Three rants for Thursday

I was sent to Coventry today. I mean literally, not figuratively. The solution architects group with whom I work were having an away-day at the Menzies Leofric Hotel. Notwithstanding my recent penchant for train travel, I decided to drive. Since the hotel is smack bang in the centre of Coventry I went armed with a turn-by-turn route, courtesy of the AA.

As usual, things went just fine until I was about half a mile from my destination. At this point, the route turns its back on such directions as "take the second exit on the A429" and resorts to using local street names instead. Only trouble is, only about one in five of the streets has a friggin' sign.

"At the traffic lights, turn left onto Little Park Street," it says. Yep, there are the lights but...no street sign. So I turn left anyway and about two minutes later realise that I'm hopelessly lost as the street layout doesn't match the rest of the instructions AT ALL. Backtracking to the last point where my position matched the instructions isn't that easy either, because of the hellish one-way system and series of dual carriageways, but eventually I'm back at the lights. They're red, so I can cast around for a sign that perhaps was tucked away somewhere out of obvious view. High up on a building, maybe? Or slightly further round the corner than usual? No. And the lights have changed, so I carry on straight ahead, looking for Little Park Street.

After three sets of traffic lights, I hit a roundabout and realise I must have gone too far, so I backtrack (again) and consult instead the Googlemaps detailed local map. Having circled the area twice now, I recognise the layout of the streets and spot right away that Little Park Street was, in fact, the left turn at the THIRD set of lights. You guessed that it still didn't have a street sign, right?

Why are we so bad at this in the UK? Probably because locals all know the street names anyway, so they don't kick up a fuss, and travellers are either one-offs (so it's not worth the hassle of finding out who to complain to) or regulars (in which case they learn where everything is). At least I didn't get as badly lost as those who relied on their sat nav systems, apparently.

Once I'd arrived at the hotel, I found two more of my "favourite" bugbears. Visiting the gents' during the first comfort break of the day, I discovered the management had decided to install those evil hot air hand dryers with the automatic sensors. Nothing so mundane as a simple button to press here, mate. Oh no. We will detect your hands in the vicinity of the dryer and burst into life automagically. Except the sensors are positioned so that you have to bark your knuckles up against the wall to get the damn thing started at all, and then there's not enough room to move your hands around to dry them properly. Or if you do, they move out of sensor range and the dryer dies. Arrgh!

Once the business of the day had been concluded, I retired to my room to freshen up for the evening meal, and call Nikki. The telephone cord was so badly twisted it was almost in knots, and picking up the handset resulted in the entire phone leaping into the air and crashing off the desk. I dangled the handset for a few seconds to let the cord unravel - but how do they get into this state in the first place? You pick the phone up, make a call, and put it back again. What part of that involves twisting it around a few times? To unravel the cord on this occasion the handset made at least a dozen complete revolutions. Why? How? Some people must do weird stuff when they're on the phone.