Population Control

I was in such a hurry to get at my breakfast this morning that I skidded out of my little red shelter and sprayed my straw bedding all over the place. I like to do this every now and then anyway because it gives me the chance to read the newspaper underneath. It also gives my staff something to do - clean up the straw from the lounge room floor. Anyway as luck would have it the part of the newspaper revealed to me on this occasion was the "Letters to the Editor" page - my favourite. It gives me the chance to see what everyone else is whinging about, and believe me, humans whinge about the strangest things.

On this occasion there were several letters from people complaining that they had been caught and fined for speeding in their cars. They rabbited on (Why rabbited? Why not guinea pigged?) about how the police were just revenue raising and that it wasn't about road safety at all. I was tempted to write in myself to remind these whingers that some models of cars now have a device which when used properly prevents the driver from ever being caught speeding. You may have heard of it. It's called a speedometer. It works like this. The driver looks up from texting and sees a speed limit sign at the side of the road, then he glances quickly down at his speedometer. If the road sign said 60 and his speedometer says 120 it's a fair indication that he or she should remove his or her right boot from the accelerator and place it on the brake (That's the middle pedal in a manual car.) firmly enough to slow the vehicle, but not so firm that his or her can of rum and coke is spilled or he or she loses the ash from the end of their spliff.

Once the speedometer needle drops below the 6o mark it is then safe to take your boot off the brake  and place it more gently back on to the accelerator, once again taking great care not to spill your rum and coke.
With a little practice you can then drive along quite happily within the speed limit, leaving a trail of frustrated policemen in your wake. Once you have mastered this simple technique it should be safe to take another swig from your can of rum and coke, another suck on your spliff and continue texting.

Badger and I took our female staff's car for a joyride the other day, not that there's much joy in cruising around in a Hyundai Getz. Badger steered by running in the appropriate direction along the top of the steering wheel while I operated the accelerator and the brake by jumping on them at a given signal from Badger. Of course we couldn't get out of first gear because neither of us could reach the gear stick; however, we managed to drive around the garden without hitting much, which makes us a whole lot better than many Queensland drivers who seem more determined to die than my fellow rodent - the lemming. Indeed I sometimes wonder whether the government only allows Queenslanders to drive as a form of population control.