 6,000 miles of railway was removed from the network thanks to this.
Dan 2.0: Always discussing modern issues
It's difficult to imagine what the UK would be like had the Beeching cuts never happened. Imagine what the country would be like if the railway system was expanded rather than cut. Many of the issues of modern day train travel would be relieved as the vast number of travellers would be dissolved into more lines. If a lot more people were able to travel my rail the roads would be much quieter and the air much cleaner. The cuts showed such an incredible lack of foresight.
The implications of a better and bigger rail system are huge. Trains are of course much better for the environment than cars. Surely fifty plus years of reduced carbon emissions from cars in the UK alone would have an impact on climate change. If the UK had a shining example of what a rail system could be like maybe it would have been copied globally and the difference of emissions could have been genuinely significant.
Basically, the world would likely be a better place were in not for one man's lack of foresight.
Comments
Post a Comment