Some people say this is vandalism, but I say that's a phallusy
Penis pothole protester: Cambridge's 'Wanksy' art shows feted
A Cambridge-based protester has been heralded for daubing penises around potholes - the latest in a rising trend of phallic crater painters. On the Facebook page created in the prankster's honour, one local described the hazardous cavities as "an absolute disgrace". She said: "I put an official complaint in at least 3 months …
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 14:32 GMT lafnlab
Obscene? Nah.
"Has this person, for just one second, considered how families with young children must feel when they are confronted with these obscene symbols as they walk to school?"
Did that person go to school in the Georgian Era? Children won't know it's obscene unless someone tells them and parents will likely roll their eyes when asked by the kids. There's a big difference between painting peckers around potholes and producing pornographic pictures.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 15:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Obscene? Nah.
"Has this person, for just one second, considered how families with young children must feel when their cars are noisy and repeatedly damaged and their children are shaken up as they drive over our crappy roads we cannot be arsed to maintain to anything beyond third world or even Manhattan standards!" was what the idiot spokesman meant to say, I'm sure.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 16:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Obscene? Nah.
"Children won't know it's obscene unless someone tells them"
Half the population has got one and around 80% of the rest of the population can legally have access to one* (based on an average life expectancy around 80), so it really is time we started to grow up a bit.
*I stole this one from Punch, sometime in the 1960s and a play review, so it's hardly new.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 23:13 GMT Grant Fromage
Re: Obscene? Nah.
If you keep a a straight face and don`t make a big fuss then kids will never twig that something is up and will not ask about it.
If you fail and they ask and you start prevaricating, they will get that something mysterious and grown up is going on. They will almost certainly ask gran or grandad who have a different take and undermine the parents , but mostly in a good way from a distance of years and very don`t panic.
I wish i could remember who said " A thing has within it that which the observer has means to see". Keep them in the dark and you will be fine
It is known as a CDC-crudely drawn cock with Journo`s I know. I believe It goes back to b3ta.com as a meme 10+ years ago.
I may do the same on potholes I find as wheel eaters need sorting. If only lorries paid the correct portion of road tax as the damage they cause. It is the 4th power of axle loading.
This will give most things and links to original papers, But the uk TRRL and their military precedents are not mentioned and their stuff is late 40`s, perhaps what tanks do to a road is still classified.
nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=261
You need to blame Winston Churchill for putting road tax into the common tax purse rather than funding road improvement.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 16:30 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: A council wonk said:...
First of all - do they have the pennies?
The amount of potholes at the moment reminds me of the worst years of Eastern Europe recession in the late 90-es and the failing local municipalities post-recession in the 2000-2007 or thereabouts.
The situation screams "no money" with a loudhailer.
All we need is to make the cars produce the same clouds of acrid fumes as the Mad Max rusty abominations Germany, Austria and France dumped into Eastern Europe during the same 1995-2005 period instead of recycling. Just do that and the picture will be complete.
Now, why there is no money and who is lying about it - you just need to listen to PM questions a couple of times.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 13:52 GMT Robert Helpmann??
It's *so* hard!
Yep, we should erect something to stop it happening
No, you are onto something here. If a simple patch has an limited lifespan, then increasing the length and hardness of the patch will extend that, allowing it to stay up and working it for months. I propose shoving a 10 foot steel pole right into each hole. This will have the practical effect of plugging the holes and extending the length of time the patch will be effective. Bigger is better!
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 14:39 GMT wolfetone
"However, the authorities were less than impressed. A spokesman from Bury council said:
“Has this person, for just one second, considered how families with young children must feel when they are confronted with these obscene symbols as they walk to school? Not only is this vandalism, but it’s also counter-productive."
What about said family who's vehicle is damaged because of a pothole that hasn't been fixed, which could result in their parents either not getting to work or falling in to debt to fix the car?
“Every penny that we have to spend cleaning off this graffiti is a penny less that we have to spend on actually repairing the potholes."
Well you didn't have the graffiti on the road in the first place but you chose not to fix the potholes, so away with you dickhead.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 15:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Well you didn't have the graffiti on the road in the first place but you chose not to fix the potholes, so away with you dickhead.
I've a lot of time for the labourers in dayglo coats who do the actual work of road maintenance, but when it comes to the white collar council whiners always bleating on about "services" and not having enough money, I suggest that they be pulped, the pulp mixed with a two part resin to make a new, long life, easy pour pothole filler. "Council red" would be cheap to make, raw materials are evidently abundant, and so quick to apply that all the potholes. Maybe we should have each "contributor's" name stencilled by the potholes their residue fills - and then we could spray paint a cock over it as well.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 20:52 GMT Voland's right hand
Maybe we should have each "contributor's" name stencilled by the potholes their residue fills
Applause.
