Personalised driving

Sitting in traffic congestion I am passed by a car bearing the registration plate
M1 BU5Y. What, I wonder, makes a driver want to identify so closely with a timelessly inevitable truth about an overpopulated national highway?

Back in the northern hemisphere...

Well, for a few weeks anyway - and having talked a lot with friends last night about this latest time in South Africa one of them sends me this feature from today's Guardian. It rings very true, but the BBC has an altogether different take on the situation. Sure, it's all in the eye of the beholder and the situation in Berea is not good but is the range of lives in present day Jo'burg any different from that in most capital cities? Doesn't make it right of course but there's a balance to be struck, surely? And, yes, as I write this I am deeply aware that depending on whether or not you can see me it may still make a difference to how acceptable that view is as an opinion - sad but true - some things take a very long time to change.