On manholes and buggeration

[pez]

About manholes:
Manhole entrances of the wrong sizes present health & safety risks. Manhole entrance must correspond to the nature of the manhole. Is it deep or shallow? Wide or narrow? If the entrance is the wrong size then it'll give people the wrong idea what it's like inside. Access to a manhole is often restricted: training is required before you may enter. The likelihood for man-entry is related to to how much unblocking, cleaning-out, jetting and inspection is required. Oh and there's always the risk of methane, of course.

Coworker 1: *pricked by drawing pin* Oh bugger!
Coworker 2: That's a term used in TD 9/25. (number for nonexistent highway design standards)
Coworker 3: Also a term often used by [person] at National Grid Gas... oh wait, it's "buggeration" that she uses.

...which is true. The lady at NGG says "buggeration factor" a lot, usually referring to the probability of a gas governor being hit by a vehicle. Not butler buggery, unfortunately.

My local Boots doesn't stock their own-brand vanilla and honey yoghurt drink anymore. :(

Comments

[crystalusagi.livejournal.com]

♥ XD

D= Oh noes. Vanilla and honey yoghurt sounds goood

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

and then there was the time when we talked about Dave's manhole...

[crystalusagi.livejournal.com]

What about his manhole?

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

It's just the manhole he designed, actually. XD It was quite crucial to the whole thing so there was a lot of discussion about it. And it was referred to as "Dave's manhole". AND IT JUST SOUNDS SO WRONG. OTZ

[crystalusagi.livejournal.com]

Yes. XDD I would use "quite crucial" to describe it too?

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

*giggles* That is really amusing..

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

I giggled so much when I first found out, but couldn't say anything...

[semishade (from livejournal.com)]

Would ordinary person in street have any clue that the size of manhole cover was significant?

My father, and I, both use the term buggeration a lot. Not in any anatomical sense.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Don't think so. But because sometimes records are lost (buy/sale of utility companies, and some records being way too old), or people rely too much on experience, etc, not having the right size can mean staff arriving there with the wrong equipment for the job.