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Friday 13 June 2014

Knowing when to quit

The idea behind the post below had been rattling around my head for a few months.  But every time I sat down to write it I just couldn't get it to work.  I've lost track of how many times I've tried re-working it - rephrasing; deleting; swearing and pleading with it to just form something cogent.  In the end I decided to just abandon it as a lost cause.  I don't know if it's the subject, the fact it requires some local knowledge or just that it's trying too hard. Whatever the diagnosis, I think the kindest thing to do is to lead it limping out of sight and put it out of its misery.
I still thought I'd share the incomplete carcass of the post though, because it shows sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try some things just don't work out - I'm honest (and defeatist) like that.

Plus, it's been awhile since I've posted anything and throwing this at you in a loose pretense of some deeper philosophical intent makes me look less lazy.

Seriously, this post is just terrible. Don't hate me.

Have you started anything you wish you hadn't?
How have you got around a challenging project?
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The Triangle
There's an area in Bristol City Centre known as 'the Triangle.' It's basically, as the name subtly suggests, a triangular shaped roundabout.
I've lived in Bristol for five years and I didn't know how this road worked conceptually until Husband explained it to me recently. With diagrams:


Husband's schematic of the Triangle

In my mind, you drove around it completely and it would coat you in awesome sauce and magically spit you out on to a different road:

 My exciting, magic dust infused version

Disappointingly, this isn't the case.  Apparently I had visualised the Triangle upside down. When Husband illustrated how the Triangle actually worked, it made so much more sense. The real world is boring when you adhere to strict physical laws, so I continue to maintain my original theory in my mind.

My inability to visualise the Triangle highlights how I blindly follow roads without any real spatial awareness. Despite being an OK navigator when a passenger, I will often look at a map and wonder how that road looped into that one, yet when I drove it it felt like a straight line. A bit like motorway driving when you just point the car in one direction and aim straight*
I'm beginning to wonder if I can actually drive, or the universe just bends the laws of physics so I don't kill everyone in sight as soon as I turn on the ignition.  Considering the dents in our first car this doesn't seem likely.
I am also a bit of a passive road-rager.  I politely let cars go past me in narrow roads, then spend the remainder of the journey in a complete pissey because about 8 cars pushed their way through, essentially clamping myself with my own chivalry.

* I mentioned this to Husband whose facial expressions alternated between amusement and abject terror.

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