Getting to work

It's been a "braw bricht moonlicht niche" and the ice had to be removed from the windscreen before I could get going this morning. The sky is cloudless as the sun come up from over the horizon nearly warming the air but at least making us all feel more cheery for the light it brings. 

It's a feature of living in a warm country, those bright mornings to uplift the spirits on your way into work. Normally at this time of year it's a cloudy overcast sky and a drizzle sufficient to keep the windscreen wiper going. Squish squash, swish swash, as you join the queue of cars down the motor way, inching forward picking up a bit of speed and then on come the brake lights slowing to a stop. It's a 30 mile trip down to London. On a good morning, three quarters of an hour, with traffic, at least twice as long. Intertwining your route, depending which part of the city you want, its always question of potential hold-ups, delays that cause you to fret if a deadline is missed and people kept waiting. The police car or ambulance speeding down the emergency lane is not a good omen something has happened up ahead and the emergency services are no respecter of my schedule. Heavily imbued with their power, they close off the road at a moments notice and the rigmarole of an investigation starts quite oblivious of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of cars held up and its cost to commerce.  It's as if the police belonged to another universe.
I remember in South Africa, after an accident vehicles pulled manually to one side as soon as the cops arrived (even before) to get the traffic moving. Unfortunately litigation has demanded that no stone is left unturned and the investigation must be made forensically watertight or else the police are in trouble.  More trouble in fact than the people who caused the accident in the first place.
It's a funny old world, this blame game culture where the legal fraternity are forever casting around for a reason to sue or searching for an escape clause for their client to get away with it. It seems guilt is a finely textured concept with many opportunities for doubt, and doubt to be easily manufactured.