Now, for the road forecast

Traffic and people filling Manchester

As I walked to the large retail park to shop at a large supermarket this evening, I did wonder if any of the people who found themselves in cars in and around Manchester city centre had bothered to check the road forecast. I say that because all the streets within the city centre and towards the ring road to the south and west were clogged with traffic.

Obviously, until I was walking back, I could not fathom the reason for both the crowds and the traffic, it just felt like a busy beautiful day, and I am usually the last to know what is going on in my city until, after the fact, I opined that I would eventually find out.

A major roadway closed

On my way out, I used more of the canal waterway towpaths, but on my return, I took the pavements on the main roads and then is when I discovered that a section of Mancunian Way ring road designated A57 (M) coming to the roundabout, underpass, and flyover with slip roads intersecting with Chester Road had been closed off. The underpass that allowed through and bypass traffic for cars not intending to enter Manchester appeared to have road construction vehicles at work.

This meant vehicular traffic was obstructed and the alternative routes became congested leading to long tailbacks and considerable inconvenience. I cannot say why the work was not done at night, though, I have not ascertained if the activity was necessitated by some emergency.

Pass as you like

For those who could, they found ways to pass the idle time, and I remember waving at some ladies in a car calling out to people, the music blaring out of their car at maximum volume. In view of the circumstances, their apparently unladylike behaviour can well be excused.

Everywhere, I had to cross the road at pedestrian crossings, pelican crossings, or at traffic lights, it much did not matter, cars were not moving that we all were basically jaywalking. Then again, we do not have jaywalking laws in the UK, you cross the road with good judgement and at your own discretion. It allowed me to fulfil my 10,000-step threshold for the day, even as I wondered how some drivers would have regretted driving in Manchester today.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXI

Revelations of possible distaste

Recently, I returned to my usual walking route, and it was interesting to observe the things that have changed around my city. Hoardings, fencing, and boards erected around erstwhile building sites that usually took over pavements and sometimes the whole lane of a street have come down to reveal architectural carbuncles of barely occupied apartment blocks with signs offering the ground floors for commercial activity.

Two supermarkets have opened, even a college needing the tape to be cut by some dignitary seeks some social activity in the not-too-distant future. Elsewhere, roads have been cordoned off or blocked for reconstruction or repairs, too many to the detriment of pedestrians as me and worst still for those with mobility requirements. As temporary traffic lights have been installed for vehicular traffic with no option or consideration for pedestrians as our crossing are now out of use requiring detours to somewhere without rerouting.

Rats in the city

Walking up a slightly secluded road, in just 10 footsteps I saw 3 rats, which is scary. They can only be thriving because there is a food source nearby, this is a harbinger of a rat infestation if it is not already a menace in that area.

From last Thursday, when all pandemic restrictions were lifted in England, people have relaxed as if the pandemic is over. Whilst I am glad, we still wear face masks in church as I do in all places for my own safety, it is amusing that a prime minister who has no capacity for exercising personal responsibility now requires us to act with civic and personal responsibility if we ever contract COVID-19. The rat’s arse of man.

More striking in all my observations is the fate of a corner shop that had served a Salford community for 34 years in an old building on Chapel Street. It has been demolished and I am unsure of what would take its place. The appearance behind the hoardings suggests a park, it might well be another unremarkable and exorbitant edifice seeking forlorn occupancy, who knows? Another case of rats gnawing on our heritage. We live in interesting times.

Plotting the puddles of Manchester

Rain, Rain, Go Away

What a miserable evening it was in Manchester, the heavens opened with the blessings of rain and I was over 8,000 steps short of my daily target. What to do in such beautiful weather? That is the reputation of glorious Mancunium.

I put on my poncho as the dusk darkened the sky, my eyesight not too accustomed to the diminished light in the rain and even poorly calibrated for stereo vision, I launched out with a plan to stay on the roads walking the pavements which were at best like undulating hills that rose and fell with the regularity of the lack of maintenance.

