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Introduction - What's it all about?

It's always the same when you visit a another country and explore the culture and way of life - you come across inventions (or just different ways of doing things) that make you think "Now there's a good idea! Why don't we do that back in the UK?"

For example, in the USA,

"When approaching a traffic light [driving on the right-hand side of the road] you are allowed to make a right turn even when the signal is red. But before you do so you must come to a full stop and check that there is no traffic on the intersection."
(taken from HM-USA Travel Guide - see also 4-Way stops).

Makes sense, doesn't it? If there is nothing coming from the left then why shouldn't drivers turn right? So why can't we do the same in the UK?

This section of the website is a list of things - good ideas - I have come across in Taiwan. Now maybe some or all of these have already been adopted in the UK and I have just never seen them before. If that is the case then I make no apologies! Anyway, it keeps me amused...

Picture the scene. You have to go to work, but it's pouring down with rain. So you grab your umbrella and set off for the station. When you arrive at the station you are now armed with one of the most deadly weapons know to humankind - the wet umbrella. You shake it carefully to get rid of the water clinging to the surface but still end up soaking the nine closest fellow passengers. Even when you have boarded the train you are still carrying a wet umbrella, and can still do untold damage to any suede shoes that just happen to get in the way.

The answer is the telescopic umbrella cover! Let's rerun the above scenario. You have to go to work, but it's pouring with rain. So you grab your umbrella and set off for the station. When you arrive at the station you are now armed with one of the most deadly weapons known to humankind - the wet umbrella. Fortunately your umbrella is equipped with a safety device built into the tip - a plastic cover that telescopes up the whole length of the wet umbrella encasing it in a waterproof sheath. Your nine closest fellow passengers let out a sigh of relief in the knowledge that they aren't going to get soaked - well at least not by you. And even when you have boarded the train, those ever-so-vulnerable sade shoes are perfectly safe from your sheathed umbrella! Now there's a good idea!

Stage One
Stage Two
Stage Three
Stage Four
Stage Five Mission completed

Maybe someone can email me and let me know if these umbrellas are used in the UK.

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2

Keep taking the tablets

added 5 Nov 04

You're not feeling too good, so what do you do? Well a lot of people just ignore it and hope it gets better by itself. However, some people inevitably find themselves sitting in the doctor's waiting room steeling themselves in preparation for five minutes of poking, prodding, "Say ahhh"s, and the highly embarrassing (and often unnecessary) personal questions.

Then the doctor takes a blank prescription form and writes on it something legible only to Secret Service intelligence officers with a PhD in cryptology - and to pharmacists - and hands it to you. With prescription in hand you head for the nearest chemists (that's 'pharmacy' to you non-British folk) and wait while your pills, tablets, lotions, and liquid potions are lovingly prepared.

Once home you have to remember which pill is 'two, three times a day' and which tablet is 'one, twice a day'. Of course you can buy one of those not-so-handy and ever-so-cumbersome tablet dispensers, but you have to take the pills out of the bottles and place them into the holder yourself for each time (morning, lunch, dinner, bed) of each day (mon - fri). What a bind...

The answer...?

"...Ta da!!!"

In Taiwan many doctors dispense their own medicines, and the tablets come pre-packed in their own little packet. Easy to carry to work, and impossible to forget which tablet to take when! Now there's a good idea!

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Page created 6 Aug 04 - Last update 5 Nov 04
Copyright Graham Holland © 2004

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