One thing about London, and two about Italy, that kind of creeped me out

[xiphias]

Of course, not everything in Europe was wonderful.

London: is there any square inch of London you can be in where you're NOT being taped by a closed-circuit television? MAN, that's creepy. How do y'all get USED to it? I really loved the city, but I couldn't live there, just for that reason alone. WAY too much surveillance. Just. . . creepy, man. Orwell was a Brit, after all. . .

Italy: um. Doors that need a key to unlock from the INSIDE. See, I guess it's just a cultural difference, but, here in the United States, we have this thing called "fire". . . sometimes we accidentally get "fire" on our buildings, and then we need to get out of the buildings. And so, we like to be able to get out of buildings pretty easily. So we do things like have doors that you lock and unlock with a key from the OUTSIDE, but, from the INSIDE, you just use a knob or something, so that you can get out easily.

Freaked me out some, it did.

The other thing that I didn't quite get was the caribinieri. There's something creepy about having your civilian policing done by your military. I just don't like it -- rubs me the wrong way. They seem like perfectly nice, competent people (and the impression I was getting is that they're among the ONLY competent authority figures around -- c.f. my story about the woman fainting on the train to get an idea about the competence of all non-caribinieri first responders in Rome. . . ), but still -- the military is the military and the civilian is the civilian and it seems kind of worrisome to have one group do both.

Comments

[ailbhe]

Loads of places have locks that need keys from the inside - in England and Ireland, anyway. I disapprove.

CCTV - I don't think about it. Not sure why. There are thousands of other reasons I no longer live in London.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Current NZ advice on those kind of locks is to leave a key in the inside lock when you're at home, so you can get out in a fire.

The idea behind them is that if someone breaks in through a window, they won't be able to open the door to remove the (bigger, potentially more valuable) stuff like furniture.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is, when I was growing up, my parents taught me that, when given a choice, most of the time, your life and health are more important than your sofa.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. Which is why you leave a key in the inside lock when you're at home. That way getting out is as easy as turning a key.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

. . . . yeah. . . . 'cept that keys can break under torsion strain much more than knobs can, so, by leaving the key in, that negates any possible advantage of it, while slightly increasing the risk.

Yeah. I still don't get it.

It's illegal in Massachusetts to do it that way, by the way. Against state building codes.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see why that would be illegal in some jurisdictions.

(BTW, to stop undue stress going on the key, it helps to blow some CRC or other lubricant through the lock on a regular basis so that it turns easily rather than sticking.)

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

It also helps to spray a bit of CRC 5.56 or similar into them on a reasonably regular basis, so they don't stick when you need them to not stick.