A travesty of two cities

Johannesburg, 12 Sept 2006

There is not much worse than trying to jam five days` worth of clothing in a suitcase that is too small, but is the only one around at home with wheels. Packing for three-seasonal UK weather tops this, in the same suitcase.

However, with the current Heathrow security situation, now we all have to measure our laptop bags and take our shoes off for inspection when leaving the country.

The net result is that I arrived hours early coming and going, and had to - on return - unpack my laptop, pockets, shoes and anything else I was taking on as hand luggage. They confiscated my lip-ice after all that.

But, once actually on the plane, matters did not improve. Seats in cattle class are always far too small, with legroom sufficient for an elf. The on-board television set hung several times while I tried to use it, but I did manage to discover that I could phone home, at $4.99 a minute. An SMS is $2.

Even if I could get the whole lot to work, I doubt I would have spent that much on communication, excessive even at local rates.

Once in the UK, I discovered that ordinary households have always-on Internet. Not broadband, but similar to our ISDN lines. However, at the hotel in London this is a different story. The PC setup in the hotel provided television, movies and Internet - at a price.

One movie: lb7.99. At an exchange rate of about R13.80 for every quid, this looked likely a costly exercise. Thankfully, I had taken several books with me and these passed as night-time entertainment.

So, after five days of walking miles through the English countryside, catching a train with 20kg of luggage and then lugging that through London`s tube system and then the streets of London, I was looking forward to getting home and being able to drive wherever I needed to go.

Rude awakening

My first stop after a quick shower was the office. I needed to clear about 200 spam e-mails, and respond to all the other urgent things that doubtless happen when one is out of the office. Mid-afternoon, exhausted, I left for home.

What made the whole thing infinitely worse is that I was treated with complete disdain by the police at the Norwood station.
Nicola Mawson

Maybe if I had been more awake and not deprived of sleep for five days, I would have noticed the three-series metallic-green BMW in my rear-view mirror. I didn`t and the rest - as they say - is history.

Three armed gunmen is no joke. Trying to cancel several ubiquitous credit cards, get a new driver`s licence and passport, and deal with the insurance company is not a joke either. At least, as everyone keeps saying, I`m alive.

And that, really, is the whole point. I escaped relatively unscathed apart from the panic attacks. What made the whole thing infinitely worse is that I was treated with complete disdain by the police at the Norwood station, this after being hung up on three times by the flying squad emergency number.

What, I thought, would their reaction be if hubby had gone in to report that I had been shot and killed? The same lack of caring and compassion?

I think I shall petition finance minister Trevor Manuel to be allowed to deduct from my earnings the cash I now feel obliged to spend on an armed response company, private counselling, and increased security measures. I`d like my no claims bonus back too. None of this would be necessary if we had a halfway decent police force, that treated criminals as such and survivors of these ordeals with compassion.

I would also like a Web site to be made available by Home Affairs so that I can order my new passport, driver`s licence, etc, online. That, me thinks, would be e-governance at work.