Two discussion topics - one for 2007 and one for 1987

[emmelinemay]

2007 - This morning on my cycle to work I saw some spak-tacular cycling. Two cyclists who navigated between a dirty industrial HGV and a double decker bus in slow moving traffic. The gap was barely wider than my shoulders, too narrow to cycle, so they both pushed themselves through with one foot on the floor.

And then later, a cyclist who decided to overtake me with inches to spare as I was already overtaking a parked lorry, and therefore already practically in the right hand lane.

Cyclists - we're our own worst enemies. Discuss.

1987 - 20 years ago this month Michael Fish said 'don't worry, there's no hurricane, but it will be very windy, mostly in spain". And then the very next day, this happened.. Most websites claim that Mr Fish was technically correct, as although the wind speeds got up to hurricane force, 'hurricane' is a term used to describe storms that develop in the tropics, and 'The Great Storm of 1987' wasn't technically a hurricane. However, seeing as your average person watching the weather probably doesn't know this, and Mr Fish said 'It will be quite windy, mostly in Spain' I think the 'technically' is the important part of the sentence 'Michael Fish was technically correct'...

You can see Michael Fish's finest hour on you tube.

I remember the storms very clearly. I was 9, and the area where I lived was hit pretty hard - trees down, schools closed (yay!), flooding (we lived on the coast) and incredible scenes of monster waves.

Do you remember 'The Great Storm"?

Comments

[bluekieran.livejournal.com]

I remember walking home from school after we got sent home early, watching wheelie bins being blown down the street. It was pretty cool.

[glamgothruthy.livejournal.com]

yeah i remember - my parents picked me up from 'youth club' and i got blown from the door across the car park to the car... and i remember lots of trees down..

[s0b.livejournal.com]

I got the bus into work the next day and we had to stop several times to move trees out of the way. There was a man on the top deck with a chainsaw!

The following day I went into Highgate Woods and found it had changed. Trees that I had known since I was a child were uprooted and the old railway track that ran along the side of the woods had turned into a maze.
.
I climed to the top of a fallen oak tree and got wasted

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

You did the only sensible thing, in the circumstances.

[elle-is-for.livejournal.com]

I remember knowing more about cycling laws and the highway code age 9 (when I was on the road safety quiz team - yes really) and doing my cycling profficiency than I feel I do now.
can you do an adult cycling proficieny? if so I really think it should be a bit more mandatory than it is. because it's the silly businessmen cycling to work who do appalling things like that and give real cyclists a bad name. did I just say it's the XXXX that give decent law abiding YYYs a bad name"? god shoot me and post me tot he daily mail offices....

also, I was very upset by the Great Storms of 87 becase my favourite climbing tree in the park was blown over onto my favourite hill to recklessly freewheel down. a double whammy of fun-removal :-(

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I would have cried if I lost my favourite tree and favourite hill in one go.

You can do cycling proficiency as an adult, yes, and I think it's even free in many boroughs, as is cycle training. I'm not so sure about making it compulsory though, as that would probably put a lot of people off cycling. A better work-around would probably be giving the police powers to make people attend cycling proficiency if someone is caught for bad cycling. Think of all the couriers, brilliant but dangerous, being forced to attend cycling proficiency. I'd laugh!

[elle-is-for.livejournal.com]

A better work-around would probably be giving the police powers to make people attend cycling proficiency if someone is caught for bad cycling.
yes I think you're probably right there. is it true you can get points taken off your driving license if you're caught cycling under the influence?

[jimthegoth.livejournal.com]

The charge is drunk in charge of a vehicle which is an automatic ban.

A cycle certainly counts as a vehicle, which would leave you in the odd position of getting caught while drunk on a bike, getting banned, which would mean you couldn't drive a car or ride a motorbike, but could still cycle!

Mind you finding a magistrate that would remove your license for being Drunk on a bycycle would be pretty hard.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I can't cycle drunk AT ALL - i'm very impressed with people who can. I passed a girl on holloway road once who was weaving across the bus lane, no lights, no helmet, with a glass of baileys in one hand.

