The other day in the lane I had to scrunch myself up to avoid what could have been an untidy encounter with a hedge cutting vehicle much like the one pictured above. It was being operated with impressive skill by the driver, who had to use a variety of levers and pedals to simultaneously move the vehicle in the right direction, mow the ground level verge and use the cutting arm to sweep up and down the hedge itself.
Nothing overly surprising about that I suppose – you’d expect someone let loose with one of those machines to know what he was doing. I only mention it because the driver was very, very old and appeared to be operating the equipment half-asleep from a virtually horizontal reclining position.
Surprisingly, I have very little to say about a device which mows the lawn and cuts a hedge at the same time. It just seems to be defying the laws of science and nature.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I dreamt the whole thing.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the old asleep hedge cutter man dreamt me.
Forgive me. I was clearly not giving it enough thought. There's a serious point to be made here about cost cutting in the public services. If an old man like this one can do two jobs, how many other jobs can old men do? We could cut the public sector in half if we employed this sort of thinking.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to have dismissed this piece so quickly.
And imagine the tasks he could accomplish if wide awake!
ReplyDeleteI am particularly impressed by. The clever use of
ReplyDeletethe "rambling nonsense" label to mean nonsense about rambling, as opposed to nonsense that rambles.