It was an amusing tale in the published by the BBC Council’s clean-up warning for St George’s crosses but also the co-incidence with an article published by the LICC that prompted Coco. We do so easily see the gnat, but fail to notice that there is a camel in our beaker of notoriously middle-class or upwardly-mobile freshly ground and brewed, steamed, iced, skinny, but extra hot, caramel latté (Coco’s judgement on that drink: ☹).
The complaint is that the red paint defiles the white circle, and so impairs in some way the road marking, perhaps making it less efficient, inefficacious or even perhaps void. Do you, dear reader, see however something else? If the marking does indeed make the road marking void, though there are other signs and markings in the vicinity clearly indicating that this is a roundabout, which are not visible in this image, then the presence of black marks on the circle after the red cross had been painted on would perhaps be excusable. Careful examination of the image will however show that the black markings were an earlier defilement of the circle (unless the image has been, as they say, photoshopped). If the red paint voids the marking, surely these pre-existent black marks had already done so?
It is also suggested that the red marks somehow present a danger to the road users. Coco may agree but the black marks are evidence of a far greater danger to road users than those red marks. They are evidence that at least some road users have not respected the roundabout at all and have chosen to drive across it. Some have not only driven on the circle, but have gone over it on the wrong side. Instead of driving clockwise around the circle they have chosen to move anticlockwise on the wrong side of the road. Coco would have no wish to meet such a driver on the M1.
Do you see the gnat and the camel here? Surely in the face of such evidence measures should be put in place to prevent the incorrect use of the roundabout which poses a far greater danger to both road users and pedestrians, whilst not forgetting about the gnat of red paint. The roundabout is clearly still a roundabout whether it is painted with red stripes or black ones.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Matthew 23:23-4
The LICC article was about the weightier matters: justice, mercy and peace. Coco must confess that he has not been able to find it again. Should he do so he will add the link here. When the Lord spoke to Israel through Moses he spoke these words to the people:
Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy [….] When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am the Lord your God [….] you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord. [….] If a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19
Whilst the United Kingdom is not ancient Israel, it is a mongrel nation produced by a mixture of many peoples who have been thrown together over many centuries, Coco trusts, dear reader, that it shall be as obvious to you what is the context of the article, and that you are able therefore to discern the difference between the gnat and the camel in the matter of the injustice of which it speaks perhaps more clearly than our local authorities do when looking at white spots on the road.