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Post by Uncle Henry on Dec 15, 2017 3:36:11 GMT -5
Third visit to the local tip this afternoon. As I was looking for the way out, the earth, the sky, and the sun joined in a kind of universal yellowish glare. I took a wrong turning in the Benz and - CRASH! The front wheels had gone over an invisible precipice and landed about two feet lower than they should have been. An occasion for despair financial, what. Fortunately the tip manager turned up in an instant, brought a big sort of road-grader machine, attached it somehow to the rear axle, and with the help of a gentle reverse from me, pulled us out. And to my great astonishment no obvious damage appears to have been done. But rather than the foreshadowed second visit to the tip to-day I decided to drive home while the going was good. We shall see by Monday whether anything has started leaking or has broken. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a Socialist Alliance sticker on the back window, reading "For the Millions, not the Millionaires". "A political party," I replied. I didn't tell him that it is very "left-wing", because as you Britons know the left are inexplicably unpopular with the working classes. I did offer him a large "bank-note" as thanks for his very kind, knowledgeable and generally tremendous assistance, but he refused it vehemently. Perhaps his status was belied by his tip outfit.
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Post by ahinton on Dec 15, 2017 6:51:57 GMT -5
Third visit to the local tip this afternoon. As I was looking for the way out, the earth, the sky, and the sun joined in a kind of universal yellowish glare. I took a wrong turning in the Benz and - CRASH! The front wheels had gone over an invisible precipice and landed about two feet lower than they should have been. An occasion for despair financial, what. Fortunately the tip manager turned up in an instant, brought a big sort of road-grader machine, attached it somehow to the rear axle, and with the help of a gentle reverse from me, pulled us out. And to my great astonishment no obvious damage appears to have been done. But rather than the foreshadowed second visit to the tip to-day I decided to drive home while the going was good. We shall see by Monday whether anything has started leaking or has broken. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a Socialist Alliance sticker on the back window, reading "For the Millions, not the Millionaires". "A political party," I replied. I didn't tell him that it is very "left-wing", because as you Britons know the left are inexplicably unpopular with the working classes. I did offer him a large "bank-note" as thanks for his very kind, knowledgeable and generally tremendous assistance, but he refused it vehemently. Perhaps his status was belied by his tip outfit. What an awful experience! So very sorry that it's happened to you when presumably you were unable to see properly because of that unusual light. What a good thing that you had help. But two feet? That's around 60cm, I see! How on earth did your front axle survive that? And in what state did this leave the suspension? I hope that your insurance will cover everything (except the shock). These days, in UK, "the left" are unpopular with many people but then so are "the right". I didn't know about Socialist Alliance in Australia so looked it up; it sounds to be on the lift end of left in the sense of being anti-capitalist, a stance which, in UK is adopted only by certain political parties on what would be regerded as "the extreme left" and these have very small amounts of support and no MPs in Parliament, whereas it seems that Socialist Alliance has considerably greater support in Australia. Its slogan "For the Millions, not the Millionaires" sound to have been appropriated from that of the official Labour Party in UK, namely "For the many, not the few", so I hope that intellectual property lawyers in UK won't crawl over this and try to make something of it in terms of plagiarism! That said, I loathe the term "working classes" - or rather deprecate its misuse - with a vengeance. Many people who consider themselves as belonging to them are unemployed (though mainly through no fault of their own) so they are not "working". The only true members of the "working class" are those who work, whether for themselves or for employers; HM the Queen works (long hours, too) and is therefore a member of the "working classes" but would not customarily be regarded as such. As a rude plumber, electirican or someone (I cannot now recall which) once made some remark to Sorabji when seeing what he was doing that he wouldn't understand "the working classes" and he roundly retorted something along the lines that people like him seem to think that only members of "the working class" do actual work and then proceeded to tell him what working on a complex modern orchestral score involves, with unpaid overtime at all times. I believe that is an insult to "working class" people to describe them as such, even if they are working, because it comes across as a supererogatory pejorative. Plenty of people who work long and hard are not members of "the left"; plenty more are. One problem with the less extreme of anti-capitalists is that they advocate "public ownership" of industries, housing and the rest whereas, in reality, members of "the public" do not "own" these things when they're "nationalised" because all that happens is that the government of the day, national or local, operates them and members of the public pay taxes, national and local, to fund those operations. For example, following the financial crisis of 2008, UK government felt it incumbent upon itself to take two major clearing banks into part "public ownership" until their problems had been resolved but, as a member of the "public", I neither wanted nor in any case received shares in those businesses so I did not "own" any part of them during that period of time. Likewise, whilst I'm pleased that UK's NHS is operated mainly by national government and unhappy that the water supply firms are not (healthcare and water being essentials to himan life), I don't "own" shares in NHS and wouldn't "own" any in the water supply industry if government took over its operation from the private companies who now operate it. The issue here is also that I don't really care much which industries are operated privately and which are operated by government, because what matters above all is they be run as businesses and need to make a profit, albeit (especially in the case of water supply and NHS) NOT so that they a dn those who head them can become richer as a result but so that such profits can be reinvested in them to improve the services that they are able to provide. Local government charges taxes in UK and I expect also in Australia but it could not survive on those taxes alone; each area has to invest funds in the hope of making a profit in order to fund the services that it provides (although, sadly, the one where I am has made some ill-advised investments and lost vast amounts as consequence and this has affewcted many things including the pension funds of those whom it employs). Anyway, that's more than enough of that. I hope that your car will be back to normal as soon as possible at as little cost to you as possible! |
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Post by Uncle Henry on Dec 17, 2017 4:23:19 GMT -5
Thanks for your interest Mr. H. There appear to be no leaks or obvious damage, which is very lucky. The automatic gear change is still normal, the brakes work, there are no warning lights, and the operating lever is the same as always. If there is any damage it is likely to be underneath, somewhere near the pedals (which was the point where the body came to rest on the rim of the precipice). But these motors are much used in places like the Soudan where the roads can be very rough, so perhaps this was a more or less normal or anticipated operation!
Yes I have some experience of "local government taxes", specifically in Camden Lambeth in the seventies of the last century. Indeed they were one of the several reasons why I left. I have been back to visit a few times and each time there have been more and more beggars on the London streets. There were none that I remember before the eighties and Thatcher.
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Post by ahinton on Dec 17, 2017 15:29:23 GMT -5
Thanks for your interest Mr. H. There appear to be no leaks or obvious damage, which is very lucky. The automatic gear change is still normal, the brakes work, there are no warning lights, and the operating lever is the same as always. If there is any damage it is likely to be underneath, somewhere near the pedals (which was the point where the body came to rest on the rim of the precipice). But these motors are much used in places like the Soudan where the roads can be very rough, so perhaps this was a more or less normal or anticipated operation! It sounds as though you and your vehicle had a most fortunate escape! |
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