Danger Pond!

A PLEASANT STROLL AROUND THE PONDS OF QUEEN’S PARK SEEMED LIKE A DELIGHTFUL IDEA UNTIL THIS SCARY SIGN WAS NOTICED.

[Double left click on the image to enlarge, as always]

The picture I took shows a pond with a sign sticking out of it.  The sign simply says:

“DANGER
BLUE
GREEN
ALGAE”

What on earth does that mean?  Will this Blue Green Algae rise up from the depths and grab us by the ankles to drag us off to the deep?

Perhaps it just means we have a slip hazard — that blue green algae is slippery. Thing is, I could not see anything slippery on the paths.

What the devil is Blue Green Algae? Is it a dust? a liquid?  A winged serpent? What ought I be looking out for?  Will it fall from the trees? will it run after us? Is it blue or green — or blue-green — or do they mean it is both blue and green (that both the blue and the green varieties are dangerous)?

Yes, things are getting worse when signs strike fear into English-speaking passers-by.

Modern Architecture Summed Up

THERE’S A NEW BUILDING IN GLASGOW WITH A STRANGE ENTRANCE.

Please click on the images to enlarge.

First of all, the architect designed a grand entrance — including a revolving door, mirrored tiles, lots of glass and shiny tiled flooring.  Lovely.

However, in practice, there is a permanent plastic yellow warning cone about the slip danger on the shiny floor tiles.  How attractive!  Also – - because people prefer to walk in through a normal door (as opposed to a revolving door), they have had to Sellotape a notice to the glazed frontage.  Deary me!

Is this the architect’s vision?  How grand is this entrance now?  Why can’t the architect understand that shiny floor tiles are slippery, that yellow plastic cones are unattractive, and that notices ruin the clean straight lines, and glazed surfaces?

Isn’t it weird that there are TWO yellow slip warning cones IN the revolving door — making it impossible to use this door, but the Sellotaped notice on the window stops you using the “normal” door — so how exactly is one supposed to enter this office block? Is this MI5 or the HQ of the IQ?

Things are certainly getting worse when people cannot enter a building without warnings!

Funnily enough the biggest danger is right outside — and there is NO WARNING… it is a wall of glass!  Yes; an almost invisible obstruction to the pedestrian, to the drunk of a night.

What possessed the architect to put a square metre of thick glass on the pavement outside this building’s entrance?  It is as bizarre as it is amazing!

One has to wonder at the thought processes employed when designs are drawn up! Getting Worse? You Bet! Modern Architecture? Summed Up!

Ugly, Costly and Dangerous Gas Pipe

GAS SUPPLIES ARE A SERIOUS BUSINESS — or are they?

Click on the picture to enlarge — Just what is going on here? This is a picture of a new gas main supply being laid under Argyle Street — a really congested and busy road in the middle of Glasgow city centre. Does it look ‘right’ to you? Does this pipework arrangement look ‘normal’?

To my untrained eye, it seems a long way to go for a shortcut!  As far as I can make out, the blue bits indicate the start and finish points of connection for the branch pipe.  The distance between the blue valves looks quite short — so I wonder why they have decided to take the branch for a run; it goes off in the wrong direction, double backs over the main pipe, bends again to go in the right direction, then bends yet again to cross over yet again before the connection is made.

I do not claim to be an expert in pipework, nor am I CORGI approved to talk about supplying natural gas, but this arrangement caught my eye as I passed, and in my judgement, the shortest distance between these two points would have been more logical, more sensible, and probably a lot cheaper and safer too.

Let’s imagine that it couldn’t be done as the pipe is inflexible, and the connection points are too close together to allow for standard fittings and bends — well then, that simply shows that the blue valves and branches have been located too close together; it is, remember, all new pipework, so it would have been far better to have located everything relatively and properly.

Things are getting worse when journeymen and draughtsmen are overlooked in favour of probably cheap foreign labourers.  In bygone times, this would certainly not have been considered acceptable under any test from cost to aesthetics. This is an ugly solution, thank goodness it is buried and out of sight… but it makes you wonder about other crazy solutions elsewhere!