~~
Sunday 23rd 47F, dark grey and very windy. 30-35mph gales all day. One official forecasting team offers all day sunshine. The other offers all day grey. Guess who won the toss-up? Rain on the air as I limped to the lanes. One small bird of prey was travelling so fast, with the wind, that it had crossed the 1000m prairie before its brakes started working. I kept my hood up. To keep the flying tree blossom out of my eyes!
____________________________
Using a twin-pronged attack the Danes have finally cracked the habitual speeding of its motoring citizens. Finding any Dane driving at the legal speed limit remains extremely elusive. The "Guinness Book of World Records" has had secret observers in every Danish city, for years. Even they have yet to officially confirm a single sighting of any Dane driving at under the speed limit.
First, the Danish government introduced the "Insane Danish driver" law. Which set such simple rules that even junior petrol heads and BMW/Audi owners could understand them:
Drive at twice the local speed limit? Lose your car. Drive at over 200kph? Lose your car. Drink drive after three litres of snaps? Lose your car. Drive while overdosing on three kinds of illegal drugs? Lose your car. Drive the wrong way down the motorway, three times in a week [or more?] Lose your car!
This new law quickly got the attention of many Danish drivers. So much so, that only 54,000 108,000 cars have been confiscated from "Insane Danish drivers" in the very first month alone! I suppose it is one way of getting more electric cars on the Danish roads. Even if some cynics might argue that drastically reducing the overall number of vehicles is "massaging the statistics." Thanks to decades of skewed import taxes, against electric cars, Denmark has very few electric vehicles. Probably less than many a tiny Pacific island. Or South American mega-slum.
The second prong of the attack against "Insane Danish drivers" was the introduction of compulsory refuse sorting into multiple containers [a.k.a.bins.] To be carried out by the unpaid [and heavily taxed] Danish public.
Note that refuse bins are habitually left on the pavements and verges in Denmark. This is to ensure the bins are always accessible to the private "refuse collection" companies. Which, by default, collect the refuse at completely random times.
As a side note: "Refusal of refuse" is already a critical, social problem in Denmark. The Bin Men hold such power, that they can refuse to collect from an entire tower block. All it takes is for an innocent passer-by to drop a sweet wrapper into the wrong bin! The Bin Men even have huge, printed cards [with hooks] to attach to the wheely bin handles. These cards are intended to "shame" the Danish public for failure to sort their refuse 110% correctly. Second offences can often lead to long jail terms without parole.
By introducing more and more bins. For sorting the refuse into specific types. The Danish pavements and verges are now completely overflowing with wheely bins!
See the image alongside for an example of a single, Danish householder discussing her "bin problem." She is seen standing outside her typical, Danish home. Nineteen refuse bins for sorting ten kinds of refuse? Something doesn't add up here! Image attributed to TV2 "Lorry" and used for educational purposes only. Here's the video: Danish language.
Ny affaldssortering chokerer i Nordsjælland: "Jeg troede, det var en fejl" | TV 2 Lorry
99.9% of Danish city pedestrians are now having to walk on the roads. [Rural Danes never walk anywhere.] All Danes know, from long experience, never to walk on the cycle lanes. There are far too many, illegally tuned scooters holding massive, drag race meetings on those!
Which means there is nowhere else to walk except on the roads. The pavements have quickly become completely blocked by refuse bins throughout the land. Whether in town and city, village, hamlet or meandering, rural lane.
Just to make life "more interesting" the privately owned, refuse collection lorries have only two containers. So, as soon a bulky type of refuse has filled one container, the lorry must return to base or their privately owned, recycling centres.
Do not be too quick to assume that these bins are colour coded. To help the long-suffering Danes remember which bin to to use? No, that would be just silly. This is Denmark after all. No pure-bred Dane has independently invented a coloured, refuse bin. At least, not yet. The Danes do not habitually recognise other nation's patents or educational qualifications.
So immigrant surgeons and other specialists must push brooms around [foreign owned] superstores. Or work as manual pickers at recycling centres. That's if they can get any kind of work at all. Due to a colossal irony the Danes use the word "sort" for the English word "black." So any immigrant automatically becomes: "En af de sorte." [plural] or: "One of the blacks. Or, "the black sort? Black sorter? Skin colour has nothing to do with it.
All the new refuse bins are identical in colour. So-called, "Danish Black©" Much as the Swedes have registered their Swedish Red© . So all Swedish houses must be painted in that colour.
Well, Danish Black© is the default colour for Danish roofs, Danish kitchens, Danish bathroom and kitchen tiles, Danish designer furnishings, Danish garden ornaments and outdoor furniture, Danish carports and garages, Danish concrete slabs in private drives, Danish kitchen utensils and cutting boards, Danish floors, Danish electrical goods, Danish iPhones, Danish barbecues, Danish carpets, Danish table place mats, Danish summer houses, Danish ironwork, Danish stairs, Danish lamp shades, Danish mail boxes, etc.etc.
Don't believe me? IKEA saves an absolute fortune by printing their online and paper catalogues only in B&W for their Danish mega-outlets. Where, quite naturally, the Danish shopping trolleys and baskets are also Black©. Just as, Black©, is the Danish "designer" asphalt in their vast, out of town, car parks.
BTW: Danish Black© mail/post boxes were already required by law to be placed on the pavement outside private homes and business addresses. This is so the post vans can drive along the pavements. With two wheels on and two wheels off. With the driver's window wound down, to speed up deliveries.
You can probably see where this story is going. I'd better have a walk al[on]g the road before I get into any more trouble with the Danish refuse "thought police!" It is said that more Danes now work [from home] for the RASP [Refuse Administration Sorting Police.] Than are/were employed by the KGB and Stasi combined! I kid you not! 😉
*
No comments:
Post a Comment