IS IT STRAITENED budgetary resources, or have the blue light boys been told to tone it down?
Driving up the old North Coast road this week, suddenly a shrieking siren was at my window, the blue lights flashing in the reflector mirrors.
But it was a solitary motocyclist, gesturing with one hand for motorists to pull over and let the Panjandrum through. Sure enough, through he came in a solitary SUV, lights flashing.
But there was something less than overpoweringly macho about this display. Just one motorcycle flashing the blue lights? Just one SUV? It was faintly comical. Try to think of a member of the Household Cavalry, on his own and riding a Shetland pony.
Maybe it was just a minor panjandrum, on his way to inspect the local sewage works. Or maybe – just maybe – the big panjandrums are themselves becoming embarrassed by the blue light business.
But I wouldn't put money on it.
Average trapping
CREDIT where credit's due. A fellow who drives regularly between Durban and Johannesburg says this average speed trapping system - which cuts out the lark of speeding then jamming on brakes just before spots where radar trapping devices are known to operate – is fearsomely effective.
The radar picks up a vehicle as it passes, then picks it up again many kilometres on, and instantly works out its average speed. If that speed is above the limit, off goes a speeding ticket in the post. No arguments!
My informant says he himself picked up two tickets the trip before last, but has since adjusted. So have the drivers of heavy duty trucks, who used to imitate Le Mans but today crawl nose to tail, never exceeding the 80 km/h to which they are limited.
It seems transport managers have freaked at the speeding tickets that were pouring in and have put their foot down. Suddenly the roads are a lot safer.
It's nice to hear some good news.
Irony
MEANWHILE, drivers who fume at being trapped by radar can console themselves with the little poem composed by Sir Robert Watson-Watt, the man credited with having invented radar before World War II, which played such a key role in defeating Hitler.
Sir Robert emigrated to Canada after the war, then went to live in the US. Trapped for speeding in Canada during his later years, he mused thus:
Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt,
Strange target of this radar plot
And thus, with others I can mention,
The victim of his own invention.
His magical all-seeing eye
Enabled cloud-bound planes to fly
But now by some ironic twist
It spots the speeding motorist
And bites, no doubt with legal wit,
The hand that once created it.
Against a mind like that, Hitler had not a chance.
Apartheid's shadow
IT'S THE TIME of the Writer. At UKZN, writers from all over Africa and other parts of the developing world are reading from their work at this annual jamboree. And I'm delighted to say one of our number at the weekly St Clement's soiree of the daubing, strumming and scribbling classes is among them.
Rick Andrew will be reading from his book, Guitar Road, which describes his personal development as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter from the days when, as a scruffy student on the Maritzburg campus, and hanging out with a crowd who partook freely of, er, herbal cigarettes of great fragrancy, they would rail against the iniquities of apartheid then – because there wasn't much they could do about it – try to forget it all in music.
What makes this book different is that it comes with a CD of that music – and pretty rousing and melodious stuff it is too. I'm not sure whether Rick will actually play it at Time of the Writer, but it would be a good idea.
There's a great truthfulness in this account of the shadow apartheid cast on those who were not its direct victims. Also the cruel disillusionment of the post-apartheid era.
But they can't stop the music.
Tailpiece
PADDY and Mick are out on the marshes hunting duck. They've been there all day and they haven't got a single one.
Paddy: "Dis is most disheartening."
Mick: "Sure, I tink next toime dey fly over we must trow de dogs a little higher."
Last word
Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.
No comments:
Post a Comment