PONDERING LIFE’S “WONDERFULLY TRAGIC” CONTRADICTIONS IN THESE BIZARRE TIMES OF SELF-ISOLATION
Irony is a policeman being robbed. Irony is a US president figuratively or quite literally caught with his pants down or caught with his hands where they ought not to be, and being asked to stand in the corner of the Oval Office.
Irony is having already low petrol prices – by average world standards – drop even lower, having highways, byways and especially the most beautiful of touring “driver’s” roads open and cleared on a national scale, and not being given the chance to use them. Irony is a fengshui master filing for bankruptcy. Irony is a champion race car driver not being old enough to rent a normal everyday hire car. True of both our own Alex Yoong and Lewis Hamilton at one point in time.
Irony is a professional photographer having his own wedding photos messed up by the film processor and printer. The first and only time, knock on wood, in his career. Yes, that one was yours truly. Irony is the head of a major automotive company walking up the red carpet and shaking my hand first, much to the surprise and amusement of the Swiss principles of a renowned industrial chemicals firm who had flown in for the signing and press announcement of a large deal between the two. I was just the photographer. But I had known the car CEO since childhood.
Irony is a bullet bouncing off a “bulletproof” limo and hitting the person it was designed to protect. Yup, that was the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the US.
Irony is the now very animated and angry couple in the car in front of me, very hot under the collar. They seemed to be blaming DBKL and anyone really, except themselves. They had stopped well short of a set of traffic lights under the shade of a huge roadside tree on a scorching hot afternoon. They must have initially thought enjoying the shade whilst waiting for the lights to change was, pardon the pun, cool. But multiple times the other three directions of the traffic intersection got ‘green-to-go’ and passed us by. You see, many traffic lights are triggered by a Hall effect sensor embedded in the road almost in line with the lights. Stop too far back, and the sensor is not triggered. The electronic logic controller says, “Oh … no car here. No green light for you, mate!”
Irony is Adam and Eve not being Chinese; they would have eaten the snake instead of the apple in the Garden of Eden and mankind would have been forever free of sin. Which sort of brings us back to one of the ironies of the lockdown caused by Covid-19.
Irony is that now, finally, after all these years, we have all the time in the world to assemble the dream flight or even multiple flights of the best of our best friends who would have been otherwise unable to attend due to the usual work or family commitments … but we aren’t allowed to golf, are we.
Drive long and prosper.
