Car salesmen, seatbelts, voiceless wheezing, Wood(y All)en

[Tabouli]

Hello all...

Good to hear that car salesmen are getting their come-uppance occasionally.  Unfortunately, I'm not likely to deliver such messages myself, as my knowledge about cars could fit into the average ignition keyhole.  Happily, when I had to buy a car last May (my previous car, a family heirloom, was written off by a taxi last summer solstice (Australian seasons)) the Internet provided me with enough information to buy a second-hand car privately while waving menacing sheafs of paper full of safety stats, price ranges, model numbers and so on.  Very impressive, it was, and I ended up getting a pretty good deal, though I'm slightly embarrassed to confess that I er, brought my brother with me as token male instead of fighting to be taken seriously on my own terms (Tabouli hangs her unsisterly head).

As for seatbelts, to revive an oldish thread, those have been compulsory in Australia in all seats since at least the early 80s, IIRC.  And rightly so.  The vile taxi that wrote my car off last year (I was *stationary* at a *traffic light*, and the idiot hit me from behind doing about 70km/h!) and landed me in hospital with whiplash for two nights (never got any money back despite much effort - don't *ever* have an accident with a taxi) would probably have either embedded me in the steering wheel or thrown me through the windscreen if I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.

I once had an e-argument with a Canadian guy about seatbelts - his view was that freedom of choice is the highest of virtues, and the State forcing people to wear anything was paternalism and therefore Wrong.  Sigh.

The 'flu I thought I was hatching has turned out to be laryngitis!  A most undignified illness.  I in fact feel reasonably well apart from a cough, to the extent that I almost forget until I try to speak and this strange voiceless wheeze comes out.  Borrowed a couple of videos tonight to entertain me in my convalesence (as my condition rather precludes use of the telephone!), and realised that I had borrowed a Woody Allen film without realised it.  I watched it, but I still just do not understand the attraction.  Is it just me who finds him incredibly boring and self-indulgent?  Have I just drawn the short straws among his work??

Tabouli
(who amused the man in the video shop when he asked for her password by whispering hoarsely: "You'll have to excuse my voice, because at the moment I don't have one...")


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