The exploration of puddles

I had not walked the first 500 metres when the first car splashed me and that became the majority of my journey. If I was not being splashed much as I tried to navigate those bodies of water, I was stepping in puddles, upsetting paving stones that rocked to bathe me in muddy ejections and without wipers on my eyeglasses, I suffered.

My hand towel was wet for a wringing by the 3^rd kilometre, but I persevered, I only had to get in just over 6 kilometres for my tracker to buzz at 10,000. In the end, I did just over 9 kilometres and getting home was more than a relief. I probably should split my walks for inclement weather and avoid the night-time if possible. Maybe I need better rain cover than a poncho, my upper body did not get wet, it did leave me any comfortable either.

That’s today, now to consider options for the next. I felt like Doctor Foster when went to Gloucester, thankfully, I did not fall in a puddle up to my middle. Thankfully!

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - XIV

Get Out!

Even I have to consider that I spend too much time indoors, going from one enclosed area to another seeing the world only through my window and virtually on the Internet. After my workout, I thought I could do with some fresh air, get out and probably get 10,000 steps in the process.

Out there nigh on 10:00 PM I had no charted course but wended east towards Ancoats towards Trinity Way and on to Deansgate by the Town Hall to Peter Street and the Central Library, then home after a resting stop at St. Peter’s Square.

A maze to amaze

I saw a city quite strange, then I realise, I have not been around Manchester at night for probably 5 months. There were diversions for roads and pavements, closed off roads, the makings of a labyrinthic puzzle that never had a straight line, weaving in and out, jaywalking if need be.

The city is indeed gaining a nightlife, restaurants and bars open and the occasional drunken revelry assailing your indifferent composure, though I am not yet persuaded there is normalcy to this situation.

My legs should be insured

However, walk I did walk, gait exuding catwalk cum speed walking, making up my steps and home without breaking too much of a sweat. I think I should do this more often, it is good for the body and quite so, for the mind.

The music, for now, is still Anita Baker, if anyone saw me gesticulating in rhythmical response to what I was hearing, I guess it was not serious enough to call the men in white coats. There are mad people in Manchester, to a degree, we are on that broad spectrum. Yes, Brian is wont to saying it, Get Out! And I did.

St. Peter's Square tram stop

The Midland

Am I breaking a sweat?

My legs have walked this city

The Central Library

Thought Picnic: Fix the road and leave the wheel alone

Wheeling and dealing

Caught between the choices for the path forward, one is left looking for analogies to properly encapsulate the situation and hopefully persuade the decision makers of the best course.

I have moved beyond the concept of reinventing the wheel, it cannot be made any rounder than it is, it is a circle, and that is a closed discussion.

Probably there is a case for reviewing the materials used in the manufacture of the wheel, but that also after thousands of years of evolution, testing, change and review leaves us with the best wheels ever made in the history of man.

A little strengthening, probably for resilience and all terrain use that resists wear and tear is not necessarily ground-breaking stuff, rather it would for the inventor just be a differentiating selling point.

Fix the road

The next thing to consider is the road, the path, the way the wheel bearing load would travel and the comfort that it offers.

Much can be done about roads, and I have come to the conclusion that when the road is rough you work on the road and not on the wheel. Working on the road offers a broader advantage to every road user than working on the wheel would.

This is the kind of thinking that should go towards solving technical problems too. Understand what the wheel is and what the road is and act accordingly.

Thought Picnic: What a trip

Navigating to Jupiter

I arrived at my hotel this evening first being worried about something I might have misplaced with the hope of finding in a day or two but worse still was the 10 mile journey from Chester.

Usually, when I get a taxi, the driver has a good idea of where to go and only once before have I had to give the driver the post code because he needed the aid of the satellite navigator (SatNav) to get to our destination.

By now, I have a good idea of the route and if I keep aware of my surroundings, I can tell if we are somewhat off-course.

So, I told the driver where I was going and he asked for the post code which I had to call the hotel for, he keyed it into his SatNav as it is called for short and there began this amazing journey.

