Car Park Design - Rocket Science? I don't think so!

Yesterday my neighbours took me and my eldest girl to see "Inkheart" at the cinema. Since we hadn't been to the new Vue in Camberley, Jonathan was keen to go and use this new theatre, which boasted of "special" seats for only £1 extra per seat, and beanbags, for only an extra 50p per seat! Wow! As it happens, you really don't want the beanbag seats, because you're crowded at the very front of the auditorium, craning your neck to view the screen above you.

I think, for the beanbags alone, Vue win the "Fleece you silly" award for 2008. They've managed to find a way to persuade people to sit at the front of the auditorium, while simultaneously extracting an extra 50p per person for the priviledge! Awesome!

However, we're not here to discuss the wiliness of cinema chains, but the design of a brand new car park. I will say, right now, that I love going to Basingstoke (I know, who'd ever have thought it?) because I know where to park, I like the shopping centre, and I like the way the cinema is laid out when I get there. I find the car park fairly well designed, for a car park. I'm constantly astonished, however, at the total fuckwittedness of car park design. All in all, despite a certain oddness, the Basingstoke Festival Place car park is OK.

Sadly, however, the NEW car park in Camberley is not. Leaving aside, for the moment, the issue of the wanting to cram into the available space, as many cars as is humanly possible, there are certain laws of physics which were never meant to be broken. One of these laws, I'm fairly certain, although I have to check my "Laws of Physics" book, is that in car parks it's bad to make the cars travelling in different directions use the same piece of road. I'm talking "crossing the beams" bad. This new car park is BAD. While there are two lanes in which you can take a ticket, no-one's ever actually going to use the left hand lane, because in your attempt to avoid impaling your car on parts of the car park, you've already swung out too far to the right, and you're no longer capable of tightening up the turn enough. Similarly, there are two exit lanes, but the left hand one involves a shimmy between some concrete posts I'm not convinced most cars will be able to do.

And let's not even talk about the stupid concrete dividers which are supposed to stop the up-traffic from hitting the down-traffic - to avoid scraping your paint (for the 20th time), you'll find yourself swinging too far out, and either bumping up these dumb kerbs, or jiggling backwards and forwards to make the turn without hitting either the impatient people behind you, or another of the walls.

So why on earth is it so difficult to design a car park that doesn't annoy you. I know it's not - I've seen car parks which don't make me seethe. I suppose the question is - how do you design a brand-spanking new car park so badly. After all, you've got a vacant lot, and you're starting with nothing. You need to stop being so damn greedy, trying to cram in quite so many cars, and design something which isn't going to win the award for "Most Idiotic Car Park Design, 2008".

Well Loved Books

I've spent a happy evening watching the BBC's newest, shiniest production - The 39 Steps, by John Buchan. This is one of my favourite books, because it's such a super yarn - rather Boys' Own, if you will. As one known to read Biggles books, I expect you can see why I enjoy this one so much.

We all know the gist of the story - Richard Hannay, our hero, returns from some Engineering job in Africa, holes up in London for the first few weeks, but finds after a short while of hanging out at his club he's bored to tears, aching for some adventure. On the cusp of returning to his beloved Africa, he bumps into a chap called Scudder, who, throwing himself on Hannay's mercy, tells him he's a spy, and has information vital to the well-being of Great Britain! He mentions a plot to assasinate a high ranking foreigner, due on British soil soon, shows Hannay his Black Book, and is promptly killed by the very people against whom he's trying to defend the country. Unfortunately for our hero, Scudder managed to get himself killed in Hannay's flat, so Hannay goes on the run, convinced he'll hang for this murder (side note: clearly a lot more credence was given to circumstantial evidence in those days. Side note 2: I had to point out to my girls that while the last public hanging was in the 19th century, people were still being hanged in Britain until some time during the middle of the 20th century, although I can't remember when). Escaping to St Pancras, he boards the first train he sees, subconciously choosing a train bound for Scotland, a place he remembers with fondness from an earlier time, perhaps realising that he'll have a better chance to escape over-zealous policemen in the wilds of Scotland than in the middle of London. Much merriement ensues, with Hannay blundering round the highlands, and while Hannay is, in fact, captured at one point by the damn Bosch mischief workers, he escapes (explosions) to blunder another day. All this time he's working on the code in the Black Book, and eventually works out that the 39 Steps mentioned in the book refer to some steps down to the water in a town in Kent - OK, he had to have help with which town, and which flight of steps.

Now, I don't know the book particularly well, but I do know that the end of the story is NOT in Scotland. And I know that there's absolutely NO romance in the book. OK, I agree, it'd be a better book if there'd been a little flirtation. Every singly film/drama version of this story has included a toothsome wench to hang on Hannay's arm and either squeal girlishly, or, like the one this evening, dispense ascerbic advice and hair-pins (for unlocking handcuffs) with equal ease. That's one thing I'm not going to complain about - it's a poetic licence up with which I will put.

But why, for the love of Mike, do they have to change the story so much. Sure, it'd take too long to show that Scudder had, in fact, stayed with Hannay for at least 3 days before being murdered - and I seem to remember that he was stuck with a long knife. That's a good way to murder someone in a play - stuck with a knife ("Killed by pirates is good!", to quote a favourite film - guesses in the comments please), in fact, skewered to the floor! Brilliant. Guns seem to be so universally accepted nowadays that everyone has to be killed by a gun.

And while I'm prepared to endorse the inclusion of a lady, it's really time to stop being so PC about it. She doesn't have to be cleverer than our hero - sometimes it's nice to be looked after. There's a whole slew of adverts out there which annoy me to ranting point (although, like that letter to the RT, nothing ever happens about that, either) because they portray men as simpletons, and women as the saviours of the universe - and we all know who that is (easy one for you - "Flash, I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the earth!") All we need do is look at the evidence. There are strong members of each sex, but back in 1914, your average lady was more likely to be a shrinking violet than a strident suffragette. And NO disrespect for those sterling ladies - they got us the ruddy vote, didn't they? And of course, in their rush to portray Victoria as a hard-as-nails, man-hating suffragette, they had to make Hannay look a little pathetic in her company, just in case we thought he may be able to manage on his own. This man has just returned from being an engineer in Southern Africa, do you think he needed a hair-pin weilding bint for that, for goodness sake? He actually has the balls not only to manage on his own, but look after himself, and think quickly on his feet to escape ("Es-cap-ay? I wonder what that means, it's funny, it's spelled just like the word Escape.") the police of England and Scotland, and some pretty determined villains.

It seems almost as if they should have called the play "The 39 Steps, a play based extremely loosely on the book by the same name, written by John Buchan." ("almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea" - the easiest of the lot).

All grumblings aside, I'd very much like to see them take on more of Buchan's works. The next in the series being Greenmantle, and a really good story. I can understand why The 39 Steps is so well known, but Greenmantle is an equally good book, and actually HAS some romance in it!