Saturday 3 December 2016

A.D.D.L.E.D. (part 1)

2016 Timetable Leaflet Awards
In previous years, the material put out by South Yorkshire PTE (aka Travel South Yorkshire) has always won these prestigious awards, sweeping the board with their consummate incompetence. But now they no longer print any leaflets at all, they are no longer eligible.
fbb joined a crowd of industry glitterati to see the top prize given to Arriva Midlands for their Groby Road leaflet from Leicester.
But fbb is pleased to be able to offer his readers a real treat. Instead of the usual formal citation, both he and the assembled throng had the privilege of an address by the bubbly and informative director of the Arriva Design Division Leaflet Excellence Department, Connie (call me "Con") Fu Zhiong.
Con began by reminding the audience of some pre-publication principles which helped the leaflet win its prize. "Sometimes," she said gleefully, "The operation department can give a gift to the design team. Here we have a complex collection of services allowing the use of multiple and indistinct colours in the map."
The pale colour of the 28 is a particular challenge to those with less than perfect vision, it has to be said.

Also a delight to the designer, we were told, is the situation in Coalville, where buses TO Leicester leave from three different stops ...
... ensuring that passengers, unsure of the timetable, can run frenetically from one to the other often missing buses at all of them. Deep joy! In the other direction the user will contend with buses extended to Burton-upon-Trent.
These are shown on a different leaflet providing an excellent opportunity to ensure that one or the other document is out of stock thus depriving the through passenger of full information.

Con chortled audibly at this possibility. "You cannot even find the through service 9 and 9A on our Leicester web site," said she, even more full of glee!
Although web design is a different department at Arriva (of course, it would have to be) we were reminded at this point the the web site arranges the timetable in a different pattern with loads of wasted space ...
... and skilfully uses different stop names in Groby and Ratby.
No one was surprised to hear that Dane Hill and Pine Tree Avenue make no appearance as part of the on-line map!
Warming to her task, the lovely Connie reminded us of the benefits of a good quality map. "With careful design you can arrange that a significant part of the detail on the map does not match the naming conventions of the timetable."
"The large print Agar Nook is not mentioned on the 29A; the timetable calls it Greenhill!"
"Look carefully," exuded Con with obvious happiness, "and you will not find Ratby's Dane Hill on the map ...
... nor does Pine Tree Avenue appear anywhere cartographically at Groby."
Many in the audience grabbed their leaflets, thoughtfully distributed by Arriva staff, to check. Of course Connie was right. The timetabled road names are simply not there.
It was now time for a coffee break, and Part One ended with notices from the chairman and a thunderous round of applause for this year's top prize winner.

All present guzzled their caffeine double-quick to allow plenty of time for Miss Fu Zhiong's second part.

This was all very good stuff indeed. We continue tomorrow.
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Advent Calendar
If God is God and God is good, surely he can wipe out evil at a stroke? The prophet Isaiah hints at the possibility.

The arrogance of man will be brought low ...
Men will flee to caverns in the rocks
and to holes in the ground
when God rises to shake the earth.

The God who punishes is out of favour in today's society; and if those words above were the whole story, you would have to agree. So do we want God to do something about evil or not?
If we are honest, we could cope with God wiping out some of the really, really bad things; but we would not be too keen on his punishment being close up and personal. We really don't want God to obliterate us - that is not at all nice!

It's all a bit of a dilemma. Anyway, we are not evil, surely? Not always good, we have to admit, but not really bad. Mischievous, maybe; like this chap.
In fact Pinocchio was a revolting piece of work in the original folk stories. Disney sanitised him!

Perhaps God could have "created" mankind to be good all the time?
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 Next Award blog : Sunday 4th December 

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