A time warp

Listening to 702 in South Africa this morning it was like skipping back in time.

 John Robbie is still injecting his blend of cocky, up market confidence to his show in which he chatters on, without taking breath describing events that have taken place over the weekend and in the week to come. His voice has been projecting his optimism from the 1980s when he was one of the founding presenters. In those days 702 was a real alternative to the State broadcasting system, daring to criticise the government with its chirpy presentation. 

The traffic is still chaotic as the queue's build up at the places they always did, Gilhooleys Exchange, Bedford View, these names imprinted on my brain as I sat in my car in traffic on the M1 on the way into work, back in the days. 

It's strange to reflect that no matter where on the globe you are it's the same, Bombay to Bradford people sitting in their cars waiting for the guy in front to move forward. The precious hours of our lives spent captive in our motor car, going nowhere listening to the news, listening to the adverts worrying if you are going to miss the meeting or if the boss will serve you a sarcastic comment or worse your P65. I see some passengers on Southern Trains trying to get into work in London are being faced with just this stress.

The traffic and the fumes, particularly from Diesel engines, engines we were all encouraged to buy 20 years ago but which, with a little research were shown to be far more dangerous with their output of large 'particulates' than the petrol engine. I for one would never buy one for that reason and yet the "experts" we're saying the opposite. Where are those experts now.  Where are the food experts who have turned 180 degrees in their advice and propaganda. It can't be just marketing can it, it can't be as crass as that. It can't be about making money, surely not !!

John Robbie seems ageless, his optimism bottomless, as he ploughs on through the vicissitudes of the changing face of the nation. Nothing changes as he swoops from Apartheid to the ANC, from white to black nationalism, from one set of propaganda objectives to another. One set of lies for another, he sails on regardless, doing his job, minding his business providing a sort of lighthouse, rising a beam through the murk and squaller, not a beam of sense and security but one of persistence and feasibility, to rock on regardless.