Strange turns in wild places

I noticed he took an unusual turn and then he turned back because he had missed a turn, he said he was following the shortest route according to the SatNav, I wasn’t impressed, as I said he could easily have taken the dual carriageway and turned off – I was about to grab the edge of my seat.

At a T-Junction he drove on the right to turn right and then before we knew it, we were on a dirt road, forded a stream, passed between a walled avenue with barely enough space the cab to pass through, bumpy and disconcerting, I could only wonder if I had gotten into a cab to some eerie place never to return to civilisation again.

This was not helped by the fact that it was dark, cold, remote, quiet and we were strangers, it was not one of situations where you would have shouted out to the driver, “Stop! Already, or I’ll call the police.”

Not short by half

Between the urge to panic with hysteric abandon and the adventure of navigating the Welsh back roads to oblivion and beyond, I kept my cool until the side road came out unto a road more familiar to me – I knew, that even in the broadest daylight, it wasn’t something I would have ventured.

Anyway, we arrived at the hotel and though the route might have been shorter according to the SatNav, it still came to the same price – it made no difference.

The driver came to open the door almost too aware of my unexpressed displeasure when he offered a reduction from the metered price, I was not about to take the generosity without an opinion.

Who are these people?

So, I told him, the last time I had a back road safari like that in the dark was probably too far gone in my memory to remember, my nerves frayed already as if I could do with a stiff drink, I stepped out took my bags into the hotel to be met with new faces everywhere – Hotel California?

No, Mother’s Day had more staff hired and it so happens that the regulars were away or off duty, it was not until my bags in storage were brought to my room before I saw a familiar face – if I learnt anything, you cannot live in a parallel universe, the difference will be too disconcerting to be healthy or peaceful.

I’ll rather stick to the usual route no matter how long it is and see the people I am most familiar with in a hotel that I have stayed in for the past 8 weeks.

Nigeria: Angels in road construction

Worldwide wrestling

I dare say that this borders on what I will call the superfluity of spirituality but it is probably par for the course in Nigeria where frustration, exasperation, delay, inertia, bureaucracy and corruption militates against getting things done.

With ease, when things are so muddled up, such man-made and man-caused circumstances can for those in the know be classified under categories that the Bible so clearly enunciates and is known by heart to many a praying Christian.

In Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (KJV)

In 17^th Century English, I might have lost my readers so maybe the Message in contemporary English might enlighten us “This is no afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.” Ephesians 6:12 (The Message)

A road in ruin

I do not think I am any the wiser with this attempt but it serves as the lead in to an issue in Nigeria with regards to the first toll road called the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

It is 105 kilometres long and it opened to traffic in 1978, though I remember people bribing military officers who stood guard at the main toll areas of the road to use it in late 1977.

In any case, it has fallen into abject disrepair from usage and neglect that the federal government adopted a novel way [1] of getting it repaired. In what is a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract that will span 25 years, the concessionaire will repair the road, add two lanes on either side and install gas lighting – gas lighting? Well, Dusk to dawn gas lighting down the length of the expressway with the lien to levy tolls and seek other revenue through advertisements.

The concessionaire is the Bi-Courtney Group and the project will cost upwards of NGN 90 billion ($600 million) which is quite an outlay for a local company that hopes to recoup its cost over 25 years.

An Amen waiting for a prayer

The Chairman of Bi-Courtney Highways Services Limited paid a courtesy call [2] on the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God whose Redemption City religious meeting place and residential area is sited along the road where it became evident that the concessionaire might have bitten off more than it can chew because banking services in Nigeria do not as a matter of course provide loan terms of that kind of duration and this is hampering the necessary activity of the repairs of the road.

The widening of the road has created a whole series of legal challenges from those affected who might find their properties subject to compulsory purchase orders (Eminent Domain - US), all this from the foolishness of the concessionaire, through their hope of getting financing and the legal minefields of compulsory purchase will constitute the categories listed above as the weight of immovability might well be unearthly and beyond the work horse requirements of construction equipment put at full throttle.

