STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! EXTERMINATE!

[simont]

Curious sight on Coldhams Lane this morning, as I was going to work.

An upturned blue recycling box sitting on the pavement was quite suddenly caught by a freak gust of wind and propelled out into the road. The wind kept pushing it, at approximately a normal pedestrian's walking pace, until it reached the other side of the road, whereupon it managed to mount the kerb (I assume due to a dropped section, but I wasn't watching that carefully) and then stopped.

It managed to do this just when there was a neat gap in the traffic in both directions. The effect was eerily reminiscent of a small blue plastic Dalek, trundling forward under mechanical propulsion but with conscious direction. Other recycling boxes very near it were unaffected, reinforcing the impression that it was just that one box that happened to decide it wanted to get to the other side.

(At least, I assume the motive force was a freak gust of wind. I suppose it's just possible that the box was on a fine string or had a motorised unit under it, but either of those would seem like a lot of effort for a prankster to go to just to momentarily confuse a few passing motorists.)

Comments

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

You can get a similar effect by putting a gerbil on the floor with a Tupperware box over it. But yes, freaky.

I now want to travel back in time and make a Tupperware Dalek to put over my gerbil :-)

[simont]

Yes, but would a gerbil follow the Green Cross Code as competently as the freak gust of wind? :-)

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Nah, gerbils are mostly into Brownian motion.

Green Cross Code - hmm, maybe the dalek got pulled across the road by Vader's Force. I guess we now know which of them would win in a fight :-)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Luke! Make him cross at a roundabout, Luke!

[numberland.livejournal.com]

That is exceedingly cool and wierd. It's certainly box running away whether atm though.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, that's Darwin at work. Because the timing of the crossing is dependant mainly on the box only boxes that cross safely will survive to be returned and do so again!

[drswirly.livejournal.com]

You should clearly have shouted "Splink!" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4690160.stm) at it.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

:) I saw a slightly more hesitant black box do this on Union Lane a few days ago. It is very disconcerting.

[simont]

I wonder if there's some aerodynamic effect of the boxes being upturned which facilitates this sort of thing. Perhaps if a bit of wind gets caught under the box, it creates positive pressure inside the box with an effect similar to the skirt of a hovercraft?

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I think the main phenomenon must be that they are very stable that way up, and have about the right area of "sail" on the side of the box, and weight / friction coefficient of plastic so that it manages to bumble along, rather than fly like a paper bag or do nothing like, um, a brick.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

If weelie bins were a bit larger at the bottom than the top, and a little squatter, that would be even more disconcerting, to see them crossing the road!

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

I think it was last year when I had to spend five miniutes rescuing neighbours wheely bins from the middle of our road. It was very windy this morning - I had to go back home and change out of the floaty dress I was wearing.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I once saw a businessman being chased by a giant ball of foam down the streets of Bath. That was funny. ^.^

(Bath contains some lovely fountains which are prime candidates for a bottle of washing-up liquid on a Saturday night.)

[simont]

This businessman. He wasn't played by Patrick McGoohan, by any chance? :-)

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I know! That's exactly what I thought!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I thought, "he wasn't called Mr. Lynn was he?" But probably more people have heard of the prisoner than read Dianna Wynne Jones. I was about to complain that I couldn't google for "mcgoohan giant ball of foam" successfully when it clicked for me :)

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Cause and effect: the gap in the traffic is either the only place the wind is blowing across the road unobstructed, or a more complex phenomenon - some low-pressure vortex behind an unstreamlined vehicle that cannot form when the cars are nose-to-tail.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

A small blue plastic Dalek began to trundle across Victoria Road as I was driving down, but it stopped when it saw my car. Most disconcerting.