7 Reasons

Tag: Parking

  • 7 Reasons That I Hate The Mayor Of Vilnius

    7 Reasons That I Hate The Mayor Of Vilnius

    Unless you have been on the moon for the past few days (and perhaps even if you have) you will have seen this video of the mayor of Vilnius keeping the cycle lanes clear in his city by crushing illegally parked vehicles with a tank. This video has been everywhere.  And it’s annoyed me.  A lot.  Here are 7 Reasons that I hate the mayor of Vilnius.

    1.  The Mayor Of Vilnius Is A Liar.  The message in the video is that if you park in the cycle lane, the mayor of Vilnius will crush your car with a tank.  But he doesn’t have a tank.  Look at it.  Look at it!  It’s got wheels and there’s a distinctive lack of a huge gun at the front to shoot things with, tracks and other tank-y accoutrements that are the universally acknowledged signifiers that the vehicle is a tank.  That means that it’s not a tank. What it is, is an armoured personnel carrier.  What it is not, is a tank.  The mayor of Vilnius is fibbing.

    2.  The Mayor Of Vilnius Is In The Least Convincing Video Ever.  I have seen theatre sets that look less staged than this video.  I have seen ham actors less hammy than the acting in this video.  In fact, I’ve seen entire pig farms less hammy than the acting this video.  The man that gets “his” car crushed is the single worst actor that I have ever seen, and I’ve seen Piers Brosnan.  The video wouldn’t be less believable if it was narrated by Jeffrey Archer.  No it would.  But still, it’s not a convincing video.

    3.  The Mayor Of Vilnius Hates The Poor.  During the video, there are three examples of illegal parking.  In the first two, a Rolls-Royce and a Ferrari are illegally parked and are not run over by the mayor of Vilnius in an armoured personnel carrier.  A third illegally parked car (a knackered old Mercedes worth almost nothing) is run over by the mayor of Vilnius in an armoured personnel carrier.  What sort of message does this send?  Poor people of Vilnius: The mayor of Vilnius is after your cars.  Run (drive?) for your lives, he’s got a grudge against the impoverished and an armoured personnel carrier and he’s not afraid to use it!  The message it sends out to the wealthy is somewhat different though.  Rich people of Vilnius: Feel free to park wherever you like.  Sit back, relax, and eat a diamond or two while you enjoy the spectacle of a man menacing the poor with a “tank”.  This is not a nice message to send out.

    4.  The Mayor Of Vilnius Is The Wrong Man For The Job.  People like to have sensible, solid, reliable citizens as their mayors.  Qualities that they don’t like in a mayor are publicity-hunger and buffoonery.  The evidence for that is clear:  The population of the world is 7 billion people and the population of London is 7.7 million people.  This means that by far the vast majority of the planet’s population choose to live in the world, which is outside London.  If they wanted a buffoon for a mayor, they’d live in London where, incidentally, everything within in the cycle lane is mown down by taxis.  The people have spoken and we don’t want buffoons.

    5.  The Mayor Of Vilnius Is Missing The Point.  Why does it even matter if people are parking in the cycle lanes there?  Judging by the film, it would appear that Vilnius is the world’s emptiest city.  The mayor of Vilnius seems to be some sort of latter day Omega Man cruising the deserted streets in his armoured personnel carrier desperately searching for signs of life.  The only person using the cycle lanes in Vilnius is the mayor of Vilnius.  Why not use the empty road?  No one will ever know.

    6.  The Mayor Of Vilnius Isn’t Even A Proper Mayor.  He’s obviously the mayor by default because he’s the only citizen of Vilnius.  Look what happens after he crushes the Mercedes:  He has to stop and clean up the glass.  He’s the parking enforcement officer, the military, the mayor and the street cleaner all rolled into one.  If the mayor of Vilnius became embroiled in a corruption scandal – a quite common occurrence in local government – he’d end up having to arrest himself, but that would be okay, because he’d be able to pay himself a bribe and get the whole thing swept under the carpet.  Then he’d be free to win the next mayoral election by a margin of one.  Again.  Doesn’t the man have any ambition?  Why doesn’t he enact a constitutional monarchy and appoint himself King of Vilnius?  Emperor?  God of Vilnius!  If you’re self-appointed, think big!

    7.  It All Boils Down To Envy.  It looks like fun.  I want a go.

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Student Accommodation Can Be Rather Tiresome

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Student Accommodation Can Be Rather Tiresome

    Something a bit special is happening on the 7 Reasons sofa today. For the first time ever, one Lee is being replaced by another. I, Jon, am stepping aside and handing control of 7 Reasons over to my brother, Rob. This may backfire quite substantially, but for the sake of me having a day off , it is a risk I am more than happy to take. If you enjoy Rob’s ranting you may be interested in reading his first book, Shattered Souls. It contains no ranting, but does feature a place called RedFjord. Amazon are also currently offering a very generous 90p discount which is quite a bonus. Right, here’s Rob. I’m off out to buy some more asterisks.

