Open season?
(begun Wednesday 26th March at 5.20am)
Once he was certain that key players in the Blues were 100% supportive of the Project, and that the many dodgy questions that could've been raised by the Manase Report would remain unasked, our Mikey had the opportunity of scarpering back to Oz to join his equally comfortably-off son and heir..
Has he done just that, or does he continue to lurk in his 7th floor apartments, down by uShaka, handing out reassurances to some of his sweatier puppets?

To look at him, no-one could ever have guessed what a perfect stooge he'd turn out to be, for the Experiment Authors, and yet there you have it folks.. When it came to demoralising the citizens of eThekwini and it's outlying suburbs, you'd be hard-put to find a more competent crook that our Doktor Sutcliffe.. I claim that I can empathise with pretty much everyone, both good and bad, and in the unlikely event that our ex-City Manager were to ever tell the truth, could I bring myself to understand and sympathise with his reasoning?
I'm a sucker for a good story, and if it turned out that our Mikey himself did indeed have a few of his own dirty secrets, that were possbily being used as leverage to keep him in line, then ja, I suppose depending on the level of filth involved, I'd probably feel a touch of sympathy for the scurvy little bastard...

LATER at 9.50am
I'd headed out into the front garden after 8am, to cut some edges and pull some weeds. It hadn't been long before Someone began targeting me with first a whack to the left hip and then to the right, and I'd muttered aloud angrily for them to bugger off..
I was still working out there at 9am when the reason for the target practise became all too clear..
My Controller was in residence, and he had a couple of visitors out on his front deck. Doubtless irritated at having to wait for them to arrive, what better way to while away the time than to thump the old Pinata remotely, as she tottered about her front yard?

I'd been close enough to treat the newcomers to my rictus grin, and the paler-skinned bloke had ventured over and greeted me by name... Turned out to be a pleasant enough fellow by name of Graham Steel (spelling) from the Parks Department, who'd arrived at the behest of No. 6, to discuss having all the invasive alien trees and shrubs removed from the valley... He's taken over from young Manisha Arbuckle, who had no doubt leapt at the chance to move out of the line of fire...

You may rest assured that the intended purge will include what I refer to as MY two straggly old mulberry trees, that have limped on over the past years, despite being in such close proximity to a regular laser route along our boundary walls... Whether they can be persuaded to leave the useful line of fully grown bug-weed trees untouched, remains to be seen.
A drastic denuding of the remaining greenery that affords us little or no protection from the enormously powerful lights running out of the orphanage and the Senior boys hostel, am I going to fight this latest spiteful move made by Sanctimonious Sam next door?

I've told you before that my old man is not an outdoors kind of guy, and that he'd be content to hole up in an airconditioned apartment with the windows closed and the door locked 24/7, relying on the internet to tell him what the weather conditions are like outside. Sad, but true...
When I'd told him that we were to lose the trees along our boundary wall, the dear man had looked relieved, and had said that was one less thing to worrry about.. What can I say?

No-one was more startled than this Simpleton when the realisation hit home that I could actually control much of my thinking and the manner in which I reacted to the ongoing mischief created solely for our benefit. I guess it's basically the nauseating Pollyanna syndrome, where you take the worst of circumstances and turn them around for the better.. A means of self-preservation that the unfortunate Sod next door can't begin to understand, and nor would he wish to...
Denial? Hardly. Under my carefully maintained efforts to roll with the relentless punches, I'm more aware than any of you, of the horror that has been unleashed on this country by this near-alien advanced surveillance technology, and the repurcussions the total removal of your right to privacy and good health is set to have on the population some years down the line...

Before I forget, here's a touch more coincidence for you...
I'd gone up at dusk yesterday to open the gates for the GameWrecker's return from the shops.. Once the Polo was safely tucked onto the driveway, I'd locked and chained the gates before heading back downstairs loaded with groceries..
My better-half made it down ten minutes later to say that the same guy who'd been heading so purposefully up towards the Polo the other afternoon, shouting and waving his arms, had suddenly reappeared, only this time he was galloping DOWN the street... All about timing, is it not?
As it was, he'd stood at the locked gates and gone on about needing a job or a donation, and the GameWrecker had politely declined on both counts..
Give a poor destitute fellow human-being a break? Did I ever tell you that my old man has a thing about shoes, and the one thing he'd noticed was that the chap at the gates had on a really larnie pair of trainers... Oops?

Has Open Season been declared on the oldies?
I'd been putting out the trash at around 6am this morning, when he'd come strolling smartly down the other side of the road on the pavement, before crossing over diagonally directly towards me. As luck would have it, dear godschild had emerged from his door at that precise moment, and my second's worth of anxiety had vanished...
One of the bushdwellers recently ensconced in the valley up by No. 16?
For sure he was, and if he'd taken his hoodie off, I'm pretty sure it was THIS guy, pictured standing down below our valley boundary wall...
Coincidence that he just happened to be passing as I was out on our verge? You decide..
Though they're inedible, even the poorest of the poor would be enchanted by the gift of a cellphone and airtime replenished when required, and how useful these planted stooges are proving to be...
Enjoy this beautiful day and
peace..

---oOo---

Wednesday 26th March 2014 at 4.54pm.