Coronavirus streets in Cape Town - LVII

The cruise to amuse

At just before 6:00 AM this morning, I looked out of my window to see a cruise liner passing to the right in the bay ahead, and just as I thought it was going to dock it turned around and cruised back out of the bay, this apparent circling in the bay continued for a few hours as I took out my binoculars to view what might be going on. It transpired that the wind which we did not particularly feel as close to the beach as we were made it unsuitable for a docking manoeuvre.

Then just before noon, it appeared to disappear close to the V&A Waterfront and soon we found that she had docked at the cruise terminal. We returned from Wynberg to the waterfront curious to find out about the cruise liner we had already determined was the MSC Orchestra.

A view to a queue

At the cruise terminal, we found ourselves channelling Chaka Khan with two lines from one of her hit songs, paraphrased, as one is wont to play at.

I feel for you,
You’re in a long queue.

The queue of passengers waiting to board was quite literally interminably long even without the social distancing and we supposed it was exacerbated by the need for rapid testing before boarding as cruise liners have been unmitigated incubators of the Coronavirus and communal spreading is most definitely encouraged by the community and confinement in closed spaces of a cruise liner regardless of how luxurious it is.

Yet, this portends a change in activities that suggest either moving beyond or living with the pandemic. The surprise for me was that I did not realise there was a proclivity for cruises amongst South Africans, the majority therein being the nominal majority of the country. I am gladdened by this because this might be the year of exiting the strictures of the pandemic, with wider and easier opportunities for travel and much else.

MSC Orchestra this morning, coming into the bay.

MSC Orchestra circling out of the bay.

MSC Orchestra, up close at the cruise terminal.

MSC Orchestra, at the cruise terminal.

Police in toilet misconduct

Foot tap importuning

Once again a lewd conduct situation is about to hound a Republican Senator out of office. The press is running amok with Puritanical sanctimony as analysis and commentary drags out for our recollection every other lewd conduct scandal that has sent many an unassuming politician to a retirement in ignominy.

The new career of self-rehabilitation may never end till the day they draw their last breath and that is very sad.

In America, these situations are even beneath contempt when the police are engaged in what they like to call a sting when really they are agents provocateurs, people who incite to create a criminal situation they have not been able to objectively investigate and resolve.

Apparently, the senator entered a cubicle and tapped his foot in what suppose was the sign to engage in conduct unbecoming, no doubt, the policeman being a consenting party would have responded to the point that a level of risky trust was developed before the police identified himself. I would not go into the analysis of who tapped first, the police were there to catch foot-tappers by incitement or reciprocation.

Solving moral crimes

People in moments of weakness or lewd adventure who are importuned or tempted to yield to the flesh by the law pretending to be a consensual party to some prospective sexual liaison does make one wonder what policing has become.

It is the same tactic that was used to nab George Michael who whilst cruising in a cottage was importuned by a pretty policeman, or as they would have us read, an undercover agent.

Indeed, these activities can be a nuisance in public areas, they are also as it were consensual and victimless, the use of crimes to qualify this activity is to moralise with hypocritically.

I am not sure engaging the police to be pimps or baits in lewd conduct is the best use of tax payers money much as the moralising of the situation gives us the false comfort of ridding our public places of “crimes”, not of the ones that fill us with fear and indignation but the ones that make us feel extremely “holier than thou”.