The Rheinube River Ramble Part 6

We are now back in merry England – York – after a slightly longer than expected drive down from Nairn. Nigella the satnav lady and various roundabouts, especially around Perth (Scotland not Western Australia – we weren’t that lost) conspired to send us in the wrong direction numerous times but we got here in the end. Incidentally, the CB thinks the satnav lady sounds like Theresa May. I much prefer Nigella.

Now that we are here I can safely say I have never seen so many speed cameras – the ones that calculate your average speed. In the three hours or so driving south from Nairn on the A roads before hitting the motorways we passed one every few miles. I am not exaggerating. They were everywhere. If the UK government cut the speed camera construction budget in half they’d be able to house the homeless. And show me a politician who won’t say they are there for road safety reasons. Of course they are. And everywhere else in the world.

In my previous post I commented on the paucity of economic activity in Scotland, especially the Highlands. I forgot the speed cameras which are probably their biggest revenue earner. This epitomises why I could never be a politician. To stand in front of a camera (of the filming variety) and say with a straight face that speed cameras are a road safety initiative is not something I am willing to do. In fact I often look at politicians (pick a country, it doesn’t matter which) and wonder how they can say what they say and expect that we, the great unwashed, will believe them. I’d be hanging over a toilet bowel puking with embarrassment if I was required to mouth the sanctimonious claptrap they come out with on a regular basis with nary a smirk.

I need to write something with a bit more substance than speed cameras and politicians. Did I mention windmills. No no. Get back to you tomorrow after a day in York.

Being in York means being in crowds again. On a walk round the Minster last evening we saw many flag waving tour guides surrounded by posses of gawking tourists from all over the world. And gawk-worthy York Minster most certainly is. We saw nature’s majesty in the Highlands of Scotland and here we saw an example of man’s ingenuity and a gothic engineering feat hard to reconcile with the time of construction.

The crowds reminded me of one of those useless statistics that you occasionally hear and which I am guilty of using myself (see A Toe-Hold on Insanity). At the Loch Ness Visitor’s Centre we are told that the world’s population can fit into Loch Ness three times over. I once worked out that if you gave every person in the world 100 square metres of land you could get everyone into two thirds of Queensland. So don’t tell me the world’s over populated. It’s under utilised. It’s not over-population (or climate) that causes famines, it’s people, specifically despotic scumbag politicians. How did we get back to them again?

And with crowds come things the British have come to be famous for and have developed considerable expertise in – queues. Imagine the refinement of this cultural imperative if an unreconstructed old communist like Jeremy Corbyn takes over and empties the shops of anything worth buying. Anyway, the CB and I haven’t had a good queue since the Peak Tram in Hong Kong over a week ago so it was good to get back to civilisation outside the Viking Centre, one of the very many interesting historical York attractions including 400 year old pubs – now that’s history worth studying.