It is in that context that one is left to holler the loudest Amen to the prayer of the General Overseer as the news headline indicates, “God will subdue forces against completion,” and I believe he means the completion of the project.

An unfathomable situation

Now, at face value, the Chairman, Dr Wale Babalakin (SAN) [3] is no doubt a smart lawyer having obtained both his LLM and PhD from the University of Cambridge and he has a commendable legal record, however, this project smacks of a level of Nigerian braggadocio that leaves you breathless; none of the well-heeled banks for all the legal sophistry he can muster in Nigeria seem to be ready to form a consortium to bankroll this project.

How the Bi-Courtney Group could not have had serious backers for this job before securing the concession is just beyond belief, then the 55 legal cases which all can drag on at snail’s pace in Nigeria’s sometimes soporific judicial system you begin to realise that you need the hand of God and angels in their thousands of thousands all with trumpets and heavenly strains of praise that would make the earth tremble and melt to get things done.

Impossible human doers

The Redemption City can host over 1 million adherents at monthly religious events which somewhat makes one wonder how they have endured the decrepit state of the road with equanimity, docility and possibly resignation except for their resort to the mountain moving power of prayer.

On a human level, with the resources we have on earth to observe, to agitate, to persuade, to protest, to require and to obtain; one would have expected a pressure group of the 1 million adherents and the other plaintiffs at risk of losing their land to set forth a court action to remove the concessionaire and have the concession renegotiated to necessitate the easier financing of this project on different terms and probably by another contractor.

A miracle like no other

I for one expect a miracle, one that definitely defies every human explanation that Redemption City had better be ready to host the billion, a road all paved in gold like we were told in Sunday School of heavenly paradise, this gold being so durable and perfect, it cannot be chipped or removed, yet will survive all weather and traffic putting the autobahns of Germany in the shade.

People may use the road, it will be safe no matter how careless the driver is and those who cannot ply the road for the gleaming sensation of the gold can just look at the road with every consumption of greed and frustration until they are exhausted at the foretaste of heaven that they move on there anyhow.

Since the road is a gift of God and the answer to the prayers of the faithful, the Redemption City could charge a nominal fee for its usage whilst extolling the greatness of their mission to earth.

Judgement so sweet

As for the concessionaire; an earthquake awaits any of its representatives that dare claim anything for that road, the earth will open up like a trapdoor and swallow them in Mosaic dread.

All forces subdued, prayers answer, congregation multiplied, souls saved and God praised – there can be no better place in the world than Nigeria where even for our tourist brochures we can safely say our streets are paved with gold.

Sources

[1] At Last, Work Begins On Lagos-Ibadan Expressway | P.M. NEWS Nigeria

[2] The Nation - Lagos-Ibadan Expressway: God will subdue forces against completion, says Adeboye

[3] Babalakin & Co. Legal Practitioners - People - Bolanle Olawale Babalakin SAN

A road runs through it

A birthday song

I called my father yesterday morning to wish him a happy 69^th birthday and regretted the fact that I had not followed a musical career whereby I would have been able to sing a birthday song.

He humoured me by asking me to sing anyhow; whilst I do remember being a chorister many years ago and do have a baritone kind of singing voice, having never developed or practised the art, it could well be frogs croaking down the phone.

He was just getting prepared for church as it was harvest Sunday and he happened to be one of the convenors of the harvest.

At our adopted hometown, my father’s status derives from his selfless community work going back over 40 years rather than the ephemeral and gaudy show of wealth – time and again, he has been honoured for his service and I am greatly proud of him.

The road through

Talk then got to the matter of the building of a dual-carriage way which is to run through the centre of the village, this plan has been in the books for decades, it now appears it is coming to fruition.

I wondered about how a major road might affect the dynamic of our village, the paternal part of my family hails from the north of the road, the maternal part from the south, the cemetery and market are on the north, I would suppose the king’s palace is in the south.

One thing they did to reduce pedestrian traffic crossing what would be a busy road was to sink another borehole in the northern part of the village but I was not satisfied with that arrangement.

