C H R O N I C L E

Mrs Monk’s

Would-Be Diary

Road Rage in London Part 1   2 Jan 2006

Arriving from Florida at Heathrow and 9.30 am. New Years Day was as daunting as usual, since we were Jet Lagged and chilled by a frosty morning.

Since it was a Public Holiday, we were able drive into London with no fear of Congestion Charging: the A4 was busy, but moving comfortably. As we passed through Chiswick Mrs Monk became agitated and in fact screamed at what appeared in her vanity mirror, which she uses to check what is behind us, for she is forever vigilant.  I also noticed the fast approaching BMW (what else), that was lurching from left to right looking for a way passed us, but we were in the slow lane and had no way of letting the impatient BMW through, even if we wanted to. In fact the traffic obliged us to come to a complete stop which impeded the progress of the BMW even further. But then it became clear that the BMW was occupied by two skin headed young men who were not exactly pleased by the impasse that we had created, and they were shaking their fists at us as if we were somehow responsible for the traffic. But then came the siren blasting Police Car in hot pursuit. The skin heads made an escape down a small side street but the police car was after them in extremely close pursuit. It may be that we had inadvertently assisted the police. “Get ‘em” said Mrs Monk, whose fear had evolved into triumph.

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Compare with Florida Driving Experience

Road Rage in London Part 2   2 Jan 2006

Continuing on our journey through London’s Earl’s Court District, just a few more miles along on our journey, we came to a stop at a traffic light. A black Volvo 4 x 4. arrived in much the same aggressive way as the criminals in the BMW, forcing its way into a gap that didn't exist in order to gain some advantage over us and every one else in the otherwise polite line of traffic. He succeeded by forcing us out of our intended path but this oddly worked to our advantage over him because his chosen path was blocked by another vehicle.

Mrs Monk has adopted the habit of photographing bad drivers and especially tail gaters, and she claims that this has the same effect of official speed cameras, and tailgaters thus back off more often than not, if she points a camera, or pretends to point a camera, at them.. Speed cameras are often thought to be dummy cameras, but work nevertheless since traffic slows down whether they work or not. Thus, Mrs Monk will point anything that comes to hand at bad drivers everywhere; she might  point a bar of chocolate at a tailgater, or a banana at a speeder. I can confirm that this does indeed, often have the desired effect.

When the 4 x 4. started to behave badly, Mrs Monk got into pretend camera mode, but did not really expect me to pull up alongside the offending car. Looking down upon Mrs Monk from the elevated seat of the 4 x 4, was the fat face of the corpulent man in the driving seat. Mrs Monk bravely pointed her mobile phone at the fat man, but the phone had no camera, and the fat man laughed at her as if he knew it..... gratuitously.

The light turned green and we were surprised to have the advantage over the fat man and we left him in our wake.

He was not pleased and pursued us until we got to the embankment where the road expanded into two lanes. He passed us and then slammed on his brakes forcing us and all other traffic to stop. He got out of his car and we and came over to our car and started jumping up and down to comical effect. Both of his feet were off the ground simultaneously .Fat men should not jump like that. We laughed at him just as he had laughed at Mrs Monk and the fat man got back in his fat car, perhaps a little embarrassed by his tantrum.

As I saw it, we had the last laugh, but Mrs Monk was traumatised by these events.

I offered her the obvious cure for that condition.. I took her to Selfridges.

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