Monday 3 January 2011

More signs of the times

A pair of insane Norfolk signs. First up, one telling you that the 20mph zone you have just travelled through is ending and you are now entering a, er, 20mph zone:


What's more insane is that the sign is at the head of a short residential street that's a dead-end and only ever has room for one car at a time. The chances of you reaching even 10mph are quite small.

And then there's this gem, alongside the long-distance path that clings to the sea wall as it stretches for long, desolate miles around the edge of the Fens, separating that marshy land from the battering assaults of The Wash and the North Sea:


Here's the sign in context, on a fenced section of the path at West Lynn:


What I love is that the Council felt compelled to warn the wearers of stiletto heels that this long-distance coastal path may be unsuitable for such footwear. And went to the trouble of designing a rather elegant warning symbol:


What other improbable hazards should they be warning of?
  • That the trailing edges of full-length ball-gowns may snag on sharp edges?
  • That bustles may not fit through the narrower sections of the route?
  • Or, I dunno, that the release of nuclear explosions is prohibited under the general regulations governing the use of long-distance coastal paths?
You've gotta love Norfolk.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think what people miss when they see signs like this, is that its not a sign of 'Nanny state' 'Elfs and safety.' all gone mad, its clearly something much worse.

People paid out of the public purse to do worthless jobs, how many man hours and paid people had to be used to put that shop there, the council, the sigh company, the people who put it place.

Its a case of creating jobs out of thin air and the result is stupid and it shows.

In the past money was spent lavishly on gas and water works with amazing pieces of artful iron work and tiles, this didn't come out of creating jobs for the sake of it, it came out of pride.

How anyone could be proud of that dribble.

LeDuc said...

Blimey, you are even crosser than me!

One thought, though: was it pride, or arrogance? A conspicuous display of wealth by the local councillors as a way of reinforcing their own status (if my town hall is so lavish, that shows I am the councillor of somewhere really important and, thus, am really important myself)?

Although I do like your idea of a "sigh company"...

Niall said...

I think they are both worthy of their existence for the sheer hilarity!
I mean it encourages you to respect the "authorities" doesn't it! LMAO!! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Before patients had access to their records Doctors might have classified the perpetrators as NFN - meaning 'Normal for Norfolk'. Don't these idiotic petty bureaucrats drive you mad, and their inflated salaries even madder? Tomorrow, following the cold weather, these very people will probably send the Police helicopter to photograph and chart the potholes in the roads meticulously onto their computer screens, then bugger off for a chat & a cup of tea and do nothing about the wretched potholes. Bahhhh

Anonymous said...

Strange as it might seem, perhaps a sign is necessary to help the woefully ignorant. Many years ago I was hiking a section of the Applachian Trail in New Jersey at the Delaware Water Gap. The name should imply steep rocky hills, which is what one still finds today. One lovely spring Sunday there were more than several women in various groups walking in heels on the steep rocky trail. I didn't check local statistics for female ankle injuries that day, but I can only begin to imagine that there was a "spike".