    7 Reasons Student Accommodation Is Bloody Annoying

    1.  The Fridge. The fridge is always too small. Always. What is it about landlords and small fridges? Do they not think that their tenants might want to buy food? We don’t all survive on takeaway and ready meals y’know. Some of us can even use rudimentary kitchen utensils, or combine ingredients that aren’t cheese, tomato sauce, and frozen chips. Despite this, it’s always a case of having one shelf in the fridge. I don’t know about you, but cheese takes up about half the space in mine, let alone any other food. And no I am not willing to freeze it. Frozen cheese is an abomination. Step one, get bigger fridges.

    2.   The Builders. Why is it that student landlords always have builders doing ‘things’ with the house? Things which are seemingly unnecessary, and even these are invariably done badly. So the landlord is called; he/she is forced to come round; then they call back the same builders who did it wrong in the first place!* Even worse, they give them keys to the property. Yes, do go in, don’t mind them, they’re just sleeping**. The landlord comes out with things like ‘don’t lock your door so my builders can get in’. What? I’m not leaving my door unlocked in a student neighbourhood – I may as well just leave my valuables on a park bench with a ‘Take-Me Big Boy’ sign. I’m also not letting some Charlie I’ve never met, wander about, knocking bits out of the place I’m living, without someone there to stop him. (Or her. We’re very broad minded here).

    3.  The Neighbours. Student housing has neighbours. Invariably only about two feet away from you and separated by a wall about as thick as a cream cracker. This is not good when one wishes to sleep. Especially because the neighbours always seem to be nocturnal and have absolutely no taste in music. Music which they broadcast to the entire street***. Neighbours shouldn’t be allowed.

    4.  The Parking. There isn’t any. Many students have cars so they can move their collection of road signs, traffic cones, novelty hats and foreign vodka from one place to another. Lots of cars and no parking is an equation that doesn’t work. It also means walking anywhere becomes a game of car-dodgems from idiots who, having shared their lack of taste in music with the street, have decided to drive down the one you’re walking along.

    5.  The Bathrooms. There’s only ever one. This is annoying when you’ve just got in from a post seminar drink and discover you have to wait half an hour to use the facilities. Either that or you nip back round the corner to the local public house to use theirs and nearly end up locked in because you’ve discovered the only pub in the area which kept to a closing time of 11pm when all the rest changed to an hour before dawn****.

    6.  The Annual Quest For Housing. Unless you happen to be lucky enough to be in a house which is not leaking, falling down, being sold to a private individual who doesn’t want to live with students, being sold to another landlord who seems to think letting to undergrads will be easier than letting to postgrads, a pit, too small, too big, too expensive, neighboured by idiots called Nelson who keep getting stoned and wandering about outside shouting ‘Hash’ at 3am in the morning***** and then playing their music so loud that industrial-level earplugs make no difference, then you invariably find yourself moving. (Insert breath here). This effectively entails scouring housing lists on the internet and engaging in the blind battle that is finding the only decent place before all the other people do. This process is annoying, especially because it also means parting with large amounts of money in the form of deposits which you’ve only just got back from the last place******.

    7.  The students. There’s far too many of them*******.

    *Not all builders get it wrong, some are very good at their job, however, student landlords like it cheap. Cheap and good don’t go together in building work, ask the bridge builders of Delhi.

    **No, not as you may imagine at 3pm in the afternoon, but in fact at 6am when the banging starts. And by banging I don’t mean another apparently favourite activity of the undergraduate student.

    ***Unhappily half the time much of the street is broadcasting back, and Classic FM it certainly isn’t, it’s not even Radio 2.

    **** This may or may not have happened. It does not particularly help if you just returned from a smart do and are dressed in black trousers white shirt – the staff may think you work in the cellar. This also may or may not have occurred.

    *****This did happen. Many times. Many many times (a little classic comedy nod there, if you know what it refers to then I’m sure Julian and Sandy will see you right).

    ******Yes, everyone renting has to pay deposits, so feel free to join in being annoyed about this point even if you’re not in the university system.

    *******As a postgrad I don’t consider myself a student, especially since I teach the little terrors (ahem, the academic future of this country) too. Postgrads are excluded from the above rants. Unless Nelson ever becomes a postgrad. I won’t worry about him reading this; I don’t imagine he knows how to read.