No picnic....
(begun Saturday 13th April at 6.10am..)


So much for my naked-eye vision, pfftt... I've just taken the binocs upstairs to study the MTB properly, and find that yes, there are now two permanent green lamps functioning on that enormous bank of lights, and probably two more on the side I can't see...
Does no-one question the amount of power being run off that tower at the Uni, or the banks of lights inside the Moses Mabhida stadium, kept active during daylight hours?  No-one?  When Eskom are regularly exhorting you to make sacrifices?
Did a couple of civic-minded Manor Gardens residents ever chirp about the cost and necessity of running those tower lights, but had their homes converted to Hacker Learning Centres with blinding speed, as a result, and now they're too preoccupied with their health problems to worry about a bit of blatant electricity wastage?  That's pretty much how it works, is it not Mistuh Spence?
Those pesky Community members prone to asking awkward questions will make it easy for you to decide which homes are to be the designated Hacker's Hubs...

Had your monitoring shift in ours finished by 1.15am this morning?  That's when both little dogs had taken off like rockets from my bed to go futilely into the lounge for shelter... You were off duty by then, and it's none of your business what happened to chase them like that?  It's a funny old world, is it not?  As cornered as I am, I figure you're every bit as trapped in this corruption as we are, though quite possibly you don't yet see your chains...

LATER at 6.45am

Lord, but how I cringe for you.. I've just run the bath, and the Knives to the Back frequency that's just struck Millie head-on tells me that this morning's Onlooker/s is impatient to get on with it...  Do you understand how my embarrassment is for you, and certainly not for me?  Do you get that I'm ashamed for you, that you've allowed yourself to be talked into violating my privacy to such a degree?  I feel nothing for the likes of the psychotic Pig himself, nor his friend Mr. Blobby from Mayfield Place, who will by now have moved on to enjoying stolen footage from some of his neighbour's more attractive wives and daughters.. He was a pushover, right, Creep?  With his usefulness to the Druglord Barnabas and his own resulting superiority complex it would've been a simple matter to encourage him to enjoy savouring the more intimate stolen shots of the locals nearby?

Narcissus?  His Twitter avatar shows him as a Sorisha wanna-be, and his endless string of inanities are a give-away to the fact that he's trying too hard to appear what he isn't, and I truly feel for his good parents, at the trap they've fallen into....
Zoom into the prematurely grizzled face and bloodshot eyes of my little hound HERE, and tell me if that look of bemused puzzlement isn't mirrored on my own ugly mug, at least several times each day....

LATER at 7.45am

He'd forgotten and left the old Venus phone plugged in, and it rang just after 7.30am.  I'd picked it up quickly enough, but the line was dead.. By dead I mean as if the line itself had been pulled out at the other end.. I swopped the plug to the Torino and it immediately began ringing again... Massive static the other end, so I hung up straight away, and in doing so, I appeared to trigger Balliram's house alarm..*chokes... Fun and Games?  The phone's dial had been showing the caller's numbers as it should, and yesterday I'd managed to phone one of them back, which wouldn't have suited the Chop at all... Since then the screen has been corrupted again, and no longer reveals who's making those odd calls....

The levels of the BackFire frequency are already more than just unpleasant, and I guess I've got another hill to climb today.. Will I cave and resort to my Distress texts before bedtime?  Texts sent out to people who'd probably rather not get them, and who certainly can't help me in any way...

LATER at 10.30am

As predicted, the levels of pain have if anything, increased since I posted my Solidarity update, and I tell myself I earned it..
Those 'cricket'-like alarm systems are set up to chirrup at every front gate down the entire length of Harris Crescent, and probably Garbutt Road as well... Something that can of course be deactivated should you begin to show an interest in their existence...
She's already isolated hers up there by the mast, and it shouldn't be too difficult for you to sharpen your wits and listen out for yours...  If they're not activated, your comings and goings won't be accompanied by the shrill purr or chirp of a synthetic insect nearby, but often enough they will be, and it's up to you to isolate that sound and recognize it for what it really is...

