Listening to Louise Nicholas

I knew I wasn't going to enjoy it one bit, but I needed to watch the dramatisation of Louise Nicholas' story. I felt like I owed it to her to sit through the entire, horrible series of events, that it was the least I could do. Because I wasn't any use to her at the time when she most needed to be believed - when that news broke years ago it was just background noise, only dimly acknowledged as something going on beyond the edges of what was going on in my life.

During that scene, when she retells what happened in that house with those disgusting examples of human beings - and policemen - my gut curdled. The anger kept me up all night and swamped my other feelings, which were of admiration at Nicholas' bravery in speaking up.

I'll never be able to understand why she couldn't run away when Scholum turned in his car to take her to that house, nor why she kept it a secret for so long, as though it was something that was wrong with her rather than something that was wrong with those men. But it doesn't make what they did to her any less despicable. And if I were a man then at some point I would probably have apologised for being one.

Like putting money into a shredder...

The boy and I have a car each. But for a couple of months we had to make do with just the one, because the boy's car had something wrong with it. And two months passed before he could get it fixed because the spare parts weren't available. I think they had to be freighted in all the way from Japan. By canoe, I reckon.

So, two months came and went and finally, the spare parts arrived and the boy could get his car fixed. In that time, the car's warrant of fitness expired. The day before the boy drove the car to the mechanics' garage to get it fixed and warrant-able, he got a fine for having a car without a current warrant of fitness.

Ah, you say - but he hadn't been driving it. And he couldn't get the WOF because he was awaiting the sparts, etc. I said that too. So the boy rang the police (for they are the dudes who collect such fines). And it turns out that, if your car doesn't have a current WOF you'll get fined for it, whether you're driving it or not. The only way to avoid paying the 200 smackeroos is to hide it off the road, like in a private garage.

Well, that's all well and good if you have a garage (we do, but that's beside the point). But what if you're one of the huge proportion of households in or around the inner city who don't bloody have one?

It seems pretty bloody unfair if you ask me.