Beggars' Choice

There’s a town in Western Australia called South Hedland and, according to my notoriously unreliable source, it was purposefully designed to look like a flower. I’m not convinced, but you be the judge.

The USA, which always does things on a grander scale than everyone else, has a better example.

Looks like it’s been designed with a Spirograph. Anyway, getting back to the original point, the flower design was apparently meant to inspire feelings of harmony and well-being, and, as people were forced further and further out of their way by a series of one-way streets and cul-de-sacs, a heightened community spirit.

The effect (according to my source) has been the complete opposite – feelings of despair and frustration have caused enraged motorists to ram through barricades at the end of cul-de-sacs etc.

The dissonance between the good intentions and the sheer rage it has caused is quite extraordinary.

Orkut is an online networking service. It’s quite good fun, although not without a few bugs (and by “a few”, I mean “a number so large it cannot even be imagined”). The frequent server errors are always accompanied by the message “Bad, bad server. No donut for you” which one can only assume was meant to be soothing and good-humoured.

It really makes you feel like driving your car through a cul-de-sac.