Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 260 days
The Omicron storm is raging in South Africa and around the world. There is global Omicron hysteria. It’s not helping. On 16 December there were 24 785 new cases and declining recorded in South Africa and 87 565 and rising in the UK. The prompt and irrational travel ban has not achieved much as far as Covid is concerned but has succeeded in disrupting the travel plans of thousands and causing immense economic damage and suffering. It also appears that Covid related corruption is also a thing in the UK. How else can you explain the exorbitant price gouging on enforced quarantining of returning Britons in hotels? https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-12-09-travellers-from-south-africa-have-to-fork-out-r77000-for-10-days-of-hell-in-filthy-flea-ridden-quarantine-hotel-in-uk/. The cost of a standard room for two people at the Mariott Delta Hotel in Milton Keynes is £66 a night. The quarantine rate is £371.40 a night. Where is this money going? How effective is quarantining? Not so much according to the experts. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-12-15-covid-19-in-south-africa-its-time-to-ditch-quarantining-and-contact-tracing/. Make up your own mind.
Just as abruptly as the UK travel ban was implemented it has now been lifted without apology, but would you now book a trip to South Africa when equally abruptly it could be reinstated, and you could be trapped in South Africa and face 10 days of incarceration in a grotty hotel in Milton Keynes at a cost of £3714 for a couple upon your return. The Rho, Sigma, and Upsilon waves are also in the wings. For those of us who live in democracies is it now perhaps time for us to start pushing back against the nanny state and the many control freaks that inhabit our governments. In South Africa, the control freaks are assembled in a committee called the National Command Council which has at times banned the sale of hot chickens, T-shirts (unless used as underwear), closed beaches, and banned surfing and swimming in the sea. They are so tone-deaf that they shamelessly came up with a “Command Council” and think this is appropriate. I confess that every time I hear this term I have (very) impure thoughts.
But I digress the topic for today’s Ruminant Pink Friday ™ is about a Samurai and a Suzuki Samurai to be specific. Our household has reached peak internal combustion engine fossil fuel burning car ownership. There are five cars in the Young fleet and I am the fleet manager. I have already confessed to being a petrol head in an earlier blog. https://ruminantpinkfriday.com/2021/03/12/ruminations-on-the-guilty-pleasures-of-being-a-petrol-head/. The fleet consists of two BMW’s, a Toyota, a Mazda, and a Suzuki Samurai at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy. Vehicle dominance hierarchies are a thing. Because I’m an engineer with extreme intuition about all things electrical and mechanical, and utter social ineptitude, these vehicles are also my children.
The Samurai was bought, second hand, by my late father-in-law, Ivor Kahn, around 1995. None of us can remember exactly when he bought it. It has always lived at our Southbroom house and has been part of the furniture there. The Samurai was manufactured from 1985 to 1995. It is a very simple open-top 4X4 powered by a 1300cc engine with a single carburettor and is a 1992 model. This engine develops 50 KW of power and 96 NM of torque. My BMW produces five times more power and torque. It is (very) underpowered and struggles to maintain 100 km/hr up the hills but you can feel every single one of those kilometres. This is not a refined vehicle.
If it rains, there is a cover, however, there is no button that you press, and the roof assembles itself in a matter of seconds in a feat of mechanised engineering origami. This is a job for two people involving threading of cables and many press studs taking at least 10 minutes.
My boys complain about the heavy steering because there is no power steering. There is also no air conditioning or power windows. Despite that both my boys always wanted to drive it and this was the car we first used to teach them to drive in the quiet but hilly roads of Southbroom. Many hill-starts and much stalling, a couple of trips into the flower beds, and a lot of laughing. The engine is entirely mechanical and there is no computer, electronics, or engine management system. It does have an automatic choke which is a step up from my first car an Austin 1100. This is motoring at its most basic. Basic but extremely durable. Although I’m generally extremely diligent about maintaining the cars I have not been as diligent with the Cinderella in our fleet.
More than ten years ago, the Samurai would not start at the beach and the battery was flat. When I looked under the bonnet, I saw there was no fan belt. The fan belt drives the fan, alternator, and water pump. There is a very dim and inconspicuous red warning light on the dashboard to tell you the alternator is not charging but in an open-air vehicle, we did not notice that. The battery slowly discharged, and we did several hundred kilometres without a water pump or fan. The engine did not overheat and was not damaged. I drove it to the car spares shop very carefully checking the temperature gauge which never went above normal and installed a new fan belt in 5 minutes with a 13 spanner. I confess I would not even attempt to replace the serpentine belt on my BMW. This is not a simple matter. I have just checked out the YouTube video on how to do this and it’s very scary. There is a lot of disassembly required and many warnings on how you must take extreme care to not break things as you do the disassembly. There are also some special tools required and specific torque requirements. The air filter box and valve cover need to be removed. For an amateur, this is a job of many hours.
To be fair I cannot honestly say that I love the Samurai as much as the BMW, but I do love it. It has always been a holiday runabout and so it has not done a huge mileage but to last nearly 30 years with very basic maintenance is quite something to behold.
I get numerous unsolicited offers asking if I want to sell the Samurai but it’s not for sale. The Samurai is a medieval Japanese warrior cast and our Samurai has been a (slow) warrior.
Finally, some interesting and positive feedback. I have twice blogged about living in 3rd world Johannesburg with my most recent blog concerning the state of the electricity infrastructure in our suburb. https://ruminantpinkfriday.com/2021/10/29/further-ruminations-on-living-in-3rd-world-johannesburg/. I have been nagging the City of Johannesburg (COJ) about the dangerous and unsafe transformer serving our street. Well, it appears that nagging and being annoying pays off. Yesterday on a public holiday, they replaced the transformer.
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions and please keep them coming.
Regards
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 