Sign of the Times

Sometimes change just sneaks up on you. It takes someone to point out the bleedin' obvious and there it is!

Our lass pointed this one out - and if she hadn't have said owt I wouldn't have noticed.

What IS all this about painting speed limit signs on the road. Isn't it enough to litter the roadside with big round metal things with numbers on 'em, and stick up speed cams on every corner.

I always favoured the Tour-de-France approach to signage. Sneak out there with a can of Dulux and paint a cartoon character on the road, or some witticism to cheer up the passers by.

Now the local roads are becoming an intricate coding system - with different coloured cats eyes, rumble strips and colour codes bits to look out for it's getting difficult to keep your eyes on the road.

The other thing that's becoming a common sight in the posher areas is this business of telling us to slow down.

There was a place I went through the other day and there was none of this Nether Wallop Welcomes Careful Drivers friendliness to make you pull over and smell the flowers.

No - this village was announced not by anything decorative or edifying, but with a series of feckoff speed reduction signs the size of a house. They might as well just put a massive Formula One style banner across the town saying Bog Off Strangers You're Frightening Our Sheep!!!

Road signs used to be cute and friendly. Remember Belisha Beacons and Zebra Crossings with the stripy poles? Almost every driver in England will stop if there's so much as a squirrel poised by the kerb. We're a polite lot, us driver-types.

Now it's all traffic lights, saying to drivers "Don't bother stopping for these pedestrians unless there's a red light staring you in the face. It's telling drivers that the street belongs to the car, not the foot passenger.

I went for a walk recently just to clear my head after too much Christmas Spirit and came across a bit of road with high hedging. Couldn't see round the corner. I started to feel a bit uneasy about this, as if I'd no right to be walking on the road at all. As if some local hausfrau in a 4Wheel Drive was going to mow me down at any moment.

But I get off the point.

Road signs used to be strange noggly shapes with ancient hieroglyphics on 'em. Level crossings had steam trains on em last time I looked, roadworks had that feller trying to put an umbrella up, and schools were announced by that scotsman-abducting-small-boy drawing.

Now schools have to have a mass of flashing lights going on and a major drama.

And road signs now have to be on a bright yellow barn door of a sign, regardless of what's on there.

Now surely this is casting a bad light on the road sign building skills of our local prisoners. The prisoners down at Group 4's Doncatraz Prison can't cut metal in a circle anymore then? It's got to have corners or nowt eh?

It's probably the same mad European directive that had them brilliant Ampelmenschen pedestrian crossing dudes removed from the streets of East Berlin. The next thing they'll be forcing us to drive on the right like everyone else.

You think I'm kidding don't you! I've got this mate who's a cleaner in the European Parliament Planning Department and he says...

Blogga.