The small kitchen window above our sink looks out to the radio mast at Crystal Palace. Usually we can see all the red lights that are spaced up the length of it. Not tonight though. It is much foggier outside than it was this morning and it has become cool again. Not sure what we will be doing on the weekend, that will depend on what we find when we get up.
A few months ago the footpath across the road from our building was dug up and we scratched our head trying to figure out why. Then a few weeks ago a pair of belisha beacons appeared on opposite sides of the road. Don’t know what they are, or do you
Well tonight there are now white stripes in the road leading from one of the beacons to the other.
It put me in mind of a game that I had when I was around 12. It was a driving game. Housed in a lidded cardboard box that was about as big as a large cornflakes packet, but a bit deeper. Take the lid off the box and inside was a raised layer that covered the entire interior. A good three-quarter of that was decorated with a street layout, with a strategically placed small yellow plastic garage. I had little l road signs, to be positioned at will and a pair of belisha beacons. At the very front was where a short metal lever could be inserted into a ‘driving ball’ .This lever could, with a bit of dextrous manoeuvring, be used to drive the small car around the roads taking care not to knock any signs over. If you were very clever you could even park the car in the garage. Of course, I wanted to know how it worked and it wasn’t long before I had carefully lifted out the centre inner to discover a crisscross telescopic arm with a magnet at the end. Looking back now my grandchildren with their electronic games would probably think it a very primitive affair, but back then all those years ago I thought it was pretty neat.
According to wiki
A Belisha beacon is an amber-coloured globe lamp atop a tall black and white pole, marking pedestrian crossings of roads in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in other countries historically influenced by Britain. It was named after Leslie Hore-Belisha (1893–1957), the Minister of Transport who in 1934 added beacons to pedestrian crossings, marked by large metal studs in the road surface. These crossings were later painted in black and white stripes, thus are known as zebra crossings. Legally pedestrians have the right of way (over wheeled traffic) on such crossings.
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