Caroline

There’s blood on South Africa’s streets. Plenty of that red, human fluid.

The local Automobile Association has announced that based on its accident statistics for 2009 going for a drive in South Africa is a deadly business. The chances of being involved in a car accident seem to be 1 in 101. “Astonishing” the AA stated. It added that getting into your car and hitting the roads remains one of the most dangerous activities in South Africa.

Kick that. So a daily activity for many people there ends up being playing Russian roulette. Check your life insurance before putting the key in the starter lock. So no fun rides on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Unless you got suicidal tendencies of course.

It seems that those chances to get involved in an accident are in other countries around 1 in 5000.

During December last year 1050 people died on South Africa’s roads. That’s nearly 39 lives lost on the roads every day. And we are talking road accidents here, not the already insanely high crime rates in South Africa.

So 1 person killed on the road nearly every 1 hour and 30 minutes. Of the 1050 that didn’t make it into 2010, 276 were drivers, 419 were passengers, and 355 were pedestrians.

A festive season of blood and carnage. Business of death is booming in South Africa.

Human behaviour is deadly.

From killing streets to noisy sex. No real link, unless a South African driver (or passenger, or both) died during a sexual act while driving. Or maybe some had sex on the road, as pedestrians, and got run over. Deadly orgasm.

Anyway. A British woman had to appear in court because of noisy pollution during sex. Yes indeed. Pleaure decibels. Judge Beatrice Bolton in Newcastle threatened to jail sexual screamer Caroline Cartwright for 8 weeks if she doesn’t stop with her disturbing noisy sex acts.

Jealous neighbours? Jealous Judge? The case speaks of “serious noise pollution”. And it seems Caroline is not a novice at breaking the wall of sound during sexual pleasure. Another judge some time ago had warned her already to turn the volume down. But Caroline just keeps screaming of pleasure. More and more. Louder and louder.

Caroline told Judge Bolton she is really trying to change her sexual timetable and go for it at times the neighbours are not asleep. And she also promised to really try her best to reduce her joyfull sex screams. Maybe soundproofing the house might be an option.

Human behaviour in times of highs can be a loud affair. The pleasure dome.

Car bombs in Kabul. Suicide bombers in Baghdad. Religious onslaught in northern Nigeria. Politics of hate and politics of death seem to be the order of the day. Civilisation doesn’t seem a forward process.

Ethiopian Airlines crash near Lebanon with no survivors. And ongoing suffering in Haiti. It’s a large pool of human misery and suffering out there.

Better to have loud sex then...

Back to South Africa. Unclear how it exactly happened but a man was trying to steal diesel from a tanker and was electrocuted. RIP. Stealing is bad for your health. Last breath was diesel fume. And then something sparked and that was that. Knocking on heaven’s door. Think before you steal.

Better to have loud sex then...

As the circle is round, we started in South Africa and end in South Africa. The South African government is very edgy about the country’s image as next June the world cup soccer / football will kick off. And that’s a big show piece during which the world’s spotlights are set on Africa’s richest nation.

So negative news is not welcome. To say the least. Hated would be a better word. So this week several officials loudly and openly and directly attacked German, Dutch and British media for negative reporting on the country, and they also attacked some German football officials for raising the crime fear of many foreigners when they are about to hit South African soil. And obviously statistics speak for themselves.

An average of around 18000 reported (!!) murders per year. Ina country of about 48 million citizens. 71000 Reported cases of sexual assault. Yes indeed!! And we could go on and on, but it’s depressing reading. So obviously some overseas people will raise certain issues. Rightly so. It doesn’t mean South Africa cannot hold a great world cup, but it comes with certain risks for visitors.

There is day to day crime is everywhere, but is without doubt more brutal in South Africa than in most nations on planet earth.

But then as the already-edgy government gets more nervous by the day as kick-off approaches, the wife of the State Security Minister is arrested for drug trafficking. How about that for a public relations disaster?!

Anyway.

Human behaviour is a never ending source of madness, frustrations, and surprises. That you gotta admit!

Throw out. Discovered Arms Aloft from Wisconsin, USA. In 2008 (or was it last year??) the band released their debut 4 track “Comfort at any cost”. Good stuff. An upbeat cocktail of punkrock and rock’n’roll. But the rock part sticks out and the vocals are nicely raw. Dig it!

C-Ya

collateral – January 2010 is about to go into the dustbin of history in a few days. Archived forever.