Wednesday, 5 August 2009

What is this?


Another image later ...

Lunch-time Wednesday ...

Having been replaced by traffic lights and by round-a-bouts, the old-fashioned "silent cop" is having difficulty maintaining any profile at all. Well done for knowing it straight off, Joan from Blue Mountains Journal. I discovered this example at the corner of Catherine & Derwent Streets in the very old suburb of Glebe in our inner-city. As Jim from Sydney - City & Suburbs pointed out, it is drowning in bitumen because it has been tarred around so many times and the yellow top is looking distinctly jaded.

26 comments:

brattcat said...

It's one of those pop up things like they put in turkeys to tell you when the bird is fully cooked. This one tells you when the earth is done.

AB said...

A miniature UFO, bringing thumb-sized extraterrestrials to Sydney?

Ken Mac said...

UFO has landed

James said...

It looks like a cap to some kind of underground storage tank.

Sean said...

Any decent conspiracy theory could explain that fairly well....

Julie said...

Conspire away ... *grin* ...

Ming the Merciless said...

It looks like a foot/weight of a missing sign post.

But if this is a close-up shot, a button, perhaps?

Mo said...

Aladdin's lamp

Martina said...

I am with brattcat! Of course -- what else could it be?

Joan Elizabeth said...

A silent cop.

Prospero said...

A flying saucer having a little quiet time.

eamon@ewmphotography said...

It looks like a WW2 land mine - at least it looks like the ones in WW2 movies...

Btw, thanks for all your comments earlier Julie. I've been busy and not finding time to reciprocate properly :(

Lowell said...

It's one of the world's worst nemises...a land mine!

Jim said...

I have no idea what they're called but they were the original roundabouts at road intersections. You rarely see them anymore and they were not usually buried that far into the road. They were bright yellow and had "cat's eyes" reflectors around the edge, that glow in the dark.
Sydney - City and Suburbs

Ann said...

Silent cops, I'd forgotten all about those.

Jim said...

I learn something new every day on these blogs. In all the years, I've never heard anyone call them 'silent cops'.

Nathalie H.D. said...

Brattcat made me chuckle.

Silent cop is a name I didn't know. Thanks for pointing us to these tiny details of our changing world.

Nathalie H.D. said...

I enjoyed catching up with your latest posts too. Your hands series is wonderful.

eamon@ewmphotography said...

Hmm .. so it's not a land mine then. Unless these 'silent cops' explode when angry?

Fiona said...

Silent cops, my brother stole one once with a bunch of his mates, was actually massive and really heavy. I never did find out what they wanted with a silent cop...

BlossomFlowerGirl said...

It looks a little like a tagine without the "lid"

Buenos Aires Photoblog said...

This must be the first speed bump in history, invented in Australia long time ago. Unfortunately, it's the last one but it has been preserved for eternity.

Lois said...

I never would have guessed that. I have also never heard the term silent cop before. Like J Bar, I feel like I am always learning something new on these blogs!

James said...

Hello again Julie. I'm no expert but I think Greta the cow is called a Guernsey in the USA.

Julie said...

Interesting to see how this topic separated countries and also generations. I did not realise that Silent Cops had become redundant until I saw this one the other day. From my reading, I understand them to be an antipodean traffic control device and their death knell was sounded in the early 70s with the introduction of the diamond turn where cars were allowed to turn across an intersection simultaneously rather than sequentially around the back of the silent cop.

I did like and chuckle over many of the guesses. I do thank you, dear readers, for joining in with such spirit. You are a joy!

Stephany said...

I would have said it's a mini manhole cover for possums so they could avoid being run over while crossing the street. The way people drive in the US, I wish we had Silent Cops here!