Signs I Like #32: Christmas 2012 Special

My inexplicable near-six month absence from blogging notwithstanding, I emerge blinking into the dim midwinter gloom to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. This sign found yesterday in Marks and Spencer's as we hung about waiting for the turkeys to be discounted!

Signs I Like #31: Are all committee meetings the SAME?

Breathe In And Out... on Blipfoto :: Are all committee meetings the same? :: 12 June 2012

I enjoyed spotting this sign at the University of Stirling earlier this week, considering how many committee (and other) meetings I have sat in over the last 25 years!

Signs I Like #30: Once in a lifetime

Well, it probably will be once in a lifetime that the Olympic Flame is carried through the town where I live. And that is happening here in Stirling tomorrow, Wednesday 13th June 2012. And, despite all the corporate nonsense and over-commercialisation of the London 2012 Games, I refuse to have my excitement quenched. This road sign, foretelling tomorrow's rolling traffic restrictions and heavy-handed security blanket, was in Bridge of Allan's main street, where the Olympic Torch convoy will be going before coming within two minutes drive of my house in Stirling.

Signs I like #29 - Ducks Crossing!

When it comes to road signs, I am, not surprisingly given the primary focus of this blog, quite interested in those related to protecting both wildlife and motorists from unwanted interactions. In most cases, this is primarily to protect the wildlife. In some instances, however, such as deer, there are potentially serious, even fatal, implications of accidental comings-together, both for the animal and the vehicle's occupants. In this series of Signs I Like" posts, I've previously included the funky signs in the Outer Hebrides, warning of otters crossing the roads at "pinchpoints" such as coastal causeways.

Today, the sign I like is on the business park where I work in Stirling where it points out the likelihood of encountering ducks crossing the road. It is particularly important at this time of year as female mallards walk their large broods of ducklings from their hidden nest sites across the business park, down to the small pond at the entrance to the business park. We had a mother duck walking her family of eight suckling past the office window last week - very sweet!

I took this photo in the pouring rain - very appropriate weather for ducks!

Signs I Like #28

Well, looky-here! Edinburgh Zoo took delivery this week of a pair of Giant Pandas from the People's Republic of China (it can't have escaped your notice on the news, if you live in the UK. While I will post something more detailed about this later, I wanted to share this sign which I found today outside the zoo. You can sense a quiet pride in their acquisition, in stark contrast to the extreme marketing in the zoo shop! Of which, more later...

Signs I like number 20-something

Seen off the Royal Mile today at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe... I think we can all agree that this looks like a genuine bargain!

Signs I Like #26 (puerile humour warning...)

Hmm. I wonder which part of the animals they specialise in treating here...?

Signs I like #25

"I come from the land Down Under..." (spotted at University of Stirling)

Signs I like #24

Seen at Scotland's Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh today

Signs I like #23 (and a special Titanic memory from Stirling)

You might have heard on the news that yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the launch of RMS Titanic from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. As we all know, the Titanic's maiden voyage ended in disaster and tragedy following a collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on 12th April 1912, resulting in 1517 deaths among the passengers and crew, and leaving 1517 families on both sides of the Atlantic to contemplate their own personal tragedies.

If you look at the Wikipedia entry for the Titanic, you will find that it lists all the passengers and crew, identifying those who lived and those who died. One of the engineering crew who died was a Mr William Y. Moyes, Senior Sixth Engineer. He is listed in the record as being from "Stirling, Scotland" and lived, in fact, in the street next to the one in which we live, where this featured sign is fixed to the fence of the house in which he once dwelt.

Apologies that image isn't great but the light was very poor. The plaque has a picture of the Titanic at the top. Below it, the wording says:

"Here lived
WILLIAM YOUNG MOYES
Senior Sixth Engineer
on
RMS TITANIC
who lost his life when the liner sank
on
APRIL 14th 1912
with the loss of 1635 lives",

just one of the many moving stories from that terrible day. Note the discrepancy in the number of deaths (1635 vs 1715). The higher figure is the official death toll, I think.

Lovely to see the flowers that someone tied up there for the anniversary. We'll raise a glass to his memory (and all those who died) next April 12th, 100 years to the day.

Signs I like #21 ( or Signs that made me smirk #1)

So, what I want to know is, can I have a discount, please, on account of your terrible spelling? Thanks.

Signs I like #20

Spotted in Longniddry at 20 miles in the Edinburgh marathon on Sunday. Eclectic and maybe profound, but I'm not sure...

Signs I like #19

Runners take precedence over cars. The New World Order, at least for a few hours... Good luck to everyone running the Edinburgh Marathon tomorrow!

Signs I like #18

I've been looking at this old sign on the end of a row of houses and shops for years of visits to York (it's near the Monk Bar entrance to the old city). Imagine having a giant advert for laxatives painted on the outside wall of your house. Puts the rest of the world into some perspective...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Signs I like #17

Imagine having this as your address! It would also be a good description for some of the places I've worked...

Signs I like #16 (and a medal to boot!)

I loved the enthusiasm of this advert for free swimming provision in Glasgow for the over 60s and the very young. This was in Glasgow's fantastic Tollcross pool where I swam 5 kilometres yesterday for the Swimathon 2011. I managed 1 hour 36 minutes, a big personal best and managed to raise a wee bit of money for Marie Cure Cancer Care who organise the Swimathon every year. We were each even given a wonderful chunky medal.

Stirling Triathlon Club provided most of the participants and had a lovely supportive squad at the end our lane when my swimming pal Tracey L and I finished our 200th length. So, I was already smiling and full of endorphins (happy chemicals) from my swim when I walked out and saw this sign. If that was a political party manifesto, I'd vote for it!

Signs I Like #15

This is Scotland...
Heaven forbid that we should actually encourage
anyone to play any sport or take any exercise on their local green spaces.
Got to keep it neat and tidy after all!
And I mean, we wouldn't want to encourage that nasty, brutish, noisy,
Celtic shinty nonsense now, would we ...?

Signs I Like #14

Look at the moustache and haircut on the rat...

Signs I Like #13

Recently, I had to go to a meeting at Longannet Power Station, where I receommend that anyone suffering from an over-inflated sense of their own importance should go for a visit - I've never felt so much like an ant, walking around beside the biggest building I have ever seen or been near.  Anyway, while I was there, I spotted this cool sign on the ground, as I was leaving the visitors' car park. Serious safety culture at this place but it amused the pedant in me to ponder whether either the car park was unsafe, or if it was the case that unsafe behaviour was acceptable there... I also like the way that the shadow of the triangular warning sign is like an arrow, pointing to the exact location where safety starts...

Apologies for the relatively poor quality - I took this on my camera phone and tried to do it as discreetly as possible for fear of being swamped by crazed security officials, aghast at the thought of someone taking photos inside the perimeter of Scotland's largest power generation facility. Actually, no one seemed in the slightest bothered, which was quite refreshing!

Signs I Like #12

An unfortunate juxtaposition of two signs, which I've always loved!