Friday 27 September 2013

Are all taxi drivers mental?

Ah, Friday. It has the same effect on drivers in the city as the full moon has on werewolves. Except every day seems to be Friday for certain taxi drivers.

I was zipping through a construction zone at a good pace - nearly 35km/h in a 40 zone. All was well, until a taxi driver decided he wanted to be in front. He was one of those drivers that loves to stamp on the power pedal multiple times in order to overtake someone. I could hear him surging up behind me - ROAR-roar-ROAR-roar-ROAR as his foot slammed the accelerator to the floor, let it off, slammed it down again, let it off etc etc etc.

It was getting a bit tedious when thankfully he passed me. He must have been doing 60+ as he zoomed around a blind bend....

....and then I heard the screech of brakes.

But no bang.

As I came around the corner, I found the taxi sitting in a cloud of type smoke - right in front of a lollipop lady who had her sign turned to 'Stop' and was looking mightily unimpressed. I passed the taxi, and she waved me through the zone. As I passed her, she commented on what an almighty tool that driver was - I affirmed her opinion.

The driver sat there for about 10 seconds after she gave him the go signal - I think he crapped himself.

The importance of not choking

No, this is not a story about the America's Cup. It's a story about hayfever.

Spring has definitely arrived, and for the first time in years, I'm getting hayfever. There are some parts of Australia where I get the most miserable hayfever this time of year, but Sydney is generally not one of them. I used to say it was because of all the pollution - but you don't see the thick brown haze on the horizon that we used to get 20 years ago. Cleaner running cars - even though there are lots more of them - means no smog.

Hayfever and bike riding generally means lots of nose blowing to each side. Successfully clearing your nose whilst moving requires a few things - mainly a good aim and plenty of nasal pressure. And not blowing your nose into the wind.

Yesterday morning was calm, and my aim was good. However, I choked at the critical moment. I coughed just as I went to honk the nostril, so instead of generating say 100psi in the nasal cavity, I generated about 20% of the power required.

It was just enough to eject a huge amount of snot - but not enough to make it clear my shoulder.

It looked like a pelican who had been eating too much algae had done an enormous crap on my shoulder. I say "pelican" because a seagull is too small a bird to have produced that amount of green crap.

What to do? Ignore it? Try and wipe it off?

Let me just say that trying to wipe it off compounded the error enormously.

Just don't choke. Don't.

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Radio check


  • Still alive? - check
  • PC and internet working? - check
  • Got anything worthwhile to say? - not really
Normal transmission will resume when I find something interesting to write about.

BOAB out.