A free ride..?
(begun Sunday 16th June at 7am..)


Since when did anything so pleasurable come without a hefty price tag?  Those systematic jabs to the over-abundance of soft tissue around my hips aren't designed to add enjoyment in any way... The first thing I'd noticed as I'd dragged myself unwillingly out of bed this morning, had been the discomfort to my lower back. You're going to laugh that one off as due to the workout I was given overnight? 'Fraid not...
The damage being done to my nethers is no doubt on a par with the astonishing disappearance of the cartilage around my thumb, revealed on the scan I'd had done, only this time it'll be aimed at my hip joints..

I'd gone up around 6.30am to fetch the Sunday Times, and discovered that although my Controller had doused the enormous light in the booster cage, there were still two powerful lights running behind the trees, where I couldn't see them from the desk.  I'd stumbled and nearly fallen as I hit the top kitchen step, as my already targetted hips took a hit dead-centre.. One of the Creep's permanent laser routes runs from theirs into ours, right across the courtyard, as it hugs our back wall, and woe betide you if he's at the controls when you open the courtyard door or stand by the back kitchen door, as you present an unmissable target...

The single most compelling explanation for the remarkable weight-loss so many Players have embarked upon, starting with the Telkom Strategist, Jannie van Zyl, and including his criminal protege, Collin P.Balliram, himself?  The less fat you carry about you, the less chance you have of succumbing to the medicine you dish out so merrily?  A medicine that the manufacturer has labelled as perfectly safe, while tests have subsequently proven this to be far from the truth....
You listening there Chief Clark?  Are you already booked to have your other knee replaced, or are you prepared to starve yourself down to a weight that may just avoid you forfeiting the other knee?  How much do you know of the remarkable quantum laser surveillance technology and how it operates?  Have you yourself been bounced into the privacy of someone's home, by a friendly laser gamer, or have you simply been shown some stolen footage?

Plead the fifth?  Unless you've actually participated personally in the former, you can't begin to imagine the options available to the criminal element, who still have such a grip on this technology..  Who can you trust, Stephen?  Am I too late already, and you're proficient in the computerised laser game yourself?  Are you so enchanted by it, that your commonsense in that regard has gone on Hold?  Are you one of those who seriously thinks the good guys stand a dog's chance of winning this devastating war over the airwaves?  After eight years, those muttered 'we'll save you manana' have a decidedly hollow ring to them, and I doubt there's any intention of rescuing us at all...

LATER at 4.20pm

Does the white Mercedes and the new and pretty electric-blue Beemer parked on my Controller's driveway present an accurate picture of domestic harmony, or has the skunk slunk off somewhere and left her on her own?  At around 3.40pm the Knives to the back frequency had kicked in with a vengeance as I sat watching the TV, and I'd cursed aloud several times to no avail..
My Shift Monitor had followed me when I'd gone to bathe after 4pm, and had continued stabbing away at my Abomination until I'd asked aloud whether Missus Balliram would recall exactly what the light of her life was doing at that time of the afternoon... A lengthy pause ensued while someone had thought that over, and then they'd added a couple of desultory extra jabs anyway...
Tamara's one sharp cookie, and by now she'll have had to admit to herself that it would be pointless were I to lie about anything.. As the star of my own Truman Show, running 24/7, how could it possibly benefit me to prevaricate?
 She, on the other hand, has, and always had, a great deal to lose... In the future, she might like to bear this in mind, when I report on her Beloved's sick and savage behaviour, including the instructions he's given to his proxies nearby, whether she's come to condone it, or not...

Monday 17th June at 4.20am

Do I have to be seen to be punished, when certain of my updates offend more than others?  Is it as basic as that?  How my effort yesterday could be deemed as more offensive than usual is a mystery, but the fact is that things got so rough out there that I'd had to resort to sending out my Distress texts at 4.55pm.
This one had said:  Once again being hammered relentlessly by Sentechs hidden bouquet of wireless frequencies. Does our Shift Monitor earn a bonus?  Jane at 4.55pm.
Despite my pain and discomfort, it's always fascinating to speculate what it is that's set that particular bout of savagery in motion...
Something I said? Something I did?  Surely no-one had minded me heading outside late in the afternoon, with a stiff brush, to clean off at least some of the bright green powdery application that Vincent had spent time applying the day before?

