Bloomin' marvellous

Well, Valentine's day has come and gone for another year. A forest of trees has been felled to provide the cards while the pollen count in supermarkets has gone through the roof thanks to the amount of cut flowers for sale.

An anonymous message of love sent to somebody you have amorous feelings for! On the fourteenth of February, this is considered romantic; any other time of the year and it's stalking.

This weekend was also marked with a trip to my local megamart, a shop so vast that it has its own tribe, called shoppers or, to give them their common name, Chavs. They even have their own language - the snarl. Such as 'yer, well, like, that's what I'm looking for innit, follow-on crisps for toddlers'.

I was taking the opportunity to purchase some flowers and, for reasons to far-fetched to explain, was paying for them at the 'Digital Counter'. This is not, as one might expect, a huge clock but is instead where you might, for instance, purchase 'Medal of Honour' while also indulging in some blooms.

The chap behind the counter expressed shock at the cost of the flowers and suggested that I could get a value bouquet for a couple of quid.

Looking at a bloke who works behind the computer games counter at the supermarket, advising a customer who was spending thirty quid on a console game to go with a cheap bouquet, one had the feeling that cupid really has his work cut out sometimes.

Disco roads

Technology has come to the village in the form of a couple of those road signs that light up with the words ‘slow down’ if you are driving at over 30 miles and hour.

Given the level of fuckwittage on the roads into and out of the village, the things are illuminated so often it’s like disco light show some mornings - bordering on strobing. I’m rather hoping that the signs are solar powered, because if not there will be a council tax hike to cover the soaring electricity bills the things will generate.

I like these sorts of signs. I first came across them in the US, years ago. Driving through the Rockies in the wee small hours, I was alert for the usual dangers of the road - carjackers, big rigs, nutters and sharp bends, I was alert for the local dangers as flagged in my guide book - bears, wolves, 17,000 tonnes of snow sliding towards you, I was even alert for the sort of dangers that you start to ponder on a lonely road in the dark, specifically - werewolves.

So when I saw a sign light up warning me I was doing over 55, it was quite a surprise and I adjusted my speed accordingly.

In recent years these signs have started popping up in Britain and I have to say I like them. There are quite a few in Norfolk, where the narrow roads are not really suited to speeds greater than a well laden donkey can manage. This does not stop hoorays in 4x4s driving like maniacs though. The specific problem there is that the women driving these cars can’t drive properly, and that they are laden down with so much booze and food for the weekend that once they get up momentum, they can’t stop.

The traffic going through the village and causing the sign to flash like a pervert in a park fell into two categories of speeder - school run mums who are simply too thick to realise that there is a speed limit, and chavs in ‘pimped out’ (i.e. a ten quid body-kit from Halfords) chaviots getting the sensation of driving really quickly by doing 40 in a 30 zone.

I think the signs need to be developed to do number-plate recognition and flash up the plate number while telling you, yes YOU, to slow down. Either that or they should get one of those cannons that the Predator has mounted on his shoulder and stick it on the top. Five miles over the limit gets your car shot with a paintball. Ten miles over the limit gets your tyres shot out. Anything more than that combined with tinted windows results in an energy burst that leaves nothing but a crater and a spinning, smoking Burberry baseball cap.

My mission before the summer is over - trip one of the cameras while on my bicycle. Strongly suspect it will have to be the one on the way out of the village, as the road there is downhill.