However, on a more serious note - it is an indicator that the council has f*** all money. It does not matter how many times the government robs Peter to pay Paul or how many pound notes undergo a pocket tennis movement from one pocket to the other. The economy does not look good and the potholes are one of the best indicators I know. I have survived through some seriously deep recessions outside Britain and you could literally get the real (not fictional presented by the government) economic metrics by the pothole size and more importantly depth.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 23:00 GMT Aitor 1
400 miles.
That is how long I had the suspension lasted in good condition las time. Four coils in three years, plus three bearings. Unacceptable.
Holes a foot deep taking a week to get badly repaired.. on a main internal road of the city... and holes that I reported A YEAR ago unfixed.. what was a surface repair is now structural repair.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 13:48 GMT LucreLout
That is how long I had the suspension lasted in good condition las time. Four coils in three years, plus three bearings. Unacceptable.
And yet the very people whose job it is to keep the roads passable moan and whine like stuck pigs about people buying offroaders, seemingly wihtout irony.
(I don't have one myself, but given the scale of damage the poster is talking about, I can see why they might get one next time)
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 15:14 GMT Loyal Commenter
Re: Hills Road
Maybe the govt should give the whole lot to highways and take the relevant chunk of money from the local council.
Hahaha, I'm guessing they won't do that because:
a) Highways England wouldn't get any funding to do it, or that funding would have to come from the treasury
and
b) The councils probably don't get any money from central government to fix them in the first place, and are now expected to get those funds from council tax, whilst at the same time not being permitted to raise council taxes by more than an amount which is less than inflation.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 18:29 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Hills Road
" The councils probably don't get any money from central government to fix them in the first place"
Virtually all potholes are a result of failure to do minor work like cleaning drains. They're a symptom that your council's been corner cutting for a long time.
Around these parts (not a million miles from Cock Lane) I filmed a drains contractor driving down the road, stopping at each one for 60-90 seconds, not bothering to get out and inspect, let alone clean 'em, then drive on to the next one. He noticed he was being filmed, got out of his truck and started being pretty aggressive (including demands to not be filmed etc), but also denied working under contract for the council. Unfortunately for him the logs showed that the company he was working for signed off the drains as cleaned, they were still blocked+flooding the next day and the youtube videos of his (lack of) work plus denials ended up in the hands of local councillors.
We (councillors and a couple of council auditors) suspected that particular rort was going on for a while, but it was nice to actually document it. Not that it mattered as the council refuses to do anything about the dodgy contractor - too many family hands in the cookie jar (and yes, this is in the SE of the UK)
On the subject of Cock Lane - the Crusader's work resulted in the council there closing the road to do resurfacing, estimating it to be closed for 4-6 days at a cost of about £50k. It actually took closer to 6 months and £350k because the roadbed was so badly damaged due to lack of drainage that it had to be completely rebuilt from scratch in a lot of places. Whilst rebuilding the lane the council also found that 3/4 of the roadside gullies had been paved over - which meant that water had built up, soaked into the roadbed and effectively destroyed it. So yes, the Cock Lane Crusader had a bloody good point.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 12:44 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Hills Road
Virtually all potholes are a result of failure to do minor work like cleaning drains
Um.. no. Potholes at this time of year happen when water gets into the road surface (and it doesn't take much at the right time) and then freezes. The ice expansion then breaks the tarmac, creating more pocks for the water to settle in (and where it can't drain away). Next frost or snow does more damage. The broken tarmac gets displaced by vehicle tyres and a hole forms (and gets deepened by futrher tyre impacts).
Poor quality road tarmac or repairs don't help - more small voids for water to get trapped in, more chances for ice pockets to form.
Improper drainage might have been the cause in your particular instance, but it isn't the case round here.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 15:58 GMT Tom 7
Re: Hills Road
We had some potholes near us and the council were forced to put out to tender for the work. A few months later a 10' by 7' pothole had a 1'*2' patch put in the bottom as that was what the contractor had tendered for.
I've had to put a set of cheap wheels on my car after I lost one (and some suspension) in a hole that wasnt there the week before, I reckon for every pound the tories save me in council tax costs me about 50 as a result. Thanks.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 18:30 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Hills Road
"I've had to put a set of cheap wheels on my car after I lost one (and some suspension) in a hole that wasnt there the week before"
You can claim damage costs from your council - and oif they try to weasel out of it by claiming "noone had reported it", a small claims filing will change that tune very quickly.
One council had to pay out almost £1million for ONE pothole incident.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 18:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Hills Road
The council filled in the absolute worst pot hole after several months, but they ignored all the others that were within 10 yards.
Fill them in yourself with a few bags of postcrete one night. Then report to the council that you believe somebody other than the council has done a DIY bodge on potholes. The jobsworths will have a truck on site in hours, fearful that their monopoly is under threat from pothole fillers without the right paperwork.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 14:47 GMT Aaiieeee
Ok so there are now 2 issues: potholes and graffiti. They are saying the graffiti is reducing their ability to address the potholes; surely addressing the potholes will have a direct impact on grafitti incidence and they will both be reduced?
