Monday 6 January 2014

It's all god's will innit?

Road rage never had it - always other people - driving is driving is driving. I am of course the best driver going, never had an accident on car or motorbike and all the other blah in a 100 years of driving. I could take the rubbish driving of parts of Asia and most of the Arab world in which I have been with an amused and cheery wry smile - not least as they make good stories. Hereabouts, you can always throw in the Will of the Most Munificent but very angry local unknowable divinity back at folk who bemoan the death of a friend when he, for it is mostly a he,  almost certainly wasn't wearing a seat belt provided for by the same thoughtful one and given the freedom to drive a Very Big Car like a young teenage twat even though he maybe 30.

I digress - for the first time in my life I stopped my car mid-road nearly causing the work bus tailgating me at too high a speed down a homeward bound busy road. Usually you just ignore it as part of what goes on and carry on your merry way home singing along to your music. However, the foul fool had been flashing me for the previous mile or two desperate to be ahead of me in the busy line despite the lack of much movement or any open road or option for me to change lanes as there is only lane ill-discipline. I carried and stopped safely at the lights of course, which here are optional, and in Malcolm Tucker mode calmly strode out and I politely bashed on the driver's side door which he warily opened and gave a volley of fluent Spanish abuse which needed no translation. The cretin, head down,  didn't answer,  had lost face, the Bangladeshi semi-slave workers I suppose being taken back to their rotten quarters, were struggling to hide their sniggering a (a small victory in their exploited lives) for the beltless twatty driver had lost face to an obvious infidel (which must never happen) and worse still in front of them, the Derided, the Used,  the Exploited co-religionists. Best of all as culture dictates, said driver had to ever so humbly apologise which is better than getting the punch in the mouth I would have possibly got back home.

...and why launch the magnificent volley in Spanish? Well, on the Middle Eastern rumour circuit there are terrible tales, sometimes in the unreliable press,  of  folk being jailed for road rage finger giving and of course English swearing is one of our finer exports which can also land you in trouble with Plod whereas life threatening driving seems to gain respect. This is ungood, double plus ungood indeed and certainly a sign of something. There are plenty of clips of Drifting online which is a popular past time among bored youth here

The backed up traffic hadn't really noticed and it was all over before the lights changed. Road rage really isn't done, and rightly so, doing  it as a guest worker in a foreign country, albeit one with a gold  level passport, is just rude like being a bad guest in someone else's country like the many expats who regularly drink to excess and drive.  Driving like a tosser with the divine wind of a well-known deity behind you is an accepted part of the ...er....culture or so it seems. It is, I believe, the highest cause of death among the under 30s in the Gulf. So why did I allow my usual amused cool to be lost and become a rude and crass expat wanker? Pulling over was not possible - signalling and slowing down are not part of the macho compensating-for-a-little-dick road culture so worryingly I guess I saw red and allowed my inner- arrogant scumbag expat to emerge.

Ugh.


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