Does it spark joy? That is, apparently, the question, according to one of these self-help schemes/books/videos/courses, and is the fundamental proposition behind a way of decluttering your life, and making yourself happier, so somebody told me the other day.
And as daffodils are coming out, and it’s very nearly spring, it feels to me like time to start thinking about a declutter. So you get the idea of this fad: pick up an old cushion, give it a squeeze and a cuddle, decide if it brings you joy and, if not, chuck it out.
I tried it. Got things out of cupboards and rooms, went right through the house, asked myself if they truly brought me joy and binned them if they didn’t.
Anyway, the cat and my motorcycle and I have never been happier. Or hungrier. Please send help.
But there was one nugget of semi-truth, I thought, in what I read about it: storage – even clever storage solutions – are, in essence, just organised hoarding, which is no good to anyone. Among readers of this publication, I might well not be alone in having a garage, shed or workshop, with one or two things in it that, perhaps, could have been thrown out a while ago but are kept ‘just in case’ they might be handy.
Every now and again, I will let some things go, but not others which I deem might be more useful. And do you know what: just the other day I remembered an old kart frame that would have been perfect for making a frame for a PlayStation gaming seat. Had I not scrapped it four years ago.
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So it is spring, and I am going to declutter. My advice would be thus: hoard entirely, or not at all.
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Yes and no
agree M42 at peak it seems to help. M25 not so great, and M4 just mad. 50 most of the time around Newport.
Mostly smart motorways are dumb, and definitely not an upgrade.
smart and upgrade. More nonsense Weasel words. What sort of numpty committee came up with that.
Place & time
Smart motorways have their place, depending upon the time of day. Around busy urban areas, slowing traffic approaching a busy junction should help to reduce queueing, tailbacks, and in the case of it all going horribly wrong, reducing the g-force created by an impact, meaning the occupants are more likely to survive. Using the hard shoulder maximises the road surface allowing more vehicles to use the same stretch of road. Having driven on the M42 many times, along with being driven in Singapore, during busy periods, it certainly seems to help. As with everything, if you want something new accepted, you need to focus on the benefits to the user, and as mentioned in previous comments, during quiet periods, the system should allow drivers to flow as freely and quickly as possible.
News: its actually going to
News: its actually going to be both harder and easier to get a speeding ticket on Smart Motorways. If you look carefully you will see all the Gatso cameras are being removed from the gantries so its going to be fewer and farther between the opportunity to get caught speeding, the Gastso's were only active during periods of speed reduction.The enforcement is being taken over by new sporadically placed Hadecs3 cameras, the 'missile launcher' types canisters on a new mount, far left on the gantry shown below over the verge, difficult to spot. These either are already, or are planned to be in most placed permanently active even at national speed limit times - I believe the current 10%+2mph margin is set so 70mph up to 77+2=79mph real speed (GPS) so as speedos overread an indicated 80mph should still be 'safe'.
On sections with the traditional overhead gantry you can spot your aproaching a Hadecs3 equipped gantry because some way before will be a roadside pole with a triple camera head on it. This is because when the Hadecs3 takes a digital picture of you speeding, a matching picture is taken by the triple head of the gantry you passed under to show the signs were working and showing the correct speed you just exceeded.
some newer smart motorways have side mounted digital displays instead of gantry ones, these only need a single pre-camera to prove it was displaying correctly when you were caught so are even harder to spot.
Gradually our speed camera warning devices based on databases will catch up and stop 'pinging' on ex-Gatso gantries and only warn when aproaching a Hadecs gantry so keep your system up to date!Once this is all live and covering most major routes, it will be easy for the government to impose a nation wide speed limit reduction on the excuse of meeting environmental targets. Of course the real aim is to drive an overpopulated country off the roads onto public transport.
I forgot to mention the
I forgot to mention the cameras to take evidential pictures of the gantry during an offence -- are easy to confuse with the small tubular cameras mounted all along the smart motorway edge to provide continuous monitoring of the inside lane or hard shoulder if part time running.