[alabastamasta.livejournal.com]

Now *that's* talent :)

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

she definitely had the drunk-cycling-fu

[mark13.livejournal.com]

I used to cycle home from Cambridge at night, pissed out of my skull, with a pint of snakebite-n-black in my hand, down pitch dark winding country roads, without lights, whilst wearing long black leather coat, New Rocks and sunglasses.

And I never fell off...






...more than three or four times a night.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I don't know - that would seem a bit unfair though, as if you don't have a driving licence there's not that penalty.

I did have some driving lessons, but I HATED being behind the wheel, I hated being in the car, and being responsible for this great big machine. I felt uncomfortable not being able to see the wheels turn and the road beneath me. I'd be a TERRIBLE driver, I know this. The instructor even said 'it's ok, some people just aren't meant to drive.'

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Cyclists - hell, yes. No lane discipline, no signals, no lifesaver checks. Just this smug bloody attitude that they're invincible because they've a luminous weskit and saving the environment thus allowed to ignore any part of the highway code (and, y'know, basic bloody physics) they see fit. Twats.

The great storm - not as such. I probably had a hangover and a computer to fix somewhere grim and industrial. I don't think the SW was as badly affected as some places.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the south west escaped a lot of the worst damage, but we still had trees down and flooding and stuff. And some schools closing!

Seeing how other people cycle makes me almost embarrassed to be a cyclist. I was sat next to a taxi while I was behind the bus and the HGV waiting for it to be safe to move on, and when I saw the first cyclist go though i was shaking my head; at the second one the taxi driver caught my eye and was rolling his eyes and gesturing at them in solidarity. That doesn't happen often!! I think a lot of the smugness is 'you think you're so safe inyour metal box, while I risk my LIFE to SAVE THE PLANET AND BE HEALTHIER.' Some cyclists seem to think that as cars are more dangerous and drivers are safer, that they should give way to everything, and that cyclists are always in the right.

Twats indeed.

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

I slept through the hurricane. With my window open. Can't remember what the hell I was doing that evening, just getting up to look out the window to see trees down and bits of roof tiles, etc, on the street.

Re cyclists, I'm sure most of them are quite nice law abiding people, etc. One tends to notice the other ones and there's plenty of those round here, cycling at speed on pavements full of people (through the busy bus stop outside my door, for instance), running red lights, zooming across pedestrian crossings so one has to jump out of their way. Say something to one and you get back a torrent of abuse... I've mentioned this before, I fear them way more when I'm walking than when I'm driving: you can see much more of what is around you when you're in the car, you can't when you're a pedestrian.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

we had pe the day the storm started and were told to run round the sports field multiple times, which was almost impossible when into the wind, but great with it hehind us as we just jumped in the air and let the wind push us along..

I think we had over a week off of school as every road was blocked and the entire town was cut off for ages.

As for cyclists, like everything a percentage (and not a particually small one) give us a terrible name. A combination of incompetant people with no road awareness or knowledge for hte highway code and the overconfident arrogent ones who believe themselves to be above the law and everyone else owes them a favour.

[angel-emma.livejournal.com]

Yes I remember it very clearly. I was 16 and had been into town for a job interview at a recording studio and on the way home was chucked out at Finchley Central as the tubes were then overground and they couldn't go any further. I walked home in the wind about 4 miles and hated every minute of it!

[poggs.livejournal.com]

I remember the storm.

Reflecting upon it, I'm also surprised that people thought that knowing about it only a few hours in advance would make much of a difference. I mean, we'd still have our fence knocked over, we'd still have trees uprooted...

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

There are precautions though, especially in coastal towns. Many of the houses where my Dad lived were flooded, which would have been prevented with fore-knowledge and the chance to put down sandbags at the door.

Other things like reinforcing windows keeping pets/cars/bikes indoors, not making journeys unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary - the normal things one does in the even of a severe weather warning.

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

I remember the time clearly, but it didn't really touch Manchester. Although my boss at the time was travelling back from London that night and got quite delayed.