I had our ex-Councillor's son Aziz marked down as a suitable candidate to Monitor all the gates down the Crescent.. Someone whose screen would flash when No. 74 pulled out of his driveway, or No. 87 arrived home at their front gates... Why then was Aziz' family the recent victims of a bloody home invasion?  Had Balliram overheard someone on one of his eavesdropping forays over the airwaves, muttering that I may just be right, and that the Councillor's son sees all the activity in that stretch?  Did they express their disquiet at the idea?
Was that home invasion created specifically to dispel any suspicions their neighbours might have?  Were the four hired thugs walking into a carefully laid trap, designed to make a possible Monitor appear a victim, just like the rest of you?
Whose bullet hit the child?  It was a mistake?  And what was Constable Masuku doing so nearby the scene of the crime, wearing his civvies?

I'd have to guess that the Asherville resident's front gates are already all wired up to sound an alert to a nearby Monitor... Right, Max?  Does the Writer have a noisy 'insect' that erupts more often than not when someone is at his front gates after dark?  Seldom heard during daylight hours, but always after nightfall?  Depending on your importance and any interest you may show in my words, it's always possible your invisible 'gate alarm' will be carefully deactivated until they feel you've lost interest.. Play these buggers at their own game, and once you've heard the frequency that 'insect' makes, engrave it on your eardrums forever, and you'll be able to pick them up easily, right across the neighbourhood....

Has that always been a part of the Standard Sales Pitch sold to prospective Recruits, Mr. van Zyl?  That they'll be expected to participate in what may seem to them at first to be illegal activities, but that it's necessary in order to rid the country of the Seriously Corrupt? *spews...
Trotted out in such earnest, regretful tones, that even the staunchest of the Honest would succumb to the lies?
Again - I cannot fault the Experiment Planners for having covered every gap that may have arisen, to queer their pitch...So much as a hint of trouble on those murky waters and a nearby Lackey will be found hastily pouring oil on the turbulence until once again, everything's running smoothly to plan..

Sunday 14th April at 4.16am

It's to the right of the Nunnery's ablution block window, and it sits on the wall outside, not inside after all... Wrong again, tsk...It had taken me all of five minutes to fetch the binoculars and go stand out under the avo tree for a perfect view of what appears to be an extremely powerful orange-coloured light on the Nunnery wall... Was it my sudden interest last night that has it switched off this morning?  Surely not.. Only the big ball-light inside the toilet window is active at this hour, and that's no weakling either..
I'll have to dig out my nine photo albums and search for it, but I'm fairly sure I've a print-out of those weird box-like lights on that wall, though I remember them as being on the top lefthand corner, and not to the right of the toilet window... *mutters distractedly....

They'd captured my interest the minute I'd seen them, they were that odd, and IIRC there's another one on the outside wall of the Snr. Boys Hostel, facing us here in the Crescent... Nothing like THESE on the walls at St. Philomena's, or even THIS beauty that I'd been allowed to snap up at No. 20, but nonetheless, those box-shaped lights were fascinating even back then in what? 2006? 2007?
Would an Electrical Engineer in say, new Zealand, recognize them even if he weren't aware of the quantum laser 'communications' technology, or are they unique to this system?

And what about the 'smart' finish applied to the toddler's dorm windows at St Theresa's, in an effort to fool an interested viewer?  At first glance you'd be forgiven for thinking those piercing orange lights are merely reflections of the lights on this side of the valley, but that particular subterfuge was revealed one night when Balliram had cut the power for one of his boot-licking loadsheds, and I'd gone up top to find those winking orange lights were still there in the windows.. Oops!

As predicted, yesterday was no picnic, and the sadistic enthusiasm had continued overnight.. I'd even been whacked again in the side as I'd gone down the passage past the microwave jackpoint in the kitchen, and it's a shame that zeal can't be channeled into something more positive than hunting an already trapped and mindless old Fool... I guess dem's da breaks...
Peace...

---oOo---

Sunday 14th April 2013 at 9.03am