It Being Father's Day And All
Forsooth, is not Darling Daughter coming up to visit? Yes she is, but, in what seems like hideous irony, this is only feasible because the Metrolink power lines are down, having been hit by lightning. So, she doesn't have to go into work but doesn't have any means of getting into Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell either. Thus Conrad The Taxi Driver, except with more hair and fewer guns. Art!
One Rob eyes another
To this end, I am going with an Intro that I've been pondering for a while: to wit, Flashing Lights. The idea came to me whilst idly watching some excavators at work on a giant pile of rubble, with their orange lights a-flashing.
"When did flashing lights become A Thing?" I pondered, and the answer is more lengthy than you might imagine. They seem to have become an item here in This Sceptred Isle back in the Thirties, for if one examines the vehicles that use them, they had bells and sirens yet no flashing lights. Art!
Rather low-profile, if you ask me. A mere illuminated sign doesn't exactly scream LAW ENFORCEMENT GET OUT OF MY WAY, does it? That above dates from the late Thirties, and even ten years later they still hadn't adopted the flashing light, perhaps seeing it as an uncomely South Canadian intrusion. Art!
Fifties vintage
Still no flashing lights. Imagine the strain on a patient's nerves if they had to lie on a stretcher mere feet from that clanging bell mounted above the front bumper. Only once you get into the Sixties do the flashing lights start to arrive, perhaps a reflection of South Canadian influence - "Why do they have swanky flashing lights and we have to make do with a bell?". Art!
A modest beginning
Conrad further speculates that perhaps the increase in car ownership had something to do with the flashing light; back when privately-owned cars were a lot rarer, you didn't need to wend your way between them in a manner akin to threading a mechanical needle with steel twine. Art!Possibly the least cool police car ever
Having ventured dangerously into the modern era, emergency vehicles were perfectly happy with a single flashing light upon their roof, until they began to notice that the South Canadians, not happy with a single light, now had a positive array of them atop their motor chariots. These, we learned, are called 'light bars'. So, our police and ambulance drivers agitated for more lights, and they got them. Art!
Conrad was always intrigued by the reflective spelling of 'AMBULANCE', because if you don't notice the sirens and flashing light-bar, you're probably the victim they're heading for.
Of late we have seen that flashing light bars combine both red and blue colours, because this combination has peak visibility both in the day and at night, and you know accidents, they can't be predicted. Art!
We have, in this brief essay, rather neglected the humble amber flashing light, which is used outside emergency vehicles as a general caution to the passing public. One notices them on bin wagons, tractors, construction plant and other such. Art!
It's a visual shorthand for 'Not an emergency but watch where you're walking as being crushed to death can often offend'.
Conrad is also minded of the J. W. Lees brewery at Chadderton, a charming nineteenth-century building that oozes Victorian architectural ambience, a light-year from the soulless sinister steel models of Interbrew et al. Art!
A beer factory A brewery
Why do I bring this up? O I thought you'd never ask! Because Conrad used to drive past this ancient pile on a daily basis, and one thing he noticed were the amber flashing lights - Art!
- on the output chutes. Art!
They seem to have turned them off, the pikers.
Anyway, when I worked with Anna, I learned that her husband was a manager at this brewery, so naturally I asked about the flashing amber lights. She explained that the drivers kept hitting the chutes, so - management added flashing amber lights to warn them off.
The Rouble Is In Trouble
If you don't want to get into bother with the FSB LOOK AWAY NOW!
I've used the British spelling variant rather than the South Canadian one, because it looks better in an item title. Just so we're clear.
It is true that the Ruffian ruble is one of the most manipulated currencies in the world; it has to be or the Ruffian economy would have collapsed by now. As it is, things are not looking rosy for the ₽ at all thanks to a number of converging factors. The amount of oil that Ruffia is selling has tanked (no pun intended), with severe consequences for their economy. Art!
The ruble is thus not an internationally traded currency; nobody is holding onto vast amounts of it in order to make a killing. The exchange rates for the ruble were surprisingly steady at this time last year; well, 'surprisingly' only because the Central Bank was buying rubles in order to artificially prop the exchange rate up. Back then you got ₽55 to the dollar. Now it stands at ₽83 to the dollar, because the Central Bank gave up on throwing money into a bottomless pit. The exchange rate to the Euro is now ₽87 to the €, a similar devaluation to the dollar. There are now ￥11 to the ruble, when this time last year it was ￥7. The rupee is now at parity with the ruble, when it used to be 0.7.
As I said, the Central Bank stopped propping up the ruble in July of last year, because this was sustainable in the short-term, but definitely not for a prolonged period, and it's one of the reasons this war cannot go on for 'decades' as that inept alky Medvedev would have you believe. Believe me, things can only get worse for the average Ruffian.
"City In The Sky"
We are going to jump in time to later that evening, when Virginia Branson and the son of one of the Human Salvation Project's managers are about to sit down to a meal.
Fibonacci’s Restaurant
Knightsbridge
9:15 p.m.
Virginia Branson had brought along, not a specimen of buff, youthful
manhood, as Harris had half-expected, but an elderly gentleman with liver
spots, white hair and a curious ruffled jacket.
Aged about eighty, judged the administrator, but spry and with lively,
intelligent eyes. He had been introduced
as Mister Smith, her father’s occasional adviser, and her grandfather’s,
too. Harris was happy that she’d come
without any of the flock of advisers that clustered around her at
His wife, long inured to mention of the Bonetti Report, Human Salvation
Project and Arcology One, insisted that they eat first, before the long boring
discussion took over.
‘Honestly,’ she explained to the two guests, ‘He’s just like his
father. Dan can be a terminal bore about
his job. If you let him start we’ll be
here till the small hours. With a good
meal in him he’ll get dozy before he sends us
to sleep.’
Rolling his eyes, he scanned the menu.
Two hours later they were beginning the minutiae of The Report, as it
seemed to be capitalised whenever Harris mentioned it. He explained about the Big Crash.
‘Less than a hundred years to go?’ repeated
‘A lot less,’ added her adviser.
‘Bonetti drew up his report twenty-seven years ago.’
Harris sipped an earthy Turkish coffee.
Gee, I wonder who this mysterious white-haired 'Mister Smith' might be?
A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu
By Proust, doncha know. Conrad, walking to his desk in the office, abruptly had a bit of mental flotsam float to the surface of his mind - "The Emperor Fred".
Where this came from I cannot say, but it sparked a memory of a short sci-fi story I wrote many years ago, a touch satirical, that featured rampantly acquisitive Hom. Sap. versus a species of sentient amphibians. The humans win, of course, and proceed to behave with their characteristic inhumanity. There was a giant spider in there, too. And "The Emperor Fred" was the amphibian's flagship, mounting a six-inch cannon that was the terror of the seas. Art!
No comments:
Post a Comment