Posted by Robert Dilley on June 21, 2004 at 17:40:21 from 216.211.4.41 user rdilley.
In Reply to: Re: Driving in NZ (was The Wade) posted by Joy on June 21, 2004 at 13:19:52:
Joy's last sentence is a good example of the "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" category. Who is most likely to offer a seat -- "young men and women in their 40s and 50s" (as written) or "young men, and women in their 40s and 50s"?
(One might argue that the context makes it obvious; that Joy wouldn't be describing men and women in their 50s and 60s as "young". However, as one who is trying to avoid celebration of his 62nd birthday today, it seems an eminently reasonable term for such striplings.)
On an earlier thread -- if you really want Captain Flint pockets, check the Tilley (no relation) website (sorry, don't know how to do links) for their VOMP (Vest Of Many Pockets). A Mathematical colleague of mine was illustrated in their catalog a few years back, carrying all his lecture material in a VOMP rather than in a briefcase (which destroyed my illusion that all mathematicians needed was a blackboard and some chalk).
On another thread -- one of my hairier driving experiences was in New Zealand, returning from Rotorua to Palmerston North across the North Island mountains in a torrential rainstorm -- and discovering that the rental car had no heater to de-fog the windscreen. With my colleague (who refused to drive on the "wrong" side of the road) wiping the glass I gratefully fell in behind another car, figuring that if there was a sharp bend, a washout or rock slide, he would hit it first.
As for Lake District roads; there is an amusing passage in a mystery novel -- I believe "The Old Contemptibles" by (I believe) Elizabeth George -- describing a drive across Wrynose and Hardknott Passes by an unsuspecting visitor from southern England. At the end he makes for the nearest pub and a stiff drink, muttering something about not realising that England had roads like that.