Brilliant. I am quite overwhelmed by the support that has already come in for the sponsoring the programme idea. I've even had an offer from a designer to put it together for nothing. Anyone who knows a printer who'll do it costs would be doing a great service to SCOPE! Please keep the cheques and justgiving pledges coming in. You really are fantastic and generous people and am proud to have you as readers (so don't let me down by skulking in the shadows - give a little something back. You benefit, I benefit, SCOPE benefits. There are no losers here!)
I think you can go a long way to judging a person's opinion of themself (and how deluded they are) by which lane they choose to go in when a swimming pool is operating a fast/medium/slow lane choice.
There are two ways to make your decision:
1) you decide whether you are in the fastest third, medium third or slowest third of all humans that can swim in the whole world and choose your lane accordingly. I think in this case most patrons of your average swimming pool would have to choose to go in the middle lane. The top third in the world would be mainly super atheletes- most of whom train in their own special Olympic pools - and the bottom third largely children who have only learnt to swim and the very elderly -most of whom don't bother coming to swimming pools ever. Clearly this is a stupid system which would mean two thirds of the pool remains mainly empty.
2) You judge whether you are a fast/medium or slow swimmer based on the abilities of the other swimmers using the pool, constantly comparing your ability to new users who enter the pool after you and shifting lanes if necessary. If you find yourself being constantly overtaken in your designated lane and getting in people's way then you should move down a lane. If you are much faster than everyone else then move up a lane. You should always try to ensure that there are roughly the same number of people in each lane so nothing gets unbalanced. If you are in the middle lane and notice that people in the slow lane are quicker than you, this is a good indication that you should move down. Sometimes in the middle lane you might be being lapped by someone who should be in the fast lane. It is their responsibility to change. But if you are in the fast lane and too slow then you HAVE to move down as the others can't move up. And if you are in the slow lane and too fast then again that is your own fault and you should move up a lane, dependent on how crowded other lanes are.
I choose the second course of action, which is the only sensible one in the circumstances. But it does require you to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about your own swimming ability. Some people clearly don't have that kind of ability to see the truth about themselves.
I got in the pool today and there were five people already in there and the pool was divided into three lanes. This should have been easy. We could have two people in each lane, the slowest two in the slow lane, the fastest two in the fast lane and the other two in the middle. I could see immediately that there were two better swimmers than me and two worse, so I belonged in the middle lane.
But things were to cock. Because there were already two people in the middle lane, two in the slow and only one in the fast lane. Maybe I should just go in the fast to even things up, thus breaking my own system, but move over to the middle if anyone else joined the lane.
The problem with this is that there was a huge old man in the fast lane wearing a swimming hat and goggles with a snorkel. This seemed particularly affectatious as he was solely doing the back-stroke and his mouth was above water. In any case, only a mental would wear all that stuff in a swimming pool. Worse still he was doing the backstroke right down the middle of the fast lane, rather than following the proscribed route as dicatated by the arrows. Worse than worse still he was quite clearly the second slowest swimmer in the pool. There wasn't even any way to sneak in and hope that he changed his trajectory a little, because he was weaving all over the lane, and not able to see where he was going. Maybe he should have brought a periscope rather than a snorkel.
In the middle lane were two women, one lithe and fit and clearly the fastest swimmer in the pool, but who had been forced to go into the middle lane because of the wayward old man and another larger woman, who was still wearing her spectacles, doing the slowest most uncomfortable looking doggy paddle that I think I have ever seen. She was probably the slowest person I have ever seen swimming in a swimming pool, much slower than the two young mums (I'm guessing) who were in the slow lane, but still steadfastly sticking to her guns.
Now this wasn't a problem as long as only two people were in the lane as there was room to overtake her (though it was still a bit annoying - How had she ever judged herself a medium swimmer by any standard), but now that I was forced to take my place in the medium lane this meant the truly fast woman and I were getting in each other's way trying to negotiate ourselves around the fat lady in the spectacles who was deluded enough to think she was a medium swimmer, but who was so slow that I think she might be the only person in the world to go swimming and actually end up burning a negative amount of calories and put on weight.
I was hoping the lifeguard would go to the man in the fast lane and tell him that a) he shouldn't hog the whole lane and b) he should be in the slow lane. Then at least we would be on our way to resolving this rubik's cube of a problem. The true order for this group of six people should have been, goggles and glasses in slow, new mums in medium and lithe woman and turtle boy in fast. It's a rare thing for me to deserve to be in the fast lane, but it does sometimes happen.
Anyway, the fast woman became annoyed by the fact she was sharing the lane with the slow swimmer and bit the bullet and went in the fast lane. I saw her, quite a few times being bumped into or forced out of her line by the crazy old man. I was still stuck with the slow swimmer, though at least had room to manoeuvre, but was still annoyed by the injustice of it all. As I saw her raise her arm slowly out of the water and not get it back in for about five seconds, I wanted to say to her, "That's the slow lane. You're in the wrong lane - go in the slow lane. Swap with one of the young mums", but politeness stopped me from doing so. I just gave her a few harsh stares and tried to splash her a bit as I passed (that is more polite). I figured she wouldn't be able to stay in the pool for too long anyway, but I was wrong. She was there for ages.
Finally the lifeguard told the old man that he was getting in the way and was in the wrong lane and he switched, by which time another man had got in who deserved to be in the fast lane. I was in the right place. Still with this annoying mis-positioned spectacle woman. Can't one of the life-guard's duties be to ensure the correct swimmers are in the correct lanes?
Finally the woman ducked under the squiggly wire, but not to go into the slow lane. She was going into the fast! How far out was her perception of her own abilities? A it turned out she was heading for the steps. I had the lane to myself. Justice!
But then another woman got in, who had chosen correctly and was a medium swimmer in terms of who was in the pool, but she chose to disregard the arrows and just swim on one side of the lane.
I almost gave in there and then, but was determined to last 30 minutes. I kept checking myself against the progress of others and though tired, was still in the correct lane.
Why can't everyone be as fastidious and considerate and as un-self-absorbed as me?
And why can't Holmes Place do a little swimming test for new members and tattoo their faces with a suggested swimming rate, if it is clear that they have no perception of their own abilities. Some people will always be slow whoever else is in the pool. Some people should be barred from medium and be shot if they even stray into fast.