[green-badger.livejournal.com]

The Great Storm didn't affect up north at all, as I recall.

[elle-is-for.livejournal.com]

oh it so did! I was living in Leeds at the time - see above for what I remember of it....

[green-badger.livejournal.com]

I take it back! Maybe I was just too far north (Northumberland) but I don't remember there being any damage at all.

[elle-is-for.livejournal.com]

ah, no Northumberland is quite a bit further north than Leeds, I retract!

[alabastamasta.livejournal.com]

You remember the roof coming off Wesminster Lodge?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

hehe - yeah! I'd forgotten about that!

I lived in Devon then, but my grandparents where in St Albans so we came up to visit a fair bit.

I remember when the flumes opened too, and they were a really big deal back then!

[mark13.livejournal.com]

Yep, our cherry tree was the only one in our close still standing next morning - wearing bits of a lot of other trees (which must be the tree equivalent of standing too close when someone else steps on a landmine).

And re. cyclists, yes, yes you are indeed. This morning, guy on a bike pulled the most optimistic pull-out manouevre onto Tottenham Court Road, got nudged by a van that could not possibly have avoided him, and fell off in a heap. I went over to help him up and got an earful, as did the worried van driver who was asking if he was ok.

[gothicfreakgrrl.livejournal.com]

I was four, so I don't remember it at all to be honest, but my parents have talked about it since, and apparently I slept through it, which says something about me, I think. From what I remember my mum saying, there were power cuts in our area (Medway, in Kent), and a fair few trees down. I can remember cycling past broken tree stumps when I was a bit older and being told that was because of the hurricane.

As fir cycling, I was my own worst enemy, as I once (aged about 9) put my front brake on going down a hill and made a bit of a mess of myself. lol
There's a bike in very poor repair in my back garden, that I'm considering fixing up having fixed up though, I miss going for bike rides. I'm just wondering if it wouldn't just be cheaper to buy a new one second hand. I had a go of my other half's bike when he got it new recently, it's true, you don't forget how to ride :)

[sepheri.livejournal.com]

I was 7 during The Great Storm and was nearly killed by a roof tile flying off the roof of my school while I was on the way to the toilet!

[fugitivemotel.livejournal.com]

I remember the great storm. Lots of trees fell over near my house and I didn't get in to school till after lunch! It was ace.

Anyway, hello! My name is Stef. I have added you to my flist, as I saw your comments on brain_opera's journal, and you seem interesting and we seem to have several things in common, namely:

-I was born in deepest darkest Hertfordshire in 1978.
-I come from a broken home and have two half-siblings.
-Who live in St Albans, with my Dad, and a cat and dog.
-I went through years of depression and agoraphobia but finally recovered thanks to therapy and CBT.
-I lived in Stoke Newington and now live in Finsbury Park.
-I cycle to work, and participated in the Hovis Freewheel.

etc. So that's exciting, isn't it?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

we're practically twins!!

[fugitivemotel.livejournal.com]

Yes! Ah, good old St Albans. A few years ago I was playing a gig at the Horn, and I was playing pool beforehand, and this girl came up to me and started talking to me and then asked if she could play, too. I thought "Ooh I quite fancy her, I could be in there" and then we talked a bit and I asked her if she worked in St Albans and she said "No I go to school here, I'm at STAGS" and it turned out she was in the year above my sister, who was about 14 at the time, and I felt sick and wrong and OLD.

Anyway, I keep my photos at whoyouwanted so you're welcome to add that too, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

hahaha!! The Horn eh? When it changed from the Horn to the Horn Reborn a bunch of my mates and me were waiting outside for a lift to london to see a band, and one of the bar staff asked us (assorted goths and indie scene kids) to move around the corner as we were 'worrying the people in the pub'. In the HORN.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

The dragon-fire tree in my parent's front garden came down, and blocked the car on the drive - I remember trying to haul it enough out of the way so that Dad could drive us to school, and Amanda in my class - her budgie died of shock when a window in her house blew in ...