View from the bridge

Greetings, amici.

Cicero is a wee bit disappointed this week if you a regular reader of these musings.

I know you are well-read and intelligent otherwise you would not be here but there has been a paucity of responses to the challenge laid down last week to come up with the youngest person to write an autobiography.

The one, yes one, submission received to date is a very good one though and was well worth waiting for. And it could be that you could not better it. For ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ is a great and inspired choice and does go to show that it is possible to write a meaningful, inspiring and moving autobiography at such a young age. It does however just go to show how vapid an autobiography Leona Lewis must be in comparison.

Now you might quibble that ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ is not really an autobiography. Tough. This is Cicero’s column and will be allowed. But get your thinking caps on and let’s see what other suggestions there might be for young autobiographers. You have another week. Perhaps you might like to go to the other extreme and come up with youngest autobiographer with nothing to say. There must loads to choose from.

Before moving on to meatier subjects this week, once again it’s lift watch time. And this week Cicero would like to commend and applaud those responsible for the maintenance of the facilities in the TSSB. For the past 2 weeks a full complement of lifting lifts has been in operation. I knew you would be pleased and relieved.

Now a few years ago a bunch of Australian entrepreneurs came up with a crackingly good idea. No your eyes do not deceive you. There is more than one entrepreneur in Australia. And yes from time to time even Australians are capable of coming up with a good idea.

Anyway it seems that this bunch of Brucies came up with the idea of running tourist trips to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. See it was a great idea. So they approached the authorities with this idea and the authorities no doubt influenced by the Australian health and safety gauleiters came up with a hundred and six page document filled with reasons why this was not such a good idea and why it was not going to happen.

Now the Australian psyche is nothing if not persistent. The Australian will not take no for an answer. The Australian will not accept being told what to do by health and safety gauleiters or by anyone else in authority. (I swear there is Australian blood coursing through Cicero’s aged veins even though Cicero does not and cannot play cricket).

And so Bruce and his chums went away for a few years. They spent a few bawbees. And then came back to the authorities with every single objection fully addressed and with a foolproof and totally safe approach to getting tourists onto, up and down, and off the bridge.

The authorities were impressed and, no doubt to the chagrin of the health and safety police who as we know so hate to see people having fun and enjoying themselves, Bruce and his chums were allowed to start Harbour Bridge Tours. And if you ever get to Sydney it is well worth the trip.

Now there is a moral to this tale and Cicero was reminded of the tale this week when surrounded by refuseniks in the TSSB where he tries to ply his trade day in, day out, working for your safety and convenience. And I am sure that you too will face from time to time refuseniks in your place. You know the sort of people I mean. You will be trying your best to make your business easy for your customers to do business with and you will be faced with a reason after excuse after issue avoidance why making life easy for your customers is an approach bordering on heresy, a philosophy akin to witchcraft, an idea derived from the occult.

If we follow Bruce’s example and approach, and I do commend this approach to you, we will be patient, we will listen to the refuseniks and their reasons why not, and we will address each and every one of these in turn. We will not charge in. We will not be bombastic. We will not overwhelm with fury and with unreasonableness.

In this way through patient reasonableness and rigorous rationality we will get our way. And more importantly bridges will be built and not destroyed. And even better we get to climb our bridges and get a great view from the top.

By the way, and before anyone points this out, Cicero is aware that this is a splendid example of do as I say, not do as I do.

Now is it only me?

Has anyone seen the size of prams these days? When I was a wee lad growing up among the Pictish tribes to the north prams were small and compact which folded up into something not much bigger than a folding umbrella. Today prams have taken on the size of cruise liners with the turning circle of an oil laden supertanker. When did it become de rigeur to purchase one of these monstrosities? What happened to my type of pram?

With prams the size of jumbo jets and people toting trolley dolly briefcases the pavements of our towns and cities are fast becoming dangerous places for anyone without wheels of some sort. In addition pavement space is rapidly becoming a premium for pedestrians walking along on their own without some truck and trailer approach to their perambulations.

And then there are the buses. For reasons that escape me vast sums of public money, in other words your money and mine, have been poured into our bus network in a fit of taxpayer largesse to ensure that these leviathans for infants can get on and off with ease and to facilitate their ability to block the aisles of said omnibuses.

Is it only be but has anyone else noticed that the ease with which we make it for these beasts to get on and off our buses is in indirect proportion to the size and manoeuvrability of sprogs’ perambulators? Anyone got any thoughts on this burning topic?

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.