Random Musings » MaFt's Musings

On Saturday I called to a Tesco Local while Mrs-MaFt and Mini-Mrs-MaFt were at dancing class. We didn’t need much - just a newspaper, some cat food and some sweets for the kids. When I got to the till the till operator – hang on… till OPERATOR?! Glorified name or what?! How hard is it to ‘operate’ a till?! Scan – Beep – Scan – Beep – Card – PIN – Kerching! Anyway, I digress, the ‘valued Tesco employee’ then asked if I was “stocking up for tonight’s snow”. Hang on, I was buying a newspaper, some cat food and some sweets – just one of each item. This is NOT stocking up! To me, stocking up implies buying a lot of each item, not just one!

More to the point, do I actually LOOK like someone who lives off of cat food and sweets?

Big Umbrella There’s one thing that I hate more than anything else. Well, actually there are loads of things that I hate but for the sake of a simplified blog post there’s just the one!

What is it that gets me wound up so much?! You may be able to guess from the title and, no, it’s not Rhianna (although chart music does feature in my full list) it’s people who insist on wearing umbrellas at the slightest drop of rain. Come on, we live in England, we should be used to a bit of rain; a lot of rain perhaps. Your hair and clothes will dry and God was clever enough to make your skin waterproof.

Well, Christmas is done (and boy was it hectic!) – expect the run-down of cracker jokes early in the new year when I have a bit more time!

Have a good one tonight!

MaFt

Place names are usually fairly descriptive, for example Hill Top Road is a road at the top of a hill; Hill Top Fisheries is a Chippy at the top of a hill; Little John’s Kebab Hut is a kebab hut owned by a man called John who happens to be vertically challenged.

So, from that, what would you expect Four Lane Ends and Five Lane Ends to be? Logically it would be the point where 4/5 lanes meet, perhaps at a roundabout or at a traffic light controlled junction…? Well, you’d be wrong for thinking that! Here they are:

As you can see, Four Lane Ends would be better off called “One Lane Goes Through and Two Others End” and Five Lane Ends is clearly “Six Lane Ends”…

I wonder if it’s worth starting a one-man campaign to get their names changed?

MaFt

There’s a large amount of building work going on in one of the building’s where I work. Walking past it earlier today I noticed that they’ve literally taken out the whole of the ground floor with only a couple of supporting columns holding up the ceiling and the 5 floors of concrete-building above it.

Now, anyone who has played Jenga knows that the less support there is on the bottom, the higher the chance of the tower falling over. Take figure 1, below:

Photo couresy of http://youth.hayhill.org/blog/2004/200407/20040716/jenga.jpg

Of the two remaining blocks on the bottom, if the right-hand one was removed the tower would balance, perhaps rather precariously, but it would balance. If one were to remove the left-hand block then, quite clearly, the tower would collapse and everyone would mock the rubbish player and make them rebuild the tower for the next game.

Now, I am not a professional builder (if you’re interested I am, in fact, a Biological Research Technician at the University of Leeds) but to me it seems as though by removing the ground floor of the building they have essentially ‘removed the left-hand block’. I sure as hell hope they know what they’re doing…

MaFt