Crackdown in Oxford

[Karlt]

I remember reading Eric Newby's book The Last Grain Race in which he reports some of the conversation of the Scandinavian crew. It struck me strongly at the time that phonetically it sounded very similar to Geordie.

There's lots of Norse in Geordie, which you don't find in more Southern English generally but may find in place names: Wor - Our (Norse Vor), Bairn - Child, Laik - Play, Laithe - Barn; Beck, Foss, Scar and Fell are found throughout the North, especially the North East. Simple fact is that Old Norse and Old English were similar enough that with familiarity and care Norseman and Englishman could understand each other, and as the Norse settled amongst the English intermediate forms of the language would have sprung up. Indeed, one of the main differences was the noun case endings, which like in Latin and modern Icelandic and Russian could do the work done in Modern English by prepositions. As the case endings differed, more use was made of prepositions so the mixing of Old English and Old Norse may have contributed to the breakdown of the case system of Old English and a move to greater use of prepositions and word order to take their place as in Middle and Modern English. It doesn't surprise me that some of the cadence and phonology of Old Norse survives in both modern Scandinavian languages and North Eastern English dialects.

Talk of Geordies stationed in Iceland being able to understand Icelandic are however bunk; modern Icelandic and even the deepest Geordie dialect are nothing like similar enough for that; Geordie is more like Icelandic than standard English is, but it's still way closer to standard English than it is to Icelandic!

But I digress.

 

[Keith Oates]

Out here not only do most bicycles not have lights and on the e-bikes they have them but they are rarely switched on.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Justinslow]

I got caught out five years or so ago when I used to live in Oxford with no lights... I'd been "meaning to get some" for ages but never quite got around to it. Turned up at the police station the next day with lights and they cancelled the fine - seems like an effective strategy to make sure occasional (mostly student) cyclists don't go around cycling on the roads in the dark with no lights. It's also a fair point that a large number of cyclists in Oxford really don't know what they're doing on the road, and having no lights makes those sudden swerves out into the traffic even more dangerous, so I think the policy is a good one, if a little nanny-state-ish.

I think it's quite funny that somebody who has actually been "caught" by the Feds and says "fair play" and then went and got some lights and agrees that some of the cyclists there are pants is roundly ignored by errrr, everyone.
Why are people getting in such a tiz about the police - policing?
Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[mjr]

I think it's quite funny that somebody who has actually been "caught" by the Feds and says "fair play" and then went and got some lights and agrees that some of the cyclists there are pants is roundly ignored by errrr, everyone.

Maybe it wasn't ignored but there was nothing meriting further comment in it.

Why are people getting in such a tiz about the police - policing?
Nothing to see here, move along.

I'm disappointed that the police often don't enforce various traffic laws that are there to protect cyclists and others - sometimes even after a collision, not passing things to the crown prosecuter - including motorists driving without a full set of lights, but they do find enough resources to enforce our wrongheaded and outdated lighting laws against cyclists... or actually, they're not even doing that fully, requiring EU standard approved lights of flashing- only ones, are they?

So people are getting in a tiz because the police are picking and choosing which laws to enforce and how strictly and the choice doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense in a good way, does it?

 

[srw]

So people are getting in a tiz because the police are picking and choosing which laws to enforce and how strictly and the choice doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense in a good way, does it?

This is very old news - it was first done when I was regularly visiting Oxford - about 20 years ago. The police, in Oxford as elsewhere, respond to what the public tell them they want to police, and for some reason that means policing unlit bikes and bikes on pavements. No, I don't understand it either - but I can imagine the mentality of someone who is bothered enough to raise it with the cops.

If you want local police to prioritise other things you need to find a weight of public opinion to back you.