Watch out for the mud ... and the potholes
WEYMOUTH’S coast road to Bridport is in the worst condition I’ve seen it since I came to Dorset 30 years ago.
Whole sections seem to have lost their top surface while the potholes are not just numerous but downright dangerous as well.
At least one would have comfortably swallowed most of a wheel and anyone coming on it suddenly at a time when they couldn’t swerve because of oncoming traffic would have damaged their car. It was that deep.
As if motorists did not have enough to watch out for, it also seemed to be furrowing time. This is an age-old tradition where farmers turn their fields over ready for spring before driving their mud-coated tractors out on to roads to clean them.
To an unsuspecting driver coming round a corner the effect is dramatic as earth and soil pepper wheel arches or are fired on to windscreens by the car in front being caught by the same hazard.
The stretch I hit had enough topsoil on it to start an allotment. Let’s hope for a bit of rain soon to wash it away because there was no sign of the farmer responsible sweeping it off the road.
Fond memories of a night at the Classic
YEARS ago I and many others used to enjoy watching a film at the Classic Cinema in Gloucester Street, Weymouth.
That cinema is long gone now but by chance I ran into chief projectionist Alvin Hopper the other day and we got to chatting about films.
Naturally we talked briefly about the blockbuster 3-D film, Avatar, which can cost nearly £10 to see including special glasses.
Alvin seemed pretty rueful about that price and quite right too bearing in mind what he told me about 1972 at the Classic.
Of course prices were a lot cheaper in those days but you also got a lot more for your money.
A crisp £5 note bought you an all night stay to watch five feature films back to back on either horror, westerns or other themes such as motorcycling and the likes of Easy Rider. Your £5 also included a cup of cola or coffee and a hot dog, two items which nearly cost £5 on their own these days.
I suppose there is a price for progress and if you want super modern films you’ll pay that price.
I’ll certainly pay because the likes of Avatar are amazing, but the old style cinema approach to films which didn’t cost an arm and a leg and where patrons were mothered rather than milked is still a fond memory.
Mind your language - or you might lose it
DOES anyone **** think that there’s too much **** swearing in our modern lives?
Whatever else people may be learning they’re certainly not polishing up their language skills.
I was walking round the town centre with my wife when we passed a group of men in their 20s who were chatting away in the street within a few feet of passing couples and children.
To hear them talk it was f-this, f-that and f-the other with a bit of effing in between for good measure.
The men probably didn’t mean anything by it, they certainly didn’t seem aware of what they were saying and that is part of my point.
The obvious comment is to criticise such language being used within the hearing of children, but spare a thought for the death of the English language as well.
Is it really necessary to have the f-word several times in every sentence being uttered or are modern men now so limited in vocabularly that they simply swear to fill in gaping holes in their grasp of everyday language?
Give it a few more decades and we could descend back to caveman level where the only thing they can say is: “Uggg!”
They’re coming to take you away
MUCH has been written about the potentially damaging threat to health from using a mobile phone.
But I doubt very much indeed whether scientists felt the need to list this incident in their warnings.
It involved a woman walking along who then suddenly stopped dead to listen to her mobile phone. A bit anti-social you might say because people caught unawares would suddenly have to step round her.
What would you say if I told you she dropped anchor in the middle of a busy thoroughfare? You would definitely say this was anti-social because it would inconvenience a lot of people, which it did.
Finally, what would you say if I told you this incredible incident actually involved the woman standing still in the middle of Weymouth’s notoriously busy King Street.
People couldn’t believe it. She just stood their stock still like a statue with heavy traffic scant inches from her on both sides as bemused drivers tried to give her as wide a berth as possible.
She didn’t even speak into her phone and just listened, presumably for advice on when the men in white coats were coming for her. They’re on their way now.
www.viewfromonline.co.uk
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