A tale of two circulars

Where can you park...

...legally, when there's nowhere to legally park?

The guys planning the resident-only parking schemes in Kilburn, Neasden and Belsize Park have produced the motorists' version of one-hand clapping. The no visitor bay paradox. What is one to do? Hit the 'stealth mode' switch? Drive miles and get a tube back? Not bother visiting the area unless absolutely necessary, and not even then? Abseil in from a helicopter?

Maybe I should just postpone the site visits until that Star Trek matter transfer device gets invented (even though it don't look like happening anytime soon) and give it some “beam me to Neasden, Scotty” into my talking wristwatch?

In one place there was a parking guy:

“How far to the nearest visitor pay and display bay?” I said.

“End of the road, turn left, next right...” he said.

“...I'm going to be half an hour, maybe less, is it a long walk away?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes.”

“Christ.”

“Half an hour?”

“Tops.”

“Go on then.”


The North – South divide...

...reversed. The South Circular is very much the poor relative to the North Circular. A day of driving around that included both was a stark reminder that the north version is a proper road, with proper speed limits, sufficient lanes to keep things flowing, and very few roundabouts, traffic lights, and so forth.

I can't be arsed to google the history of the north and south circulars (that would be a degree of nerd-ism too far (apologies to anyone who has googled the history of the north and south circulars, or is an authority on the subject)) but the whole thing smacks of:

Powers that be: We know, we'll spend loads of money and build a north circular road and get people around quickly and easily and all that. That'd be a good idea.

North London drivers: Hey! Thanks!

South London drivers: Oy! Where's our equivalent of the north circular? That's...er...south-ism that is. Just because we're northernly challenged...

Powers that be: Okay, okay. Keep your hair on. [Among themselves] How much've we got? What? Less than half of bugger all? Do we have enough for some roadsigns, at least?

So the south circular came into being, a cobbled-together system (loosely-named system) of minor roads already prone to jams and slow-moving traffic, connected by absolutely nothing other than some roadsigns saying south circular, left turn, south circular, right turn, and south circular, expect delays. Long ones.