28.10.19 The planes! The planes!

*

Monday 28th 40-46F, cool but bright and clear start. Walked to the lanes. A very large bird of prey was completely spoiling the sense of scale and proportion of the landscape. What looked like a buzzard was wheeling over it. Making it look even larger. The larger bird became fed up with the attention and sailed off across the countryside. This excitement was followed by an early ride to the shops. The sky is becoming more cloudy now. Only 7 miles.

Tuesday 29th 33-46F  Frost on the grass. Bright and cloud free for a change. Walked to the lanes. It was a mostly sunny day.

Wednesday 30th 29-45F, calm and bright. With a crisp, white frost on the grass, surfaces and hedges. Though it didn't feel particularly cold on my walk to the lanes. Except when vehicles passed and provided some unwanted wind chill. The ponds on the fields are reducing steadily. The wind turbines were standing still. Not ideal when the country needs the electricity for heating.

Thursday 31st, 39-46F, rather cloudy. Only a little sun promised for today but a warmer start. The sun did manage to break through but it was going to be a struggle given the amount of cloud. Five airliners went over towing vapour trails. All coming from the same direction but only slightly staggered in timing. Whatever happened to video conferencing?

Click on any image for an enlargement.

*

26.10.2019 CO2 makes the planet greener?

*

Saturday 26th 54-56F, very dark, heavy overcast, heavy rain and gales. I could hear a roar outside during the night. The DMI forecast is for all day rain. Or for only a few showers from commercial TV2. Just the daily, eany, meany, miney mo. A good day for a walk to test my new weatherproofing. My wife now insists I wear a bright yellow, reflective armband, with flashing red diodes. With 4000 habitual drunks still driving in Denmark I may need some of their promised therapy if I'm not light on my feet! 

The main problems are the 45 degree concrete verge blocks on the blind corners. I am nimble enough to leap up and over them but only when there is a useful grass verge behind them. I get a wave from a few drivers for giving them the room to make their own mistakes.

Though I rarely get any reaction from the 7-axle, freight lorry drivers when I save them from having to drive out and around me. Particularly when there is oncoming traffic. I have to monitor the traffic in both directions and take to the verge accordingly. No point in claiming your 1.5 meters of lawful clearance. Not if that 1.5m is a wooden box which has to be filled with a shovel! You'd be shocked and amazed at how many cars never change their course towards you. Zombie drivers are as common as drunk drivers it seems.Would it be a stretch to suggest that there are far more drunk drivers than those who are caught?

The huntsmen had gathered around the copses for their Saturday morning pheasant shoot. I heard only three shots in half an hour before they were walking back to their cars in the lane. My waterproofs proved to be just that in the windy, drizzly weather. Still mild at 55F. Fortunately, all is well with the world because CO2 makes the planet greener. [According to a Danish politician.] No names. No pack drill.

Sunday 27th 44-46F, calm and bright start but cooler. It was a bit breezy beyond the defensive hedges of Chez Hovel, as I walked to the village and back. There was not a soul about with the clocks having gone back. To which end, The Head Gardener has decreed that we must avoid the stresses and strains of such major clock adjustment. The stable clock, by which the staff are guided through their daily routines, shall only be decremented by five minutes per day. Until, that is, The Staff Timetable has finally caught up [or rather down?] with this new-fangled, Daylight Saving Time. Life was so much easier when we were ruled by the sun dial in the Vegetable Garden. You could set your watch by it. If you had one.

No rain forecast by either competitor but heavy showers carried on after lunch into the afternoon.

*

25.10.1919. Definitely NOT a DUTCH cycle bridge!

 *

Friday 25th 52F, breezy with a very rough sky. In celebration of my very first pair of new, waterproof trousers in over 50 years, several spots of rain hit me on my walk. I was slowed by a headwind in the lanes but soldiered bravely on. There were even brief flashes of sunshine, but somehow, I survived. One forecast says dry but grey all day. The other forecaster says rain all day. Who are you supposed to believe? How do I know how to dress for my walk? So far, it has been a day of cloud, sunshine and only a very few, short showers. It finally cleared to sunshine after 16.00.

The Danish news is that they have spent over 100 million, Danish taxpayer's Kroner on a bicycle bridge in København. Only they carefully arranged it so that 120,000 cyclists, per day, and 10,000 pedestrians must cross each other's traffic streams on a pedestrian crossing! They also make cyclists wait at several red lights! Dogh? Dugh? That's Danish Janteloven [Jante's Law] for you. They should have asked the Dutch how to do it properly!

The road designers responsible should be named and shamed on TV. Then they should be sentenced to 10 years of continuous use of this disaster area crossing. The "authorities" who approved the layout can join them! What is the betting that these "overqualified" road engineers and highly paid administrators all drive [taxpayer funded] "Ministerial" limousines and never go anywhere near a bicycle? They should all be made personally responsible for compensating all and every victim of personal injuries directly caused by their piss poor "professional" misconduct!

The following  video [link below] is from the Danish TV2 station. Which typically [for TV news] relies entirely on "head and shoulders" interviews. Rather than actually showing the real problems. Well, how else are they to make the overpaid interviewer [TV journalist] the real star of the TV news story? Note the standard "walk on" part as she approaches the camera in her designer outfit? No TV journalist may ever stand still while on camera. It is written in stone somewhere outside the Hollywood School of TV FILM STAR Journalism in East London.

I am shocked and dumbfounded that the presenter didn't actually climb onto a bicycle and wobble across the road just to prove she is as good as any BBC news "film star" TV journalist. It is standard behaviour, written into the contract in Gravely Bighted, that every news presenter must attempt the activities of the "underling" [aka: member of the public] about which the news story is really supposed to be.

BBC TV journalists have never knowingly been up-staged. Not even by daring lunar astronauts and parachute-free, high altitude, naked, sky divers. If somebody has just surfaced from the depths of the ocean, after spending ten years underwater, the TV journalist must also descend to even greater depths.

It all started with the Torrey Canyon disaster. A local TV News "Journo" was on shore, 17 miles from the burning wreck out at sea. With no film to prove his omnipotent presence [as the outside broadcast film star] at the scene, he literally climbed into a rowing boat. And, was then filmed bobbing about in the fishing harbour while he talked urgently to the camera. I kid you not! The scene is indelibly seared into my mind.

I'm still looking forwards to the first public arrival of a UFO. Which will be completely invisible behind a solid wall of animated, arm waving "international film star" TV journalists. All with their backs to the UFO [and the friendly but confused aliens descending the invisible staircase] while the journalists talk urgently to their cameras. All the while holding up dead, furry mammals and demanding to know how it will affect The Markets. Or their own dictator's/president's chances of re-election. Or the Perp's likely reaction. Or, even, the outcome of a local football match. The latter is by far the most likely. Take my word for it.

Here you go: [at last]

Cykelbro til over 100 millioner skaber kaos - TV 2 - Cycle bridge for over 100 million causes chaos.

*