It's An Illness Stopping People Visiting Wales

 

The motorway bridge crossing the River Severn has been shut Westbound all morning.

No not that one.

 

That one is the M4 Crossing, also known as the Second Severn Crossing, also known as The Prince of Wales Bridge.  It seems to have more names than Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.  But, unlike Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the bridge isn't a pathological liar and convicted football hooligan followed by morons.

 

In the background, you can see the bridge with the closure.  That is the M48 Crossing, also known as the original crossing.  Not named after any member of the royal family as far as I am aware.

 

Unprecedented levels of staff sickness meant that they didn't have enough people to collect toll money.  This meant that anyone travelling into Wales had to use the M4 bridge but anyone travelling out of Wales was OK because you only pay the tolls in one direction.

 

Maybe they should have just made it free in both directions for the duration.  But I guess that wouldn't have brought in the revenue that forcing motorists to detour would have done.  Not very environmentally friendly when you consider the wasted miles.

 

The scheduled closure was from 5am until 2pm - it doesn't say how they knew everyone would be well again by 2pm.

 

The BBC version of the story is here.  It is on their Gloucestershire bit not their Welsh bit.  I suppose that is logical as it is the people in Gloucestershire not the people in Wales who will have been inconvenienced.

 

Meanwhile, over on the Wales bit of the BBC News site, they have this story.

 

Wrexham Council are going to have to fork out £7100 to replace parking signs after someone went out with a black marker pen correcting errors in the Welsh translations on them:

Bet they wish they had a bridge they could charge people to cross.

Wet Van Man

After weeks of hot dry weather, it finally broke this week.

I blame myself - I bought two pairs of shorts on Thursday.

Since then - downpours!

Talking of wetness, this YouTube action looks fun.

I'd do it myself.

IF THERE WERE NO PEDESTRIANS AROUND:

But in Canada, where this rear-facing dashcam footage was recorded, there were most definitely pedestrians around.

The BBC have the story here.  The van belongs to facilities management company Black & McDonald - who promptly apologised and sacked the driver.

Good.

One of the services they provide is "Storm Response & Restoration" - but I don't think that is what they meant by it.

Stock Response

My most recent two posts have been about football and about a small hatchback with bits missing.

This one combines the two.

It comes from this BBC story.

 

Some football pitches have running tracks around them.

 

Ballymena United's has a racetrack running around it.

 

And we aren't talking Formula One.

 

Inevitably in Stock car Racing and Banger Racing, cars may just, ever so slightly, COLLIDE!

 

So the odd one is getting shunted on to the pitch - and churning it up.  This isn't damage that can be easily remedied by a bloke wandering on to the pitch with a hoe at half-time.

 

Maybe they should change their name to Ballymena ROVERS.

Driving With Pliers

No, not a Chaka Demus reference.

 

It is actually a reference to this BBC story today.

 

It is about this car, pulled over by Norfolk Police:

You can just about make out that it is a Peugeot 206.

 

I've driven one or two Peugeot 206s.  I don't like them because the pedals are offset.

 

But this one seems to have a few more issues: 

...like a flat tyre.

 

And no door card.

 

Oh yes, and no front bumper or wings. Or steering wheel. Or driver's seat.

 

Instead of the steering wheel, the driver has gone with some Mole Grips (aka Locking Pliers) while seating is provided by an upturned, rather battered, tin bucket.

NFN I guess.

Not Coming Home

It's been about two weeks since my last post.

Partly because there hasn't been much car news.

And partly because I've been engrossed in the Football.

I have dual-nationality - I'm mostly Welsh but when there is a major football tournament going on I tend to be English.

And this major tournament has been better than most from an English perspective.

We did play in Samara last week so it is an excuse to mention the Lada Samara:

But today The BBC gave us a story combining traffic AND The World Cup.

Apparently, according to The RAC, traffic was going to peak between 4pm and 6pm this afternoon/evening due to us England fans commuting home in time for our semi-final against Croatia.

I was one of those commuters and didn't notice any extra traffic on the bit of motorway I was using.

I did notice us lose to Croatia though - this makes me mostly Welsh again.

The English boys have done their country proud though - they are only young and they got a lot further than most would have thought possible which bodes well for future competitions.

Meanwhile, Croatia is the home of Rimac - manufacturer of electric supercars like the Concept One:

Which looks a lot better before an Englishman crashes it: