Vehicle protest

06 February 2003

Feb 2003 The odd rattling from the engine in our trusty local delivering landcruiser, became an excited pinging, like a fly inside a lamp shade. The visiting mechanic swore that he'd never heared such a noise in all his life, and was awake at night thinking about it (as if we believe that !) Finally the clutch went on the hill up to the farm ('Devil's drop') on the way home from Nottingham Forest beating Crystal Palace 2-1(which softened the blow, as we walked home in the ice). It turned out that the flywheel had exploded, and could only be replaced by a part from Belgium, which of course would take 2 weeks to collect In the desperate mean time a replacement landcruiser was frantically sought from London, and normal service was eventually resumed, after the postponement of several local deliveries. Sorry.

On a completely different issue: - Last week we were offered railway sleepers from Zimbabwe (described as 'Rhodesian', a dubious anacronism in itself). Should we buy or boycott railway sleepers from Zimbabwe ? Is buying them supporting a corrupt regime, and empowering Mugabe, or does it enable trade, and the trickle down effect to those empoverished ?