Posted on 10/12/2013 11:05:09 AM PDT by Olog-hai
He is a passionate campaigner on green issues, and now Jeremy Irons has backed a campaign to ban lorries from the quaint Oxfordshire town where he lives.
The Oscar–winning actor has thrown his weight behind an action group to prevent HGVs using the narrow streets of Watlington as a rat-run between the M40 and M4.
The market town—reputedly the smallest in the country—is regularly snarled up with lorries whose drivers, looking for a shortcut between Oxford and Reading, are directed there by their satnavs. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Whew. St. Mary Mead is safe.
I don’t get what “butthurt” means. Is that smartass for “feelings hurt? or something?
Apart from the two choke points on Couching Street, that artery would normally have two well-defined lanes that allow trucks to pass each other. The buses usually use the one-way alternate of High Street and Gormwell Street instead of running two ways on Couching. And if these trucks are really going between Oxford and Reading, they wouldn’t go that way anyhow.
The M40 motorway is three miles away from the center of town. The old London Road (A40) runs parallel and also gets jammed up with the M40’s overflow Just what is Irons’ solution? He’s not proposing to pay out of pocket for a bypass around Watlington’s center.
Jolly ol’ England was built pre-automobile and many small villages have roads that were cow paths that have become a single car width. It is not that no road can accommodate trucks aka lorries, it is just that not all roads can. What happens is when a transit truck (big & cross-country), not a smaller local delivery truck, hears about a tie up on the ‘M’ (Major) roadway and being unfamiliar with the area, tries his GPS / Satnav for a detour.
Newer truck lines and GPS have vehicle categorization but older ones see no difference between a road that a Ford Fiesta can make and a road needed for the transit truck 50% wider. When the GPS first came into use by the trucking industry, the newspapers had fun with a big truck stuck after going miles down a road too small to turn around on.
Lots more signage has been added but when major blockages develop and contracts require specific delivery, things will get ‘tight’ and sometimes too tight! Getting these kind of things unstuck sounds much easier than reality and in the meantime the local residents are blocked themselves. Does not take more than a couple of these to make for firm attitudes of keep your cross-country shipping out of my town streets!
Blow up your TV, throw away your paper Go to the country, build you a home Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches Try an' find Jesus on your own(Your particular deity is optional)
From a song by John Prine
Well, I’m now marooned in the suburbs and I do have a little garden. No peaches, I’m afraid. My husband is allergic to them.
Yes. Believe me I know from allergies. And the burbs I live in was the edge of the country when I moved outta da Bronx in 1964. It quickly is becoming the ragged edge of the city without any of the benefits.
I would move to the “country” if not for my wife and her elderly parents. But if I do, do the country, it must be in the United States of America and not the great northeast socialist experiment. As John Cazale said to Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon when asked what country did he want to go to. His answer? ‘Wyoming’
Are you sure it saves fuel?
You have to take into account the speed, time (delays) and compare to longer highway route at a more efficient mileage.
I would guess the savings difference to be minimal.
It's like the old Yogi Berra joke -- "No one goes to that restaurant anymore: it's too crowded!"
Compared to being near-motionless on the highway, it certainly does save fuel.
Just watched Dog Day Afternoon. That’s one of my favorite moments in the movie. Poor, poor Sal! If I could get away (I’m stuck here because of my mother), I’d go down South.
Just watched Dog Day Afternoon. That’s one of my favorite moments in the movie. Poor, poor Sal! If I could get away (I’m stuck here because of my mother), I’d go down South.
Noise for thee, but not for me.
Theater prima donnas are noted for this sort of thing.
Personally, I love Jeremy Irons, a fabulously talented actor, but...
Someplace dry for me AZ, NM etc. but not the whole year. I spent a few weeks in May in AZ before it got really hot. 115 and I was off for parts north.
Snowbird status suits me...thus Wyoming or MT in the summer. I love Maine but the liberal disease has taken root from their neighbors in New Hampshire and Vermont. Vermont was gorgeous before all those Brooklyn “progressives” moved there to “change it”.
Good luck!
Methinks he is more concerned about his being inconvenienced driving about town than anything even close to “green”
Maine would be my choice but I hate its modern politics. Let’s face it, outside of the south (as of today!), there is really no place for us to escape. Sad.
Oklahoma is the redest state if you look at the red blue election maps. Every county. Of course OKC and Tulsa have its ‘areas’. And one would need to put up with twisters and dust bowls.
Many states west of the Midwest and east of the left coast are close enough. Lots of hollyweird types moved to Montana and vacinity and of course the Indians tend to vote Dhimmicrat when their not selling their oil and cashing in ones chips. but there still is a lot of freedom lust in the western states.
Good luck with the south east. Mostly conservative. I myself tend to wilt when it’s hot AND humid but I’ve spent time on Florida’s west coast. Real nice in January, February. Haven’t been out of the tristate in 7-8 years. Got too sedentary.
Any who. via con dios!
Kind of. Except that ‘butthurt’ is generally used as an adjective to describe somebody who has had their feelings hurt in a manner that the person using the word feels the person it is applied to either richly deserves, or because they are hyper-sensitive and need to put on their big boy pants and man up. I use it a lot. It is a very useful word to describe the attitude of a lot of lefties towards many things.
Is he fighting to keep trucks out of any other neighborhood?
So let me turn it around: I'm in favor of more drilling. I also happen to live on a small, narrow road. I would not be in favor of oil tankers using it as a shortcut. Especially if they arrive there by mistake.
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