“Some people don’t know how to walk on the pavement these days
Well it’s not that difficult, there’s hardly a whole host of ways”
L’Enfer C’Est Les Autres – Half Man Half Biscuit
IT may not look like it much of the time, but a lot of these posts start with a vague attempt to find a link with the tracks which have popped up on my iPod.
After all, the journey through the songs from A-Z is the supposed theme of the blog in lieu of any actual travelling.
Links can be tenuous, utterly missing (resulting the music being shoehorned in somewhere), a memory triggered by a song or any themes which pop up in the song title.
Which is where we were headed with this entry from The Clash to Public Service Broadcasting.
After all, if you cannot find a subject from song titles involving the USA to the threat of conflict via the ICU, changing someone’s mind, falling from grace with God, Ideology, ideas and, possibly most fittingly, idiots amid recent events, well you are not really trying.
But after feeding a CNN obsession and replanning the post amid unfurling events (long ago retreated into old West Wing episodes as a form of balm), we will go on about a real issue which has been driving me to distraction.
People’s inability to walk properly on a pavement or path.
There is a link to the music – this is the annoyance that crops up while listening to my iPod on my Government-sanctioned daily walks.
Designed to build some semblance of a return to pre-South America fitness (and waistline) and avoid spending my entire waking hours in the front room of my flat, the walks are part of an attempt to cover 1,000 miles on foot during 2021.
Slowly closing an early fall behind schedule, the daily distance will increase in length in line with the days and the walks provide the perfect chance to escape the four walls, get some fresh air and crank up the music in my headphones.
All socially distanced, of course.
At least until other people sharing the path decide the rules or general courtesy do not apply to them.
“Here they come, love’s young dream, arm in arm, approaching me
Now, I’m not looking for your smile, I’m just asking for some single file”
L’Enfer C’Est Les Autres – Half Man Half Biscuit
This is not a new annoyance.
People’s inability to spot and adapt to what is around them while walking never ceases to amaze at the best of times.
Throw in the restrictions of social distancing and it takes on whole new levels of frustration.
And that is before we start on supermarkets.
So in a bid to tackle the big issues of the day, here is the Travel Marmot guide to walking on the pavements – after all, there’s hardly a whole host of ways.
- You do not have to fill the whole width of the path
Couples: If the path is small you can walk single file, I promise your partner will not leave you in the 3 seconds it takes to let someone else pass at a safe distance
— Olivia Foster (@LivsFoster) January 10, 2021
Quite happy to stick to the edge of the path – which on icy days around here, risks sliding along the banks of a canal or river – leaving plenty of room for people coming the other way to hug the far side.
If only.
Walked two miles back along a canal towpath on Sunday with a stream of couples and groups coming the other way – just two moved from side by side to single file and one of them did that down the middle of the path, which rather negates the point.
They are the pedestrian version of middle-lane hogs, seemingly worried they might fall off the edge if they move from the centre.
Moving from side by side to single file does not make a huge difference if you do it in the centre of the path
— Rob Freeman (@robglaws) January 17, 2021
- Pay attention to what is ahead
Going for a walk in a pandemic pic.twitter.com/wD1uBFtdJa
— Andy Ryan (@ItsAndyRyan) January 24, 2021
One thing about walking is most of us do not go that fast. You do have time to move out of the way rather than plough on regardless or block the path.
- Stop looking at your phone
This is not just a social distancing measure, my old walk to work – about 200 yards – rarely failed to feature at least one collision or near miss.
Remarkably, it can be even worse at weekends – and was again between lockdowns – as Gloucester Docks appears a hot spot for groups of men (almost exclusively), dressed in black (even more exclusively), staring at screens (often more than one) in search of Pokemon.
Thankfully, Pokemon appear to be obeying lockdown rules.
- Walking in the road/mud/canal is fine, thank you
After all, you would not want to get those best shoes or white trainers dirty by veering away from the path to give somebody some room.
Your dog can walk in the mud. It is probably happier there than me.
- That two-metre gap is not for you to fill
Not a walk issue, this one’s from the list of supermarket gripes (seriously, don’t get me started – my frustration in the aisles generally rises with my need to travel. Which is high).
That two-metre gap in the checkout is for social distancing (you might have heard of it) and to let people pass through.
It is not for you to take your place at the front of the queue.
And no, not all of us are polite enough to let you go keep loading your shopping onto the belt.
- Filming yourself breaking into a government building and posting it on social media is not a good idea
Oops, sorry, wrong list. Probably the same sort of people.
Soundtracking all this mumbling at passing walkers (and it is not always as quiet as mumbling) has been a fair few highlights in the latest section.
We had one of last year’s best tracks with ICU from Phoebe Bridgers, rewound a few years for some ideas – three versions of Ideas as Opiates by Tears for Fears, courtesy of a bit of lockdown nostalgia downloading, and Idea Track by Idlewild – a regular visitor in Billy Bragg (Ideology) and Idioteque, one of Radiohead’s better outings once they went a bit… well, let’s just say post-OK Computer.
And then we hit the Ifs, which has been a pretty rich seam,
The magnificent If I Can’t Change Your Mind obeyed this blog’s rule of Copper Blue which says anything from Sugar’s debut album has to feature, while The Lemonheads (If I Could Talk I’d Tell You) and Jason Isbell (If It Takes A Lifetime) come close to similar outcomes.
We had some Pogues (If I Should Fall From Grace With God), Wilco (If I Ever Was A Child), Leonard Cohen (If It Be Your Will), Belle & Sebastian (If She Wants Me) and If I Had A Hammer from American Music Club, who also popped up with I’ve Been A Mess.
Which you could say about a lot of people in the last few weeks.
- Apparently, this is the 250th blog post on Travel Marmot, just by chance (and a fair amount of procrastination) on the 11th anniversary of the first entry on what became this website.
It has taken us round the world, the close on 40 US states, almost round Africa, even closer to a full circuit of South America (although that was supposed to be a complete circle), A to If on my iPod and any number of detours along the way.
Let’s see where it takes us next – once the world expands a bit further beyond my flat.
