Just been up to my home town and back (I say my home town - more where I was born and grew up. I regard Bristol as my home now) as my sister and niece1 were over from Deutschland to visit my grandmother.

It's not often I get annoyed, so feel free to skip the following deeply unfair and generalising rant.

Most women are appalling drivers. I say most as there are always exceptions. They do however cause less accidents, are less selfish and are generally safer. There is, in fact, a much worse type of driver out there than a dithering mum in a medium tank who's completely incapable of fitting said vehicle in the half-mile gap in traffic at a roundabout - the middle-lane hogging Old Man In A Cheap Hatchback *growls*

Obviously we're all supposed to drive in the left-hand lane except when overtaking (none of this 'stay in your lane' nonsense the yanks abide by), but with traffic as it is that's not always possible. My personal rule is if I have to move into the left-hand lane for less than ten seconds I'll stay in the lane I'm in, but that's just my preference. Equally, when in the left-hand lane and rapidly approaching a slower vehicle but with the middle-lane occupied, then a quick indication should move the car in the middle-lane into the right-hand lane allowing you to overtake. Should.

Except, like tonight, when you encounter one coffin-dodging bastard after another. Not only do they like to drive 1mph faster than you until they get alongside you, then slow down to match your speed - they also refuse to drive in any other lane but the middle one. All this means is you have to keep slowing down to let them pass, then overtake the slow car before returning to the left-hand lane. You then rapidly catch up the now slowed OMIACH (who's still in the middle lane, obviously) and have to move all the way out to pass him, then return to the left-hand lane AT WHICH POINT the utter wanker speeds up again to block you off the next time you meet a slow car. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

And while I'm on the subject of retarded drivers - speed cameras. They're not hard are they? They go off when you drive through them faster than the speed limit. So why, WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! does just about every driver approach a speed camera at the speed limit -and then slow down to way below the limit (like 45mph in a 60 zone) before speeding back up to 60 on the other side? Do they think it's a trick? That the big THIS IS A 60MPH sign familiar to everyone just before the speed camera is a lie? It's completely fucking fruit-loop.

[/rant]

Okay, moving on to other things. I have a desire, however small, to leave a permanent mark on the world before I die. I assume some people do the same by having children (?) but I fancy something major and lasting (hence the mysterious Project Gasping Lung). In this frame of mind I guess I'm noticing the permanence of things a little more, as well as the temporary and fragile nature of much human endeavour. Specifically I was somewhat taken aback by the sheer number of cornerstones of my childhood that simply aren't there anymore. Having to take a slightly different route than normal due to traffic I drove past my old school (well one of the two sites anyway) and it's houses. The library is a hotel. The Grand Hotel is a museum. The old swimming pool is an art gallery. There's a tropical rain forest in the middle of one of the parks. The park I spent every day playing in during the summer months as a ten-year old is apartments. The allotments at the back of our old house is a car park. The hospital I was born in is a housing estate.

It feels weird to see it all like that. I guess it reinforces the point that little that we do lasts for very long.

If I'm still in such a reminiscent mood tomorrow I'll do a potted history of Red Squirrel. With pictures. Just not the ones of me with hair halfway down my back ;-P