It Is… Pt. 46

‘all aboard the night train’
‘James Brown’

… we are programmed to receive, Pink Floyd said that on welcoming us to machines, no hang on, hold up and harness the horses, it was the night man from Hotel California, wasn’t it? And so, cries the meddlesome entanglement of age trenched in all it has perceived. See how easy it is to get mixed up. To multitask, say at the toilet, after having rummaged through a zillion cold weather layers, it’s easy to get bored and leave the zip for something to look forward to after flushing, then just as easy to forget. It tends to be only kids and old folk who mindlessly run around with their flies open, which surely is a sign of full circle programming, we are destined. We are programmed… we interrupt this transmission… the skies blackened in but a flick of a switch, common for this time of year, same in the tropics, flup, and the light doth gone. But this was no tropical greenery; it was deep dark wet winter land on the hemisphere’s northern borders. Witches, spooks and paranormal country. On the radio astronauts were talking of space and its comparisons to the films, one enthused with never ending astonishment how dark it was. How inconceivably black darkness could be. It reminded him of death. He drove on into the dark. The astronaut outlined the crispness of the shadows cast from the space station’s lights; the definition cut with laser precision. Another explains she was fully equipped on what to expect from her imagination, yet found difficulty describing the actuality of looking out her small window back at home. He listened, absorbing the picture of space and change in the conditions outside his windscreen. The road veered right in pouring rain, low clouds danced in the headlights. Further Into the abyss of the countryside’s early evening he drove, into the timeless darkness. Headlights casting not the crispness of shadows but clouds rising from the tarmac like steam, rolling and puffing like an old black and white film seen through a projector, distorting his view and bending his head, but he knew the road and the sharp bend coming up, drop into third and hard left, snug up against the hedge, rally style… ‘it’s like everything you ever imagined only more so unbelievable…’ the radio crackled, the clouds drifted  and as the road straightened the clouds  dispersed whispering to vapours past, and on into the timeless black he drove. Two trees on either side folded over the road’s horizon and swirled into themselves, enveloping each other in harmonic embrace, circling over themselves and tunnelling his vision… ‘good night said the night man we are programmed to deceive, you can check out anytime you like, but zip your flies before you leave…’

 … zipping off to the World News…

Grab is a company programmed to deliver and deliver they do. The Singaporean outfit sparked their trade in Malaysia in 2012 with Grab Bike taxi, a taxi bike, jump on the back and vroom you go. Destined for Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia where they have lots of bikes. Such a hit was the app, they went onto to deliver food, huge in the lockdown days. Singapore feeling left out due to their lack of bikes created pet friendly taxis to cater for the bulk of shiatsu, poodles and Pomeranians’. Grab now plan to go full-green by 2040, which sounds a hard task given 99% of the bikes are home-owned. Yet, there are several green ‘milk float’ tuk tuks knocking about Thailand. Watch out watch out there’s a Humphrey about.

There are also a few people knocking about the world and plenty knocking on countries doors hoping to be let in. Australia housed 510,000 immigrants in the 12 months up to 2023, that’s nearly 2% of the population. The labour Govn. Yes labour, plan to half that figure by 2025. A free world sounds great and up yours to the xenophobes and purple tinted hippies, but regulation is a necessity and to borrow a quote, cars are great but you need a seat belt and traffic lights… oh, do you now!

Take the train, like the Ukrainians, who now have installed the night train, you know what song’s coming up, all aboard the night train to Vienna via Budapest from a brilliantly named town in west Ukraine called Chop. In fact, night trains are the go in Europe with new schedule from Berlin to Paris (and back again) opening this week. All aboard the…

Opening in Seol is Canadian coffee brand Tim Horton’s. They’ll spread to 150 outlets throughout Soth Korea. Asia is up 6% on coffee shops year on year, that’s three times faster than the rest of the world. China has the most, more even than US, up 58% in the last 12 months. Coffee shops, the biggest legitimate rip off joe public accepts.

In fact, physical retail shops are coming back like vinyl, what with last week’s London flagship for HMV, now Saint Lauren are on Paris’ Champs Elyse’s, Sweden’s Totome are in London’s Mayfair and Italy’s Moncler in the Swiss posh slippery joint of St. Moritz, which all mean bugger all to us unless they’ve got a charity shop branch on our High Street.

Keep it turning keep it wheel, keep it radioPrimco.com

Till next weak folks – spelling correct.