Traffic jam and toast.

Well, Hilary Harper, traffic reporter for 774 ABC Melbourne, has finally fallen victim to the affliction that affects so many who pursue her chosen profession - if indeed ‘traffic reporter’ can be considered a profession? So bored by the repetitious nature of their task - heavy, medium, light, heavy, medium, light - they always end up diving into the depths of a thesaurus in a desperate attempt to discover new and novel ways to describe the morning’s traffic. Now, I love exploring the vast breadth of the English language, and I love learning new words, but not during a traffic report. I don’t want to be educated or entertained with $100 words and clever turns of phrase; I just want to know if my train has been cancelled. (They also report train cancellations).*

Back in the days when I used to ‘work’ in a workplace where the radio was bolted onto Triple M, I remember hearing a traffic reporter describe the Eastern Freeway as “doing the flip-flop” and I am still yet to work out what he meant. It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that traffic should be doing, but I’m no clearer on what it’s actually doing. But back to Hilary who last week helpfully described a freeway as being “surly”. Ok, I get that it’s not good, but what exactly does a ‘surly’ freeway look like? Is it different to the one where the traffic is merely heavy? Because I know what heavy looks like. I have no idea with surly. Surly makes me think the freeway might have turned into a massive tar serpent that’s hissing belligerently at the heavy traffic on its back. And that's why I for one need 'boring' words like heavy, medium or light! :-)

She managed to top ‘surly’ though when a few days later she described the Monash as being “recalcitrant”! Recalcitrant? It’s a word I know, although not one I use, and after I looked it up I discovered that it means ‘obstinately uncooperative’, so… you know? Bit too cryptic for me at seven in the morning, but thanks all the same. I wish she’d just call a spade a spade, (or even a traffic jam a traffic jam), and stop trying to sparkle things up. She doesn’t work for Virgin Blue, and the traffic report doesn’t need to be a personality piece that I look forward to hearing each morning.

*Actually, truth be told, I don’t even need to know that as I get those SMS updates when my train’s affected, but the radio’s on while I’m pottering around, you see, so I get to hear the reports whether I want to or not. Look, let’s be honest, if it annoyed me that much I could leave the room when they came on or turn the radio off, but I don’t care that much; I just got annoyed when I heard the word ‘recalcitrant’. I probably shouldn’t have, and I probably shouldn’t have written this, but I did, so what’s a poor blogger to do? [Post]