The Life and Times of Neil

Well, is it weird. I’m having trouble thinking of a decent title for this post…

They say you should never talk about sex, religion or politics. However, every now and then a story appears that you just can’t help but have a giggle at.

My attention was recently drawn to the BBC headline ‘No God’ slogans for city’s buses. The story itself sounds fairly straight-forward… We’ve all seen the religious advertising out and about, so a campaign group decided to attempt to raise money to put forward the atheist/agnostic point of view in a set of adverts on some of London’s infamous bendy-buses.

First point of interest is that the campaign only set out to raise £5,500 but actually managed to raise six-and-a-half times this amount. Was this a case of underestimating, or is it a sign that as a nation we are starting to tire of religious debate dogging our daily lives?

But the part that made me laugh was the response from Christian Voice:
“Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.

I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.

People don’t like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don’t like it.”

So let’s take it a line at a time…

Why are bendy-buses a danger to the public at large? For that matter, why is atheism? Surely a free society is about letting people choose; and when did you last hear of atheists persecuting other religious orders?

Given the amount of public support that is suggested by the size of the donations, I’d be very surprised if these adverts attract graffiti. In fact, if we stereotype for a moment and say that the people most likely to graffiti these adverts are the “yoof” of today, I’d say Christian Voice adverts are more likely to fall victim given how organised religion is becoming less and less important to today’s young people. And anyway, so what if the ads attract graffiti… This is a risk of any advertising!

But it was the last line that actually made me laugh… That people don’t like to be preached at… I’m sorry, but how many time do you see Christian groups advertising on billboards? How many “nutters” (and I use that term in an affectionate way) do you see in town and city centres spouting on about how we need to turn to Christianity to save our souls? Now think how many times you’ve seen an advert or heard someone preaching about how there is no “supreme deity”… Still thinking on that last one, aren’t you?

At the end of the day, in the UK your religion is a personal choice. I, personally, am quite happy for you to believe what you want; just as long as you don’t force your ideals on me or judge me for my own beliefs. Yes, religious debate can get emotional, but the fact that we can have these debates and challenge each other is surely a good thing; just as long as we don’t then go around feeding each other to the lions!

I think Christian Voice have probably done themselves a certain amount of harm and opened themselves to a great deal of ridicule with their reaction as it implies they feel that only Christianity should be allowed and that any debate on the matter should not be allowed. Yes they say “Sometimes it does them good,” but isn’t that just like saying “I’m not a [sexist|racist|etc] BUT…”?

And just remember, this is a country where 0.7% of the population claim their religion is… “Jedi Knight”! [2001 Census Report]

Posted October 23, 2008 Comments(0)

Ok, so recently I’ve had to do a few trips back to my spiritual home of Blackpool. Part of this ritual involves the M6 between junctions 38 and 33 or 32 (depends on exactly where am visiting).

Generally speaking, I don’t like driving, but the M6 is, generally speaking, fairly pleasant. It’s a 3-lane stretch of motorway with good long stretches between junctions, generally free flowing and has some lovely scenery. It does experience hideous weather sometimes (windscreen wipers on “Apocalyptic Doom” speed, headlights on, rear fog lights on, 40mph and can still see barely 10m in front of you!) but I can’t really grumble about people on that occasions. In fact, people were being sensible for a change.

Anyway, I digress… As I said above, this stretch of M6 is 3-lanes in each direction. Common sense, and general teaching tells us that we stay in the left-hand lane, moving across lanes in order to overtake slower moving vehicles. This is certainly how I was taught and how I drive, and it works nicely.

However, there is a minority of drivers out there who think differently… These are the centre lane hogs. Imagine the motorway is quiet: the dead of night and there’s no-one else ahead of you for miles. You’re holding a nice 70mph on the left-hand lane. Suddenly, you notice a car slowly catching you from behind… Slowly. They always seem to do about 75mph, these centre lane hogs. Eventually, they pass you. Ahead of you and behind you, there’s no-one else on the road. As you’re thinking about other road users as well as yourself you expect them to pull over into the left-hand lane ahead of you. But no… They stay in the middle lane.

Now; this may not sound too bad. And in that situation it’s perhaps not. The main problem is when they stick to this idea on slightly busier roads. So let’s turn out attention to the more usual scenario. Once again, you’re in the left-hand lane holding a nice steady 70mph, but there’s a lorry up ahead which you are going to need to overtake. You check your mirrors, and there is one car behind you. He’s in the centre lane, of course. You can see he is gaining on you, doing 75mph as they always do. You also notice the right-hand lane is empty, and there is no other traffic behind either of you. Realising this means there is enough road for all 3 of you you signal your intention to move to the right, and then do so. You’re expecting the driver behind you to move over into the right-hand lane to overtake you.

WRONG!

Instead, the driver maintains his 75mph until he is almost up your exhaust pipe. He then sits there, following you much closer than the 2 seconds we were all taught as drivers. You maintain your 70mph, now overtaking the lorry. You get a safe distance in front of the lorry and decide it’s now safe to move back over to the left-hand lane; so you signal. Immediately you can tell the vehicle behind is starting to speed up; forcing you to move over quicker than you may have planned (Yes… How many drivers think the person in front is really going to move over as soon as their rear bumper has passed the front bumper of whatever they’re overtaking, and at an 89degree angle??? I will move over when *I* think it is safe and at an angle *I* think is safe… You can wait!) And now, the centre lane hog who has had to slow down to follow you speeds off into the distance, still in the centre lane.

Look, if you really want to travel at 75mph, don’t let me stop you… This is what the good Yeadon (ok, maybe not him personally, but he’s the only road design-related person I can think of, and lives/lived near Blackpool) gave us the 3rd lane for. Why don’t you use it?

Of course, the 2nd place the centre lane hog becomes a hazard (possibly more so than above) is that they are so eager to obtain their deity-given right to be in that lane when they join the motorway that many of them don’t even consider looking to see what is already there. I’m thinking about *YOU* who nearly cut me up on the M6 on my last journey! And of course, when they want to leave the motorway, who is it who causes all the phantom traffic jams… The centre lane hog who won’t give up that lane until the junction off-slip is about to stop cutting across whatever is in the left-hand lane to get off the motorway, causing much slamming on of brakes.

If any of you out there are centre lane hogs, please feel free to try and justify your actions. I hear there is a school of thought that says that the centre lane is the safest place to be as you have 2 lanes to dive into in an emergency. However, I’d counter this by pointing out you (generally speaking – it is a legal requirement for a motorway, as I understand it) have a hard shoulder next to the left-hand lane to use. In fact, if you suffered a blow-out or engine cut-out, the left-hand lane is probably the best place to be as you can easily get onto the hard shoulder without having to cut across other traffic. And if you’re looking well ahead of you and thinking further ahead than your front bumper, you should be able to spot potential dangers (I admit not all are pre-emptable) and take appropriate precautions.

Anyway, spleen vented! I have more trips to Blackpool to come, so I shall be mounting the roof cannon once it arrives, ready to punish the centre lane hogs!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Posted October 18, 2008 Comments(0)