21 July (Part 1) - The hate list
I used to think it was terribly bad form to hate someone or something and I never did. Obviously I had to make an
exception for a certain estate agent but there was only ever that one until
fairly recently. How things can change in little over a year.
At the risk of instant arrest I am happy to say I very definitely hate Sadiq Khan and Keir
Starmer and I have come to think I am in good company. Not very far behind is
those parts of Bexley Council which have anything to do with roads and
transport, and of course, everyone’s bête noire,
Thames Water.
I have a visitor every Monday morning and not for the first time she was on arrival
incandescent with rage about Crook Log being closed again. It cannot be much of
an exaggeration to say that Bexley Council has allowed that junction to be closed for approximately half of this year.
This gives me a problem. My visitor drives perfectly competently and knows the
rules relating to Yellow Box Junctions but for some reason stares straight ahead
and doesn’t always see them. I have carefully contrived a route home for her which
avoids all YBJs but by closing the Crook Log Brampton Road route Bexley Council
forces her over one on the way to me and two on the return journey. I suspect
it is a money inspired policy. (Actually we know it is because it has twice been admitted in Council meetings.)
I have taken to escorting her back as far as Danson Road to ensure she gets home
without a penalty. I did so again today and wasted precisely 60 minutes because I
stopped off to take photos before catching a B12 and SL3 home.
Sure enough it was the bloody awful Thames Water who will be disrupting life in
Bexley all week. No one was working there of course and there is no reason at all why the
road could not be partially open. In fact the traffic lights are there alongside a perfectly usable southbound carriageway.
Click image for a bigger view.
My return journey was fairly swift because I checked the time of the next
SuperLoop while on the B12 and alighted at Lion Road and crossed the road to
wait at
the stop which Councillor John Davey (Conservative, West Heath) is campaigning to have closed. About which more later.
For a waft of cannabis smoke, the west bound Lion Road stop is hard to beat.