smokin!

I feel the need to explain...
In yesterday's post I mentioned a smokey room in the Royal Hotel.
The smoke was from the fire. Not from us. No heated conversations. No cigars or even cigarettes.

It seems such a short time ago that smoking cigarettes was the thing to do. Now, I imagine that many smokers feel like pariahs.

And it's not getting any easier. The latest anti-smoking legislation in South Africa bans smoking in a car with children under 12 years of age. And, thankfully, also bans smoking outside public buildings. No more hacking through clouds of smoke before you get to the reception desk!

I wonder how many other things that we see as totally acceptable today will soon be looked at with the same level of disapproval? The results of the green movement are obvious, but there must surely be other things that we are going to blushingly tell our grandchildren that we enjoyed in the "good old days".

Any ideas what they could be?


Something else that's "smokin!" Greg's new-ish bike...and probably also on the list of "things to tell the grandchildren" if I ever get any!

Comments

Anonymous said…
ooh what a great bike. i want to be on that, zooming off, wind in my hair.
2 July 2009 at 14:16
Lynne said…
It is great fun, Kamma (the other Strelitzia lady!). Only problem is that in South Africa we're not allowed to zoom around with the wind in our hair... helmets are compulsory!
2 July 2009 at 14:27
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the writer formerly known as...

Twenty years after I was born a Brooks, I became a Wilson in one of those happy-ever-after fantasies that didn't quite work out the way I had planned. But Wilson was a nice name, and eminently preferable to Brooks (which in Afrikaans means underpants or knickers and led to horrible teasing at school) and I quite enjoyed it. It was one of those anonymous names that everyone could spell and I liked the fact that it was totally normal at first look, but had a secret history. The great grandfather of the Mr Wilson I married had emigrated from somewhere near Moscow to the US and like so many others with unpronouncable or "difficult" names (I think it was Tobinofsky) he was given another one. One of the legends is that Wilson was chosen from the phone book, another is that he particularly admired a Wilson (couldn't have been Harold). So, for the next 25 years or so, I built my name and reputation as the journalist Lynne Wilson ... until I met and married my new happy-ever-a...
Read more

mind the gap

I'm suffering from an excess of velleity. Velleity is volition at its weakest. It's a mere wish or inclination, without any accompanying effort. My velleity is fed by an overactive imagination... I can see in my mind's eye exactly what my dream garden looks like, for example. So when I am outside, I'm imagining a tree there, a shrub here, a winding path and a bank of flowers. so the lack of all those things and the lack of effort on my part to make them happen don't worry me so much. It certainly makes things easier when you are living with a very large garden during our excessively hot and dry summers. I'd write more... but what can I say? Velleity strikes again.
Read more

happy birthday to "the Arch!"

Image
tenacity and hope in the most unhospitable of places " I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"   I often think of Ghandi's famous words (even if it is not completely clear that it was actually he who said them) and use them as a measure and a reminder for the way that I try to live my life. I use them as a measure for other people too. For me, professing to be a Christian means that you have voluntarily set the bar that measures your behaviour, your reactions and the way that you live your life, every moment of the day. (Even when no one is watching). It is a particular joy to come across an individual who actually practices what he preaches. Someone who, like Paul, could say "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ". For me,  Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu who turns 79 today, epitomises that example He is the elder statesman of South Africa and has been described as the conscience ...
Read more