In early-90s this Madras-yokel migrated to the (then) Bombay. Those days Bombay suburban train stations used to have big analogue clocks to indicate the 'next-train-arrives-at', but without any caption at all.
Many of those ‘next-train-at’ clocks also used to have faces with Roman Numerals, which gave them the clock tower look. Being the yokel that I was (and still am, in many ways), my first day at the suburban station was a lesson in humiliation.
In those days, the Bombay girls were the most fashionable (and with lots of oomph!) in the country, and not even the fair folk of Calcutta or even the more curvaceous ones from Kerala could rival. To be caught out and thought of as a country-bumpkin by those fashion plates, though humorous today, was a humiliating affair then.
First day out alone, I sauntered into the suburban platform and jauntily set about aligning my wrist watch with one of those ‘next-train-arrives-at’ clock. No sooner than I set my Favre-Leuba, a handsome hand-me-down from my late-father, my ears pricked up to the snickers and guffaws of the cute, divine forms lounging about. I had to wait for an hour more, to find out from a Bandra-Boy, soon to be my shipmate, the reason for the laughter!
From then on, I assiduously avoided the 08:40 local, but instead made it a practice to jump in on the earlier 08:15 one. The lesson I learnt was it is always better to be half-an-hour early, than be just in time!
But my dorky, dumb-arse miscalculation pales in comparison to the 10 outlined in the BBC yesterday. The prompt for the taunting article is the news that the French Railway has ordered almost 2,000 new trains worth $20.5 billions which cannot fit into the existing station platforms.
The 10 other expensive, and sometimes fatal errors are:
Many of those ‘next-train-at’ clocks also used to have faces with Roman Numerals, which gave them the clock tower look. Being the yokel that I was (and still am, in many ways), my first day at the suburban station was a lesson in humiliation.
In those days, the Bombay girls were the most fashionable (and with lots of oomph!) in the country, and not even the fair folk of Calcutta or even the more curvaceous ones from Kerala could rival. To be caught out and thought of as a country-bumpkin by those fashion plates, though humorous today, was a humiliating affair then.
First day out alone, I sauntered into the suburban platform and jauntily set about aligning my wrist watch with one of those ‘next-train-arrives-at’ clock. No sooner than I set my Favre-Leuba, a handsome hand-me-down from my late-father, my ears pricked up to the snickers and guffaws of the cute, divine forms lounging about. I had to wait for an hour more, to find out from a Bandra-Boy, soon to be my shipmate, the reason for the laughter!
From then on, I assiduously avoided the 08:40 local, but instead made it a practice to jump in on the earlier 08:15 one. The lesson I learnt was it is always better to be half-an-hour early, than be just in time!
But my dorky, dumb-arse miscalculation pales in comparison to the 10 outlined in the BBC yesterday. The prompt for the taunting article is the news that the French Railway has ordered almost 2,000 new trains worth $20.5 billions which cannot fit into the existing station platforms.
The 10 other expensive, and sometimes fatal errors are:
- The London Millennium Bridge - which swayed;
- Polar explorer Robert Scott team’s diet - too meagre;
- The Sochi Olympics biathlon track - too short;
- The Laufenburg Bridge - one side too high;
- Stonehenge model - too small, and too big;
- Big Ben - which is still cracked;
- The Hubble Space Telescope - initially with blurred vision;
- The ‘Gimli Glider’ - no, this has nothing to do with LOTR;
- The Vasa warship - too heavy on the port side; and,
- The Mars Orbiter - which crashed rather than orbit.
(source: [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27509559])
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