Traffic hazards on Edgbaston Park Road

I've just had another go at drawing attention to dangers on Edgbaston Park Road - a busy route into Birmingham University campus for students living at the Vale about half a mile away, and indeed one of my ways into work once I've left the Birmingham-Worcester canal towpath at its exit by the bridge on Somerset Road. I made this film in October 2004. I passed the DVD out to various people who I thought might be able to do something about what looks like an accident waiting to happen - and therefore not an accident. This morning, on impulse, I posted it on YouTube and sent it to some friends and people who might bring pressure to bear to arrive at a more satisfactory arrangement - for instance an attractive and safe walkway between the Vale and main campus just over half a mile away. Plenty of people know and agree this road is hazardous, but because Edgbaston Park Road is a major route for motorised traffic onto campus including the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and surrounding offices and a feeder to the Bristol Road which takes traffic into and out of Birmingham, it's difficult to introduce significant traffic calming. For the time being the investment needed to lay out an alternative walking route is not forthcoming. There have, as far as I know, been no deaths on the road. My student was injured near where the figure stands at the end of the film. That was over twenty years ago. He walked too far from the side of the road that has no pavement and was hit by a car, suffering a compound fracture of his arm, from which, thank goodness, he made a good recovery. I show this film to new students. It's hardly 3 minutes and makes its point cogently. I was delighted that the red Royal Mail van weaves in and out of sight on the film establishing that I was filming in real time and not selectively. How I delight in Blondie's line "...walking on imported air"! Thanks for being allowed to use this song to back the film.
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Meanwhile, more fires on the outskirts of Athens.

Enjoying the marrow and a bacon and egg sandwich

Lin cut the marrow from Ano Korakiana into sections, took out the seeds and stuffed the hollow with mince, topped each section with cheese and put them in the oven. We ate them with carrots, baked potatoes and gravy. How I do like stuffed marrow.
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This week I've been teaching some Japanese civil servants. They are here to learn about local government in the UK, to practise their English and get a feel for British culture. We have WiFi in the lecture room and with that and a number of colleagues to teach their specialist subjects they will know more than 99.999% of the British public about local government, and a good deal rather more than most British citizens about our culture. Chris Game, who with David Wilson, has written the definitive textbook on British Local Government is with them for nearly two days of their two weeks. Peter Watt, as knowledgeable about finance and performance, was with them for a day and half. We had a typically provocative overview of 'Our Island Story' from Lesley Prince who arrived with flags, swords, history books, old English texts, a smattering of Japanese and a story that begins with the ice age and continued to the English Civil War and the seeds of a democracy based on universal suffrage sown at Putney in October and November 1647 - 360 years ago this month. We've been to the Court Leet at Henley-in-Arden. I've done sessions on the spirit of British Administration, on Overview and Scrutiny and on 'narrowcasting'. Our director, Martin Willis, talked about care of the elderly, which included an experiment in which he knocked on our door and then just walked in, and then knocked and waited until asked in. He was exploring the experience of independence in care homes, one of which the students visited in Castle Vale. In between all this I took them round our tree filled campus explaining the idea of a redbrick university and the role of Joseph Chamberlain in the founding of Birmingham University. We gazed down from the podium in the Great Hall and stared up at the hundred metre high Old Joe Clock Tower. "He saw a tower like this when he was on holiday in Sienna". An extra bonus was an exclusive tour of the Barber Institute - an exquisite place where we rejoiced in seeing Degas, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Constable, Turner, Ingres, Van Dyke and many other works so close to. I needed to warn them about traffic hazards on the road between their lecture room and where they ate.Yesterday morning I bought an egg and bacon sandwich from the Baguette Stall at Five Ways and explained its role in British culture. All this week I've been enjoying cycling to and from campus, but rising each morning at 7 and not turning in until after midnight has left me quite tired. I'm looking forward to the weekend - though here's a load of errands to get through at home.
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We've booked seats to go back to Corfu at the end of January for over three weeks.