As for the kids, its not ideal but its better they see graffiti than suffer a car incident due to a ruptured tyre or something.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 08:38 GMT Voland's right hand
better they see graffiti than suffer a car incident due to a ruptured tyre or something.
You mean like them going over the handlebars of their bike under the car overtaking them?
This is Cambridge(shire) we are talking about. 95% of households have at least one cyclist. It is a location where kids cycle and most of the potholes are exactly within what is considered cycle lane.
Whoever draws it should add an obscenity addressing the council to every pothole in fluorescent yellow for good measure.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 14:53 GMT jh27
> “Has this person, for just one second, considered how families with young children must feel when they are confronted with these obscene symbols as they walk to school? Not only is this vandalism, but it’s also counter-productive.
> “Every penny that we have to spend cleaning off this graffiti is a penny less that we have to spend on actually repairing the potholes.”
So the council have a single budget that covers both road mainentance and graffiti removal? The cock and balls, make the pot holes more visible to cyclists, so should result in fewer hospitalisations, which in turn will save some money. So perhaps not all that counter productive. What is counter productive is the council spokesperson - every penny they are paid could be spent on highway maintenance.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 15:11 GMT Loyal Commenter
“Every penny that we have to spend cleaning off this graffiti is a penny less that we have to spend on actually repairing the potholes.”
I think they may have missed the point somewhat. If the council is steadfastly ignoring the potholes and not fixing them, and some wag comes along and draws a phallus around it, they have a choice - spend a certain amount to remove the offending artwork, or spend what is likely a similar amount on removing that section of road and replacing it with fresh tarmac. Like they should have done in the first place.
Of course, the root of the problem isn't really that councils are lazy spendthrifts that don't want to do road maintenance, it's that they have had their budgets from central government slashed by an unsustainable amount, and have to make the choice between fixing things that may not be a critical problem, and keeping libraries and public toilets open, or spending on social care. Follow the money to see the root of the problem (with their taxpayer subsidised meals and second homes).
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 17:19 GMT kain preacher
There was a chap in the Netherlands that went around planting flowers in the pot holes. On bloke in NYC started planting trees. Here in the US i've been on some roads that were so bad the best options were to turn them in to dirt roads . These roads could not simple be repaved. You need to remove the crumbling roads and level the road bed.
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Wednesday 11th April 2018 20:40 GMT handleoclast
The dog that didn't bark in the night
Unless I missed it, not a single commentard (so far) remarked upon this paragraph in the story:
Another resident, Sarah Hobbs, commented to Cambridge News: "We can see those potholes coming now."
So not just graffiti of cocks, but graffiti of cocks spurting jizz.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 01:45 GMT Blake St. Claire
One F35's worth
I'd wager that for the price of one F35 on HMS Queen Elizabeth you could fix every pothole in the UK; twice.
But over on this side of the pond, here in the pothole capital of the US, I've replaced bushings, and struts, but I've never broken springs or wheel bearings. What do they make springs out of over there that they're so fragile?
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Thursday 12th April 2018 08:51 GMT Tom 7
Re: One F35's worth
The road surfaces in the UK in towns are built on roads from, in some cases, 5000 years ago. As such, once the waterproof tarmac or concrete is breached then, on a rainy day, the hole deepens at a rate the average oil driller would be pleased with. In dense traffic and everyone in a rush people drive nose to tail and by the time they notice the pothole emerging from underneath the car their only option is to drive into it (left here is dead pedestrians and on the right other vehicles coming the other way). As potholes can be very deep wheel rims are bent, suspension is badly rattled and the springs can be bashed against parts of the car they were not expected to hit. a small crack on one soon leads to its imminent destruction by another pothole.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 07:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Or.....
just fix the pothole PROPERLY.
I see so many that have a bit of cold rolled tarmac chucked in them and surprise, surprise a year later (if you are lucky) they are back.
The people fixing them should be forced to fix any pothole (or within 10cm of that pothole) that comes back in less than 2 years for free.
See how many we have in 5 years time.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 08:43 GMT Tom 7
Re: Or.....
In one of those deja-fuck moments I took the dog for a walk last evening to discover the road at the end of our lane had been resurfaced - 6 months after all the potholes had been covered over (half road repairs etc not just tipping a bit of tarmac in each). Lots of signs saying 'No Road Markings' - when we dont have any on these country lanes. Lots of 20MPH signs too. Which were obviously being ignored as there are, in around the mile I hobbled about 20 new proto-potholes where drivers have braked hard leaving holes in the new tarmac that will, by summer be deep potholes if we get the rain we've been having lately.
Life is wasted on the living.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
