I wasn’t supposed to make it through yesterday. None of us were.
A “high up biologist” told us so:
But here I am, cruising through October 11th, almost like “the toxins present in the mRNA poison covid vaccine” didn’t get activated. Or didn’t exist. Just like the high up biologist.
Weird.
Meanwhile, back in actual reality: Boosters save lives.
I’ve covered something like this before. Where is it now? Ah yes: here.
And I stand by each of those eight identifiers. They are a quick, easy and helpful guide to recognising that someone is more likely to be a bad driver, so that you can take preemptive evasive action before they drive badly and do some damage to you and your vehicle.
But after driving the N2 a bit on Friday, I’d now like to add another: personalised number plates
Now, if you are going to spend money on a personalised number plate, I think we can already see that you’re likely to be a Type A Personality. And what does that mean? This:
Ooh. Look at all that aggression, competitiveness, hostility and lack of patience. You sound lovely, and exactly the sort of person that I want near me doing a high speed on a major road. Fortunately, as I pointed out above, you can spot them a mile off because of that preoccupation with status, manifesting as big flashy cars and their (average-sized) flashy personalised number plates.
A timely reminder that this isn’t me.
In the Western Cape, personalised number plates cost up to an extra R10,000, and take the form of a string of up to 7 letters and/or numbers, followed by “-WP”, a hangover from the pre-94 name “Western Province”.
Because (quite reasonably) no-one would pay for a number plate ending “-WC”, would they? Bog off.
Now, we spotted a lot of bad driving on the 400km trip back in towards Cape Town on Friday – this is South Africa, after all – and sure, not all of it was from cars with personalised number plates. But a disproportionate amount of it certainly was.
Cars with plates like “TRIPLE R – WP”, presumably because he dRRRives like a wankeRRR; or the pisspoor plate “BIZNIS – WP”, presumably because he’s in the “biznis” of… driving like a wanker.
I’m not saying that all drivers of cars with personalised number plates are aggressive, dangerous tosspots, but let’s face it, some stereotypes exist for a very good reason, and this is very much one of them.
Not for the inevitable collapse of society (yet). More for our trip away.
So I have lots to get done today.
And very ready for the break.
Absolutely.
A busy day today, including (but not limited to) waking up with no electricity (and therefore no coffee), lying on a sunlounger three times and being jumped on by a beagle (also three times), taking the boy to the doctor for a Dodgeball injury, a nice family curry, a school event and a guy coming around to look at our windows.
It’s all too much.
So let me show you this from the internet. It’s from, I hasten to add, a site that I never visit: I saw this shared elsewhere. I only know one person that frequents this site, and the more I see stuff like this:
…the more I wonder why. You know who you are. We’ve discussed this. Save yourself now.
Perhaps we need an intervention.
How utterly mundane. Is this how low we have stooped as a society, that this crap passes as somehow newsworthy or entertaining? Man does thing. Or rather, in this case, Man does thing while also doing other thing. Even if both those things are very dull, I suppose that makes it ever so slightly more exciting. But for me, this just shows how completely vacuous internet culture, celebrity culture and (more especially) internet celebrity culture has become.
I’d even rather listen to Putin’s unsavoury sabre rattling.
“President threatens nuclear attacks while losing conflict”
No, actually on second thoughts, that is much worse. Never mind.
After this, I also need to share this.
There was a horrific crash involving a truck (illegally overtaking on a solid white line) and a school bus in Pongola in KZN on Friday which resulted in 21 primary school kids being killed.
In any civilised country, this would be headline news for weeks and weeks. But that’s not us.
And then yesterday, there was this, just down the road from that same site. A truck crash (on the left), followed by another truck crash (you’ll see it):
Fortunately and amazingly, it seems that no-one was killed in this incident.
But suddenly, with this incredible video going viral, our transport minister – the self-styled “Mr Fix” ? – has noticed that two things have happened involving trucks and has worked out that there must surely be a better way of moving things from one place to another:
I think we can probably assume that “tiad” is “road”, and “ill” is “I’ll”. There’s a full stop needed in there, as well.
We might mock, but this is exactly the sort of direction that a new transport minister should be taking, getting South Africa’s underfunded, underutilised, much vandalised and crumbling rail network back to doing its job.
The problem here is this: Mbalula has been transport minister for 3½ years now. He’s overseen the demise and looting of the entirety of the SA rail system on his watch with hardly a peep, but now when he sees a chance to get some cheap fame and relevance, he suddenly comes up with a poorly-written, pre-morning coffee tweet with a promise (which he may or may not keep) of delivering a plan.
The chances of any follow through on that plan are non-existent, but by that time, the fuss will have died down and there will be no (personal) consequences for his continued inaction.
We shouldn’t be surprised.
He was useless as sports minister, and he was useless as police minister as well…
“I’ll take ‘Things that didn’t happen’ for 200 please, Alex.”
…so I’m not quite sure what we were expecting.
Anyway. Don’t be fooled by his 15 word statement on his amazing idea and faithful promise this morning.
Nothing – aside from more deaths because of trucks on the road – will happen. Again.
(Please also note that we will see images and footage of numerous truck crashes over the next week or so. It’s not a new thing. These were always happening, it’s just that the media will decide to take note of each and every one of them for a little while before normal service resumes and they keep happening, but no-one cares.)