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Some nice responses to the Letchworth roundabout signage, the first one from Jim McKenzie
"Had to get in touch as I too get annoyed by that sign in Letchworth. My issue though is, OK, they don't know when it was built, but why have they gone with 'circa'? Is there not a short phrase more closely related to 'roundabout' that might do instead? Yes, I want them to say 'built round about 1909' (can't a man dream?) and every time I head into Letchworth, I'm in slightly more of a mood of mock annoyance than I need to be. "
How did I not spot that.
Others suggested circa might actually be an architectural joke, being both a reference to circles and being round about.
But you can rely of David Frew to find out the facts revealing "Sollershott Circus - The UK's first roundabout The local papers did not cover the opening of the roundabout. They know it wasn't built in summer 1908 and it WAS built by Spring on 1910. Hence circa 1909.
Only 3.9 stars on Tripadvisor"
So unbelievably there is no definite record of when the roundabout opened, and we can presume it was probably 1909 (though with one witness remembering the occasion some 44 years later).
I am sure some evidence in a newspaper, council record or diary entry must be out there somewhere, but the facts are yet to be discovered.
I love the readers of this blog. Thanks for being one of them.
I was heading back to my TV job tonight, but managed to go out for lunch with Catie and play an afternoon tennis match. Remarkably I'd got a job tonight which was basically halfway between home and my hotel. I was interviewing Richard Ayoade at the Warwick Arts Centre about his new book. It was an easy and enjoyable gig for me. Richard is effortlessly funny and we really seem to bounce off each other well and half of it was a Q and A with the excellent audience. Somehow (possibly because I was there) we ended up discussing masturbating whilst listening to Middlemarch on audiobook and any evening that ends that way (with the discussion, not the actual wanking) is a good one. Someone asked Richard if he had to watch one film once a day for the rest of his life, which film would it be? We were more interested in how someone would enforce this and why they were doing it and whether it would be better to watch the film as early as possible or at the end of the day. These are the kinds of conversations I love.
Richard's book Afterthoughts is very funny, but also will inspire lots of philosophical questions (even though he claims to be parodying anyone unwise enough to write a book of wise thoughts).
One thought made me wonder "Has saying “chillax” ever done anything but make the situation more tense?"
