Its concave shape is channeling the unusual 2013 summer sunlight back into the street in a 'death ray' (no-one has died but that's what they are calling it for headline purposes) of ultra violet. It is now nicknamed the Walkie Socrcer.
I find this very funny. It's a really big problem (to make a whole London street unusable) on a really big scale. And it's cost billions.
It is satisfying when really big things mess up, why is that? We do enjoy a tall poppy with egg on its face (we also do enjoy a mixed metaphor).
For me it is because I earn very much less than these people who make really big mess-ups and yet I rarely mess up in my job. Well I do mess up, let's be honest but not often and only on a small scale.
The architect in this case is cheerfully blaming other people for all this. Maybe it's just chutzpah that separates high earning fallible humans from low earning fallible humans? Someone clever than me will solve this problem though, don't ask a non-quaified schmuck like me to.
Thinkers on schadenfreude
Schopenhauer thought our delight in others' mishaps was 'the worst trait in human nature'. Kant said it was a 'devilish wickedness'. Now i'm starting to feel bad.
Phycologists put the need to enjoy poppy wilting down to low self esteem. So now I feel guilty and worthless.
There's hope though. John Portman of Virginia University is my savour (2004). He thinks we do it because of our sense of justice. We think somehow others are deserving of their banana skin. Whether they actually are deserving is less important than the fact that society works better when we have a sense of justice. A sense of consequences for bad behaviour and reward for harmonious traits.
Phew, I can laugh at balls-ups afterall.
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