This is a promo for TV Plus, Ashley is on the far right...
This guy behind me is giving me the heebie jeebies...should I call security?
Around the time I wrote Warning: Soapies Aren't Good for You I was also studying soaps as part of a Specialised English 3rd year course, and part of it focussed on Ideology and the English Media - at Free State University. Soaps are not really my thing, but it was quite an interesting study, because our interest in soaps says a lot about us.
So when I heard TVPus was flying in some soap stars I thought I'd go for a gawk. I'd seen the blonde 7de Laan actress a few times while my girlfriend was watching and I thought I might ask her what she thought of soaps.
At the mall itself there was a mob of people, and I felt way out of my depth. I thought it might come across quite rude to ask a seemingly philosophical question about the 'point of soaps'. So I drifted around the periphery and took a few photos. This is when I noticed a long haired brunette giving me a few quizzical looks. I felt quite a conflicted sense in wanting to talk to her and also not knowing particularly what to talk about. Then I didn't have a clue who she was, and since then I can't say I ever bothered to watch Isidingo.
I did see her on TV a few days before she died. I was trying to get ready for news and as I was changing channels I stopped and then settled down to watch her and Barker have some sort of discussion about her starting up some sort of business, something like that.
Cut to the present and this morning I almost jumped out of my skin whilst cycling. A car suddenly appeared in the last 15 minutes of our ride and although it wasn't a life and death scenario, it was the biggest fright I've had in a good long while. That's the thing with cars - at any moment something can happen that can cause grievous bodily harm, even more so if you're on a bicycle, hence this article:
The Best Drivers Are Also Cyclists.
Then on my way to work this morning, this:
[I will upload the car accident pictures taken today on Glenhove Road - in thios space - later today].
It's now 'later', so, as promised...
And...
This is an accident on Glenhove road. I tell you we have yet to see our crazy car culture for what it is. Do you think it's worth risking your life just because you're impatient, just because you're going 75km/h and not 80km/h? It's a huge priveledge to have your own car, and yet we drive around as though it's a game, a race, the highway as a motorised fashion show. It's not. It's getting from A to B. That's it. The importance thing is to get there in one piece.
So let's remember Ashley in the best possible way; by honoring our own and other's lives whilst on the roads. By respecting those on the road more vulnerable than ourselves - that means offering a right of way to pedestrians and giving cyclists a little leeway. Does it matter who is right and who has a legal right of way, or does it matter that we all use the same roads safely? Let's drive carefully so that we and others live out the full extent of the precious gift of our lives, the way we were meant to... Start driving safely and considerately today.
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