Weird stuff

There are a lot of photos on social media at the moment of weird staircases and weird floors - like these:

I've come across these before. If you have any kind of vision problem or suffer from photo-triggered migraine, they're a nightmare. I've just made that up, by the way: I don't know if there's such a thing as 'photo-triggered migraine', just that there is for me! A bit like flash photography on the telly. I have to look away when it starts, in case I start a migraine or worse: have a seizure.

The stairs on the left are fine, of course, but the stripey stairs, well, I'm afraid I'd be coming down these backward and on my hands and knees. There's a set of stairs at the back door of Central Station in Glasgow with yellow stripes across them that I can't use. I know they are meant to be helpful but I don't know where to place my feet, so I have to go for the escalator or the lift.

The wavy floor above is terrible. What am I standing on? I'd need a wall to hang on to if I went in here.

What I'm heading for here is a sense of relief that we are at last trying to meet people's needs, so we have bubbles on the pavement leading to a pedestrian crossing which alert people with sight problems to the existence of a crossing, even if they hurt my feet and sometimes put me off-balance. And it's great that the needs of people with autism are now finally being met in playgrounds, theatres and at fairs. It's a terrible thing to see a child freaked out by the noise, the colours and the general mayhem.

And I look forward to further developments of this kind. But if you're buying a new stair carpet or putting in a new floor, stick with plain. Plain is good!