Roundheads and Cavaliers

Over in Clifton, Leigh Road has been rebranded "jubileigh road"

No doubt they will having a street party.

We shall be down at Stokes Croft, obviously -though the exact festivities are not yet planned.

We do recall last year's impromptu street festival on Stokes Croft during the Royal Wedding.
 
The police closed the road to help people enjoy this national holiday, while they themselves were invited into one of the local households for a cup of tea -"Telepathic Heights", was its name.

The wearing of helmets, so as to give this, our New Model Army, "Round Heads", was clearly a conscious decision to refer to the battle over the nature of our country: one in which the king ruled by divine right vs one that belonged to the population.
 

The siege of Bristol took place in this very area -Cromwell Road in the far distance being where the original roundheads besieged the city, Priory Fort at the top of Ninetree Hill kept them out of Stokes Croft by way of its cannons, and Bristol remained a royalist stronghold.

That is, until it fell, and Cromwell went on to behead one of the ancestors of the crown -this led to the free and democratic society we have today, when anyone who went to either of the universities can become its leader.

Happy Jubilee! Celebrate!

A dooring post mortem

Our reporter who works in A&E in the city is able to pick up news of interest, today we have a video from someone who unexpectedly came to visit them.

Leigh Road in Clifton, a quiet but narrow road and slightly uphill, the tax dodger is doing under 10 mph by our estimate. Watch the red car coming up on the left at about 15 seconds in. At 0:19 you can see the door opening and hear our unexpected reporter being surprised by the event.

The normal advice given to cyclists for road safety is "stay out of the door zone", which we, the road tax payers object to as it means "stay in the way of important people". This video shows another issue. A road like this, there is no position a cyclist can take that is out the door zone, because if they are far enough away from the left side to avoid a risk from a car there, they are in range of the other side. This is despite the parked cars doing their best to avoid such problems by parking on the pavement wherever possible.

The only solution which we can see here is to ban bicycles from such high-risks roads. For their own safety. We shall be writing to Councillor Glossop -the official Bristol Traffic Councillor- for their support.

Inconsiderate Trees

Leigh Road, Clifton, has areas marked out where cars should park if they are not to block corners and driveways.

Yet this car, WP06DKF is parked with the back of the car outside the "please park here" zone, whoever's driveway it is will have a bit of wiggling to do to get out. Why is this car parked this way?

It's the tree's fault. The way this tree is positioned, three-quarters along the parkable area, there is no way to park your car on the pavement and still be in the approved parking zone. The driver has had to make a choice: not park here or park here and maybe block a bit of someone's driveway -they chose the driveway option.

This problem, trees preventing parking, is common across the leafier parts of the city. Yet these areas: Clifton, Redland, voted against becoming resident parking zones. Do these residents not see they have a problem that needs fixing? If they do not wish to become resident parking, then the other way to address the problem is to cut down all these trees, so pavements can be used as intended: for parking.