Friday, July 25, 2008
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ON THE ROAD TO LAS VECTIS

By Charlotte Hofton - Friday, April 25, 2008
THE VIEW FROM HERE
A STUDY concludes too many road signs can make driving more dangerous, with visual distractions pushing up the number of accidents.
This will be of no interest to our council, intent as it is on cluttering our highways with a vast and confusing jumble of signs, vandalising the natural beauty of the Island in the process.
It is especially pleased with the new speed signs, which are pulsating and flashing to such an extent we should perhaps be twinned with Las Vegas.
So far, it has put up 120 of these signs, and is tremendously proud the installation bill was under budget. It thought it might cost the council taxpayer £760,000 but we only had to stump up £520,000, so that’s all right.
Some motorists are being very naughty and driving deliberately fast to activate the signs. This will do them no good, as such wickedness is being monitored and speed cameras will be installed where necessary.
As a Matt cartoon had it last week, “Since the pub and post office shut, the surveillance camera is the hub of village life.”
The Island knows the feeling.

IT'S TIME TO GIVE UP SMOKING
THE view from the Island across The Solent is magnificent on a good day. Blue skies, azure sea, yachts bobbing about.
However, those admiring this vista in the recent spring sunshine have frequently been alarmed by a thick pall of stinking black smoke, obscuring Portsmouth and frightening old ladies into thinking the Island is under attack.
Those not diving for cover have eventually observed a Wightlink Fastcat emerging from the miasma on its way out of Ryde, depositing massive clouds of belching pollution around our shores.
Wightlink has embarked on a major programme of investment, promising to replace the Fastcats next year with eco-friendly vessels. This is good but in the meantime we must apparently put up with environmental contamination on a scale that would surely not be permitted if it were perpetrated by a land-based organisation or individual, particularly not over the course of a year or more to come.
Wightlink has pledged £57 million for investment. If it can swank about shelling out that much in future, perhaps it could spend whatever is necessary right now for one of their engineers to peer up the Fastcats’ flues and sort out the mess that’s inside.

SETTING THE CHILDREN ASIDE ISN'T WIZARD
A 1953 radio interview with Evelyn Waugh has been released by the British Library. It includes his views on his children.
“Thank God they don’t live with me,” he declared. “They’re most of them at school. I don’t see a great deal of them except in the holidays.”
Cue, half a century later, for horrified disapproval of Waugh’s disgraceful parenting. Modern authors, such as J. K. Rowling, would never say such things, would they?
Interestingly, J. K. Rowling was in a New York court last week, whining that some publisher was violating her precious works by printing a Harry Potter guide. She was moist-eyed when she was asked what Harry Potter meant to her. “It means setting aside my children, everything,” she said.
Children should not be set aside by their parents, certainly not because mummy is more interested in the imaginary goings-on at a non-existent school.
There is no difference in attitude between J. K. Rowling and Evelyn Waugh, except he wasn’t so neglectful of his children as to set them aside. No, he packed them off properly before attending to his writing.