Traffic fine

So I got pulled over for talking on the celphone while driving. The putrid tick in uniform addressed me as follows: "Are we going to right each other?" Translation: Are you going to see me right with a bribe and I can then see you right by not writing the ticket? My indignation level rose faster than an Apollo rocket but I did remain polite and told him to do his job and write the ticket while giving him a viciously contemptuous look and a sneer on my face that would peel a pineapple at forty paces. In the end he wrote the ticket. I had put him on the spot and there was nothing else he could do.




Afterwards I complicated the incident by forgetting to pay the fine and a warrant was issued for my arrest. In the end I (or rather Wonfy who went to the traffic dept. for me) had to pay the R500 fine plus R300 contempt of court.




Do I now avoid answering the celphone while driving? Noooo. Do I have greater respect for our traffic enforcers. Nooo. Put it this way, my hatred level for them has gone up 800 notches ( 1 notch per R1) and my dearest wish is that they and their bosses would never come out from under the dog's vomit which is their natural habitat.




Next time I will pay the bribe. It will be less stressful and I will save R600. The tick will be happy and I can always hope what he spends it on will kill him.




That is now the South African way. Puke.

Rodney

Rod was a friend I made through the sport of pistol shooting. He did his apprenticeship in the Royal Air Force and landed up in France at the beginning of WW2 with the British Army. He saw the outdated RAF planes shot out of the sky by the then superior German planes. He was in the subsequent British retreat and evacuation from Dunkirk. After that he ended up in Burma via South Africa where he saw at first hand some of the Japanese atrocities. Rod did not let this embitter him but he developed a strong morality and did not suffer fools.

Back in London he found the smog and cold weather intolerable so he and his wife settled in S.A. where he opened a small engineering shop. I had a great interest in making things and Rod was always ready with help and advice. He often gave me materials and tools that I could not afford or get elsewhere. I always offered to pay but Rod never took money. One day I told Rod that it was embarrassing for me to take stuff from him without payment. I will never forget his reply : "The materials I give you are left over from a job and are already paid for. The tools I give you are still of good quality but the slight wear they have gone through makes them unsuitable for the extreme accuracy I need in my work. I have recovered the costs of these and do not want another payment. If, by giving you these items I improve your life, you may carry that on by doing something kind for the next person and in turn they may help another. In that way there will be a little more happiness in the world and that is all payment I need."

What a man. I wish that I had implemented his philosophy more often in my own life.

Another gem I got from Rod: Before you make something do a drawing. That way you make the mistakes on paper where that can be corrected cheaply and easily rather than having expensive box-ups on the job.

Trees

I am beginning to hate trees. They are fine where they belong but on a small suburban property they are a curse. We have a great karree planted by me before dearest daughter was in matric, two podocarpusses (podocarpi?) planted by Wonfy (wife of nearly fifty years) against my advice, a bottlebrush, one of those creations where the flowers change colour from blue to white or perhaps the other way around but smell nice and various other overgrown shrubs, all planted by Wonfy. Our neighbour has an elm (I think), a mulberry as well as other trees and a huge monstrousity that is already destroying the gutters and roof of HIS house.

The consequence is that our home is in perpetual shade. The eastern aspect of the house is now covered in moss and algae, not even kikyuyu grass will grow where once was lawn and the gutters need continual cleaning. Admittedly my attitude is affected by being claustrophobic as a result of being trapped inside a box ottoman as a child. I need space, damn it! And light! And air! In a normal household the solution would be to cut the trees down. However, Wonfy sees herself as the protector of all growing things and I would rather face a gang of taxi drivers with AK47s than take her on.

No doubt this will upset any number of greenies. Too bad. There never was a forest here on the Witwatersrand in the first place. Nor am I in raptures over the arboreal birds that have migrated here. My sympathies are with the unfortunate grassland species that have been pushed out.

Nothing I can do about it now except hang over the fence and take pleasure in watching the dogs piddling on the trees on the pavements. One dark night I might do the same.

Rantings of a grumpy old man

I have now been exposed to blogging by some of the younger set in the family. Unlike most new things, blogging appeals to me. I will be able to express my thoughts, opinions, feelings and all my other gems of wisdom for the benefit mankind and send them out into cyberspace to land where they may without critisism. No "What is the old man on about now?" comments. No more rolling of they eyes. No more turning away with the shrug of the shoulders. I am FREE!! Hip, hip, hooray.

This will not be a regular or structured blog. I will write about the matter uppermost in my mind at the time. Frequently this will be a critisism. More often it will be a description of how things were in the past and why they were better. I am old enough to do this.

Responses are invited. If I nark you or entertain you say so but please be amusing. Boring people are an unmitigated pain. Boring men should be condemned to working in banks and boring women married off to Zuma.