Schrodinger's Fiesta!

 

 

 

 

 

An odd day today. An in-between sort of day.

     Although it is a fiesta in Barcelona, it’s not here in Castelldefels, though there is always a knock-on effect as we get an influx of day-trippers from the city to swell the areas around the beaches.

     There were fewer in the pool this morning when it opened, but more of the ‘day-release’ people turned up, just as I was completing my lengths and exercise.  The bike ride along the paseo of the beaches of Gavà were fuller than a normal Monday, so I was able to exhibit a bonus grumpiness as the usual suspects invaded the bike lane, in spite of their being a bike (mine) in it, with the headlight on!

     I have taken to using the Gavà paseo because the Castelldefels paseo is now banned to bikes and electric scooters.  There are signs informing people of this ban at the entrances to the beaches and there are signs repeating the information attached to lampposts along the paseo, and they are generally ignored.

     There are good, health & safety, logical reasons for banning bikes on the Castelldefels paseo.  There is no dedicated bike lane and cyclists invariably ignore the very low speed limit that is set (or used to be set) to use the place.  Some cyclists seem to take a perverse delight in refusing to slow down as they make their way along the paseo and avoid people by a circus-act-like display of weaving and jigging.  This is obviously dangerous.

     At a certain point the beach paseo narrows, and the danger to cyclists and pedestrians becomes even more pronounced.

     As we move further into autumn and winter the number of people using the paseo, especially at the time that I used to use it after my swim, drops.  And if there is empty space then cyclists and electric scooter riders will ignore the rules even more than the general flouting that happens at the moment.

     We have parking tickets for spaces on the sea front and other areas of the city, but the machines that dole out these tickets are closed down for the winter months and you can park wherever you like (except for high days and holidays) for free.  Some spaces in the centre of town are always paying spaces except for the afternoons, so we have a fairly complex system in place.

     My point would be, given that we are able to adapt to complex parking rules, why shouldn’t there be more flexible rules for bikes?  If we can cope with those rules, then we should surely be able to cope with time limited rules for bikes.

     On the narrower parts of the paseo, I do think that bikes should be banned totally, but on the other parts I think it is only sensible to have more reasonable rules.  As the rules stand at present, there is an obvious and blatant rejection, and there doesn’t seem to be any move to police the rules and make them stick.

     Yes, I do feel resentment as I see all the paseo bike users as I make my way along the (legal) road, but, if people don’t like the rules and they can see little real justification for them, then those rules are going to be broken.

     It makes me think of the decorative, picturesque council laid footpaths that wind around a grassy area, and the unofficial footpaths that actual feet make as they plot the most direct route.  People will do what they think is more logical, and to hell with routes that looked pretty when drawn on plans.

     I remember working, before I went to College, in the Planning Department of Cardiff City Council and seeing a map of the city centre showing ‘customer routes’ showing the reality of how people moved from point A to point B.  These maps showed streets, but they also showed routes through shops, ways of access that I had previously thought were individual ‘secret’ ways but were obvious when you needed to imagine a straight line with shops in the way!

     So, people will do what they think is reasonable.  That is until they are either shown that they are wrong in their assumptions, or that they will be punished if they do not follow the council’s stated rules.

     I am following the rules.  I await to see how the council responds to the breaking of those rules.          I’m watching!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 43 – Monday, 27th APRIL

Why does it come as no shock whatsoever that the Conservative Government is going to release the figures for the total of tests at the end of the month not at the end of the month?  Can it be that the 100k total of tests on which Hancock staked his future are going to be more problematic than he thought when he thoughtlessly uttered the guarantee earlier in the crisis? 

     So, the ‘end of the month’ becomes something of a moveable feast for the Conservatives when it comes to protecting one of their own – never mind about the people who died as a result of their failure to boost testing when the WHO was urging countries to “Test! Test! Test!”

     If the 100k is going to be difficult to reach to save the hide of little Matt, then perhaps we should steel ourselves to any one of the following:

1.              The endless month of April, in the same way as MPs are used to some debates continuing on one particular named day even if that day has long since passed.

2.              The offering of the total number of tests available rather than the tests actually taken.

3.              ‘Discovering’ tests from previous days that have not been counted.

4.              Making up the results.

5.              Lying.

6.              Redefining the concept of 100k

7.              Redefining the idea of a ‘test’

8.              Lying.

9.              Sacrificing Rees-Mogg to placate, well, everyone up to and including Tories.

10.          Lying.

And let’s deal with the, “this is no time to be replacing a key minister when we are in a crisis” as we are in the crisis we are in because of the key ministers that we have had to put up with.

     

     It’s about time that our political masters began to accept responsibility, and with that end in mind, I am glad that Johnson seems better, and he should now resign after his disgraceful lack of responsibility in going out of his way to put himself in harm’s way by rejecting advice to social distance.  If Beckett fails to get his 100k he should resign: he made it a key pledge, he should live or die by it.  And if we are presented (eventually) with 100k, then I would like the figures scrutinized by an independent body!

With the allowing of kids out and about, there is a definite sense of ‘emergence’ from the lockdown – even though this has just included one parent with up to thee kids, the pictures of something approaching normality in the streets has produce a real feeling of achievement and hope that the end of the crisis is in sight!

     People are beginning to think of what summer could be like if social distancing is still generally in place.  What are the beaches going to be looking like?  At the moment we are regaled with film on TV of groups on the beaches being moved on.  Perhaps by July we will have the beach filled with tight camps of families jealously guarding their ‘safe’ space.  One shudders to think about it too closely!

     From queuing for pollo and bread and meds, I think that people will still go on socially isolating almost like second nature nowadays, but the continued isolation in-house is the more difficult to take.  Especially is there is an element of age discrimination added to the mix!

The Catalan lesson on line was an unmitigated disaster.  My basic problem comes form the fact that in Google Meet my computer stubbornly refuses to recognize that my in-built microphone works.  In other programs of a meeting nature it has no problems but with Google Meet, although it allows my camera to work it does not extend that courtesy to my mic.

     I attempted to rectify the mic. problem by using my mobile phone as the audio component and my Mac as the screen.  This was a bad thing to do not only because I could not read the screen within a screen within a screen on the mobile phone as it was tiny, but also because electronically having both devices on produced the most appalling caterwauling interference.

     Then there was the attempt for all two of us in the class (sic) to try and open the pages that would give us the work that we had to complete before Friday.  We couldn’t find the bit to click on and eventually, after what could only be described as a painful attempt to get us all on the same page, we were sent a new link to get to the page.  That failed.  We were then sent via email the page in question with space for us to complete our homework.  That failed.

      I have done my homework, but I sent it as a separate file via email.  We will have to see how this develops!  At least we have a week to prepare for our next on line lesson.

     It will not be time enough!