Blind Man Driving

Australians are very creative with language and as a consequence create slogans and a visual landscape that constantly make me laugh.  Aside from the giant signs declaring “WRONG WAY, GO BACK” which are necessarily blunt for those drivers intent on heading the wrong way down a motorway sliproad, roads and vehicles are adorned with slightly more subtle but equally memorable slogans.

I am very fond of the “Don’t be a Tosser” sign that adorns litterbins in the area which seems to me to adopt exactly the right derisory tone towards litter bugs.

Likewise one of my favourite signs along the roadside is the firm of Personal Trainers that advertises  “Birthday Suit Alterations”, such is the appeal I  have to restrain myself from dashing in for a nip and tuck.

Some of the the local tradesmen also make me snort in traffic with their verbal dexterity.  Forget the traffic danger posed by the legendary man in a white van so beloved of British roads, I nearly floored the brakes recently during an overtaking manoeuvre when I spotted the writing on the van I was passing.  Huge letters proclaimed “Blind Man Driving”.  Once I had recovered my nerve and checked for the guide dog in the passenger seat I realised the van actually belonged to an outfit called Fleetmore Blinds, a company that cleans blinds (and has a sense of humour). 

I say to people that I go for an early morning walk with the foul hound to savour the views of the harbour as dawn comes up, to clear my head and to enter a zen like trance that will enable me to get through the day with a calm sanity – all of this is patently untrue and a massive bluff as in fact what persuades me out of bed and onto the streets as it were is the carrot of a decent cup of coffee on the way home – I find it important to plan these little rewards for virtue during my day, the Freddo at four o’clock is an equally important pit stop.  At 7a.m. I am not the only one intent upon a coffee, the Mosman shopping strip is filled with tradesmen stocking up on caffeine before facing the day and amongst the vans drawn up for the coffee dash this week one belongs to a firm of excavators and engineers.  Their slogan “We dig where the sun don’t shine” emblazoned across the back of their ute (Australian for pick up truck) never fails to make me laugh.

And who can resist the charms of the handyman firm whose vans sport the slogan, “Hire a Hubby”?