Wow, it’s been a really long few weeks. The last week saw the end of term from University, accompanied by the deadline for a piece of coursework, the furious shopping for presents and also a bit of going out with friends. I went into central London on Friday to attempt to polish off my Chrimbo shopping. What a slaughter it was. The consumer, on their own can be intimidated and ignored, but in the masses, consumers are a powerful force. I was on the consumer side, luckily, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for those shop-workers in Christmas-gift-shops such as Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and HMV. These kind of shops sell presents for everybody and at this point in the month, being 3 days till Christmas day, everyone was keen to finish purchasing the last items on their lists. Key word in the last sentence: everyone.

The furious hustling and bustling reminded me of a plan I read about in the national newspapers at the start of the month. It seems that the local businesses of London’s Oxford Street want to introduce a scheme where the pavement is divided into fast and slow lanes! You read that right: the pavement. A group of 30 uniformed marshals patrolling the street will have the power to fine anyone walking slower than 3mph in the fast lane. They would also slap the £10 on-the-spot fine for anyone walking the wrong way, slowing down, stopping, carrying bulky shopping, and using a mobile phone in the fast lane! This scheme has been put forward to mark the beginning of Pavement Rage Awareness week. In my opinion, it might not alleviate the thing it was set out to achieve, but instead add to it. I see images of shoppers insisting they weren’t using their mobile phone, and also shoppers who insist they were walking faster than 3mph. The speed regulation is crazy! I wonder how they’re going to determine the speeds. If I had it my way, I’d give the marshals shoulder mounted speed cameras and tazer guns. The higher-trained predators could get dart pistols or crossbows. We must keep the congestion down. There will be order! But seriously, I don’t see this scheme working unless they made the pavements bigger, and this could only really be achieved by moving the shops backward because the roads are too narrow as it is. So in summary, you use the fast lane for moving faster than 3mph, and the shop (inner) side of the pavement for moving slower. If you wish to move along even slower, get on a bus.

I’m going to have a nice relaxing Christmas to counterbalance the hectic non-Christmas times I’ve had this year. I hope you all have a good one, I’ll see you in the new year! I’ll leave you all with the thought for the day: People who want music CDs by anti-christ/satanist artists for Christmas… what’s that all about?!?