Bridges of safety

I felt that planning should have included at least one pedestrian bridge but my father said after speaking to the contractor what I considered a critical safety feature was not in the planning nor was it budgeted for.

I suppose that leeway accounting for safety had been consumed in the kickbacks that smoothed the allocation of the project to the winner of the contract.

I then recounted to my dad one occasion where I could not be bothered to do a 1.5-kilometre walk when it could be done by crossing an expressway and save me 1.1 kilometres under the Isolo Bridge on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway.

I heard a lot of shouting and warning sounds none of which I thought pertained to my crossing, I was blind-sided and oblivious to the fact that a car doing about 120 kilometres an hour was about to whiz past me and I was inches away from being splattered across the road like minced meat.

You could hear my father sigh and whisper a prayer, it brought home the point I was trying to make without going down the extreme of how if a burial were to take place in the north of the village from residents in the south.

The safety deficit in development

As I pressed home that point of the criticality of safety, especially when the road was still being built, my father interjected with the comment that it would not been considered and finished with the comment – Omo Oyinbo – (meaning white boy.)

It was not so much a derogatory statement as an acknowledgement of the difference of thinking we have always had for a long time, when many years ago he opined that I have always thought like a Westerner and more recently that I was never good at sport by a very good conversationalist.

On a more serious note it highlighted the trade-offs people were willing to make for development in developing countries; the implementation of grand projects without the considerations for adaptation, integration and safety for the persons the projects are to serve.

A big road would eventually run through my village, splitting it in half and maybe we should be the first to put speed bumps or traffic calming devices on a dual carriageway to slow drivers down for the sake of keeping the village folk from unnecessary sorrow.

Lame game

Even I

Coming to 40 years of age, one is at times deluded into thinking; all that could be seen has been seen such that one is hardly ever lost for words. Generally, one is hardly ever lost for words.

However, it was with utter incredulity that I viewed a clip of a young cyclist who was being chased down by a car, knocked off his bike and when he took to running was run over by the car.

Well, that is unbelievable in the least, it would have me calling the police in no time, taking photos with my mobile phone and recording everything that would lead to definitely getting adequate and speedy redress.

The occupants of that car should and would justifiably rot in jail if there was any justice in this world. Well, I do wonder if there is any justice in this world at times - Selah! [A biblical punctuation in the Psalms signifying pausing for thought].

As word would have it, someone got fined and had 5 penalty points applied to their driver's license further along the line 10,000 pounds ended up in someone’s account with a statement of utter regret - you will note, jail never featured in the whole episode.

Going over the detail again

The occupants of the car were the police, the evidence of being chased down and run over was recorded from a police helicopter during the a supposed drug raid that had them chasing after an entirely innocent man of colour in England in 1999.

The cyclist was at the receiving end of the fine, penalty and compensation after 5 years; however, for 6 years the police used every sleight of hand to prevent the publishing of the footage of that utterly despicable activity of law enforcement.

The reason this issue is in the news is because that footage finally saw the light of day having been extricated through the vagaries of the Freedom of Information Act, the police having run of out the state security excuses of concealing information that portrays them in the worst of light.

One is almost at  point of sympathising with the police in those circumstances, we cannot afford to have civil society knowing that the police could be that reckless - even that does not begin to describe my pique. Basically, we need to be able to retain confidence in law enforcement, but NOT at any cost.

Closing comments

The body of evidence developing from this story and many others that inform my opinion can be summed up as follows; whilst there is a case for running away from the police if you are an ethnic minority most especially if you are innocent and blameless to escape the privation of getting beaten up, it appears if you do run you might suffer the greater privation of losing your life.

Our cyclist escaped with sufficient injuries to scar him for life, Jean Charles de Menezes unfortunately did not, apparently, and neither was he running from the police.

This is all regrettable, more so regrettable when those who are meant to protect turn against those they are meant to protect.

Reference

BBC NEWS | England | South Yorkshire | Crash footage released to victim:

BBC NEWS | Politics | Police chief's apology rejected: