Friday, 18th July, 2008

You cannot make this stuff up. In the UK a motorist returned to his parked car in plenty of time before his pre-paid parking voucher had expired. They are sold in 15-minute increments. He had bought five lots of 15 minutes. A traffic warden was just walking away having given him a ticket - 50 Pound Sterling fine - about $100. Sorry these days they like to be known as 'civil enforcement officers' which in itself is pretty funny, I've never met a civil one. He pointed out that as he had parked at 2.49 p.m. and it was 3.41 p.m. he had loads of time left. Not so said genius traffic warden 'It says here you bought 75 minutes.' 'Yes? So?' Warden whips out his calculator and explains that 14.49 plus 0.75 totals 15.24. The guy had no idea how to tell the time. He then simply ignored the protesting motorist and went on to ticket two more cars for the same reason. A council spokesperson said that he was new and they would be sending him for additional training. Gee ya think?

Is it just me or does anyone else find that cereal ad on TV with a faintly leprechauny looking John McEnroe serving a couple breakfast in bed really, really creepy? And why is he wearing longjohns?

Saw a thing on TV the other day about these 'new' bikes that are all the rage. They have no gears or brakes and to slow down/stop you pedal backwards. I had a bike like that decades ago. No gears, it had one speed. It did have these things on the handle bars that you could squeeze that I had assumed were brakes but mine didn't work. Apparently they are supposed to have something attached to them called brake pads. I did have a speedometer though. For any of you who live in or have visited Barbados - I could get that bike up to 34 miles per hour down Rendevous Hill, whether I wanted to or not. Funnily enough that bike never caused me any harm. Then one day it had a flat tyre and I borrowed my sister's bike, a much newer creature that also had those squeezy things on the handlebars. As I approached my destination, out of sheer force of habit I clamped on to them never expecting for a moment to slow down. I discovered that for 3 or 4 seconds I could actually fly but unfortunately had not mastered the art of landing very well.