That I'd binned the pile of green moss I'd asked him to scrape off the side path between us and the ChickenCoop, a pile that I'd found carefully left out of sight at the end of that passageway?  I could do nothing about the pale grey/green splodges that are now decorating each trunk of the eugenia hedge, but the fake physica grisea is easier to get rid of, and the courtyard door had cleaned up a treat...
All those little white gossamer-like pockets on the stone walls came off as well, though of course they'll all be back in three weeks time...
Could it have been that futile gesture that had enraged whoever was on the afteroon/evening monitoring shift? Hardly....

Nonetheless, and despite resorting to the Distress texts, the unpleasantness had continued until, by 6.45pm I'd had enough, and had fetched out the camera and taken a few snaps in the lounge for starters.. Oh my word!  The very first shot I'd taken has THIS grapefruit-sized snowy orb hanging above my TV chair, and another smaller version next to it... Stunning hey? I'd headed outside onto the front lawn in time to see the tiny winking light of a chopper circling way up high by what could've been the Durban Harbour...
I'd been very fortunate and netted several really bright spheres in the air above the lawn... Only now do I see that one of the trees bordering the convent playing field has gone, leaving a nice big gap showing through to Grindrod Road HERE...
Will you check out the enormous orange-coloured light that now glares across the field facing towards der Bunker and the overheads down at No. 2?   No wonder I couldn't help but catch those spheres...
All in all, I guess I should be grateful for my Monitor's uncontrollable brutality, as it finally got me back out there with my cameras... *applauds...

If you want to get an idea of how the installation of the surveillance technology is progressing, you could do worse than head over to www.looklocal.co.za and run through the letters pages for each of the different areas.  Anyone up in Ballito who's noticed that little blue and white 'grounded' SAPS chopper lately?  An irate ratepayer had written of the swathes of streetlights left to run there during the day, and that's all it takes to know they're having their privacy removed hand over fist...
The Upper Highway area is still under siege, and you only need drive around those leafy suburbs to see why.. Trees, trees, and more trees, means that homeowners will have to be persuaded to cut them down, if the vital LOS is to be achieved...

You suffered a terrifying home invasion after dark, up in Kloof?  Who was it that gently suggested removing that beautiful old plane tree from your front yard, in an attempt to prevent further such ordeals?  Who was it that said you should have that stand of fir trees on your verge removed, so you could at least see the would-be criminals cruising by?  That's how it works, not so Mr. Swart?  Naturally, you would deny any knowledge of Organised Crime teams being ordered to target homes that have a number of pesky trees fouling up the desired Line of sight, and your job will be to innocently wait until the terrified resident contacts your department to have the offending trees removed...
Has your tree-felling division grown much over the past eight years? *studies Christo Swart closely... I'd hazard you have more employees working in that section than any other...

The water leak that's been surreptitiously bubbling up through the road surface outside No. 70 Harris Crescent has been there for at least three weeks.  Will it be attended to this week?  The number of Muni Water Department vehicles heading up this street on a daily basis boggles the mind, and yet not one of those crews have stopped to attend to it...
As this area has already had it's waterlines replaced, what on earth could be the cause of these continued wasteful breaks?
Another rhetorical question, folks.. Too much fibre optic cabling stuffed through those lines, and computerised control handed to civilians to manage, guarantees that these enormous runoffs are set to continue indefinitely...   Illegal connections my foot...
Admitting to the carefully engineered cable theft carried out when a specific suburb needs to be brought to it's knees prior to the surveillance technology being rigged to their streetlights, is just as unlikely..

He hasn't activated the giant enhancer on the orphanage booster cage this morning, although he made sure I was treated to a sudden savage flurry of the Knives to the Back frequency at 5am on the dot.. What a hero!
Peace julle..

---oOo---

Monday 17th June 2013 at 8.56am.