Memories of Scargill’s Red Nazis, As Jakarta Cabbies Run Amok

Officer Down! NUM bootboys attack a fallen cop

………………

Those of you who were in the UK during the marxist-run National Union of Mine-Workers’ violent strike thirty-something years ago must have been as appalled as me to learn of what happened in Jakarta today.

——

Who could forget their red fuhrer Scargill’s war against parliamentary democracy?

His hoodlums waged a campaign of vicious intimidation against working miners who defied his bully-boy strategy.

Praise be there was Maggie Thatcher to prevent the triumph of their brutality.

oooooooooooooooooooooo

• 

Who the Hell do these ‘protestors’ think they are?

———–

• While many of the cabbies involved in the protest demos against their Uber and GoJek compeititors behaved responsibly, others did not. Some thugs in their ranks not only criticised colleagues who exercised their right to work but physically attacked them.

Worse, the louts intimidated passengers.

00000

 Ahok

0000000

Hurray for Governor Ahok, who says he’ll revoke the licenses of cab companies which don’t take stern action against lawless ratbags who engaged in vandalism and forced passengers to get out of the taxis in the middle of the street. One such incident took place on the innercity toll road along Jl. Gatot Subroto outside the House of Representatives in South Jakarta.

So THAT was why one of the people who kept me waiting at Ratu Plaza yesterday smsed to say she was ‘scared!’

Here’s me thinking it was the heavy rain that deterred her from arriving on time. I’m glad I didn’t reproach her when she finally did arrive! 

Taxi drivers were also involved in brawls with Gojek drivers near Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta, which brought traffic to a standstill.

I was actually on Sudirman, to and fro, passing the time, awaiting my acquaintance, but saw no signs of this mayhem!

A brawl also took place in front of the State Palace, where taxi drivers were also demonstrating.Hundreds of taxi drivers threw soil and water bottles at Gojek drivers passing the road near the palace. Gojek drivers shouted back at the taxi drivers.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/03/22/ahok-threatens-revoke-permits-companies-whose-cabbies-involved-violence.html

Indonesia’s authorities should emulate the UK’s much-missed Iron Lady when faced with such  disgraceful antics.

Breaking News – Islamist Terror Helps Get Things In Proportion!

I left home around 10am, and just returned a while ago, having expected to be back by 2.30pm.

It’s now 5.30pm!

—

 Jakarta’s joys

—–

• Both my intended rendezvous were screwed up, by inept organisation, not on my part – I walked a mile and a half through back streets to avoid allegedly jammed highways – and that ineptitude was exacerbated by traffic and a taxi-drivers’ demo against Uber…

So my intention tonight was to give you a long, stress-laden account of the ups and downs of Jakarta life.

Then I get here, switch on the tv, and lo…

…

…

…the vermin have struck Europe again. Death toll a dozen and rising. so one channel says…but even one is too many!

So I am made to realise how little most of us have to moan about.

But the urgent question arises again, and must be asked relentlessly… 

…..

————-

HOW LONG TILL THOSE GUTLESS GOVERNMENTS IN WESTERN EUROPE WAKE UP AND START KILLING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE SWINE THEY CAN LAY THEIR HANDS ON….?

 

u

Bagus! Djoko Sasono – An Exemplary Bureaucrat in Jakarta!

Jakarta. The Transport Ministry’s director general for land transportation, Djoko Saksono, unexpectedly resigned on Saturday over his failure to prevent traffic chaos in the Greater Jakarta area at the start of the Christmas and New Year holiday season in the past week….

—

—-

…Djoko told a press conference that he had to take responsibility and that he would provide more details later.  http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/senior-transport-ministry-official-resigns-holiday-traffic-mayhem/

What a damn fine chap!

Though why the JG spells his name differently from that which he himself sports on his name-badge in the photo, I have no idea.

I did my best last week to avoid going into town except to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as reported. My journeys were by busway, and that took me less time than usual, because a lot of people were out of town.

But their departure from town made the toll roads a nightmare prior to the actual holidays.

———

this ain’t last week’s traffic – it’s a fairly typical scene

———-

From my busway seat on a short shopping trip to Permata Hijau, four or five days ago, I looked out as we passed over those ‘highways to heaven’ – the traffic congestion was hellish.

Trucks to Blame for Crippling Holiday Traffic: Police Chief

Jakarta Globe–24 Des 2015

The southbound toll road, connecting Jakarta with Bogor and the hilly resort area of Puncak, saw traffic backed up 17 kilometers….. At one point, police issued an advisory for Jakartans to just stay home.

—

–

Don’t always agree with the cops, but I can see their point.

Never understood the attraction of Puncak – it’s got some nice tea-plantations but, heck, ya seen some tea-plants, ya seen ’em all. 

Jakarta is in many ways at its best during Idul Fitri and Christmas, population thinned out, far fewer crowds on the side-walks and shopping centres. This year, with Islamic New Year on the 24th and then Christmas and then the weekend, of course there was an intensification of the usual exodus.

000000000000000000

Everyone welcomes the long holiday, but to me it’s a grand opportunity to wander about streets that are not teeming with people, that can be crossed with a relative degree of confidence.

===

 motorised morons

—

Although motor-bike morons still use the side-walks with no regard for pedestrian rights!

On the other hand, if everyone shared my view, Jakarta would be perennially traffic-jammed!

Rightly or wrongly, people blamed ‘the government’ for this year’s traffic nightmare, and for once, or at least a very rare occasion, somebody bit the bullet and resigned.

Djoko Saksono!

How many other men ( or women) in positions of responsibility have presided over bungling, shilly-shallying or total failure, and chose to cling on to their well-paying jobs?

Djoko may or may not have made mistakes. His resignation is such a remarkable event that the Jakarta Post stirred speculation he might be quitting for other, unspecified, reasons.   http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/12/27/high-ranking-official-resigns-over-christmas-congestion.html

But he has set an admirable example and I wish him well in the New Year, that’s coming up later this week. 

Kenapa? Macet Terus, di Jakarta!

Hell’s teeeth!

I was planning on going partying tonight, but when I wandered down after a langorous dog-day (so sorry, Ibi, cat-day) afternoon, it took just one look at the traffic on the main road to dissuade me.

===============

•  macet!
• ————————–

• Off to the warteg instead, reducing my expenditure for the evening by about several hundred thousand.

Now it’s home again, saving my energy till Thursday, if any brave potential visitor decides to risk the work-day macet, or if not, then Saturday. So how come traffc seems to be getting worse? As Ramadan runs its ourse, Jakarta usually thins out. 

 

I asked the gals in the warteg – they were not yet busy, since I was dining before the fasting break at sun-down – and they advised me that everyone was rushing home to eat. 

Whoever, I wondered, forgot the splendid invention of packed lunches ( or luppers – if breakfast at lunch-time is brunch, then lunch at supper-time should surely be thus described?)

———————

———–

Then I remembered, that sun-down gluttony which frequently marks the month of self-denial. No packed lunch could sate such greed.

Not everyone’s like that, of course!

There are many who do take self-denial literally, but there is more food eaten during the fasting month than any other time of year!

====-

 Good appetites galore here, despite unappetising sticky-beaks a-prowl    https://rossrightangle.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/not-fasting-how-about-a-whipping-aceh-slips-deeper-into-barbarism/

–

Mind you, I had SEVEN perkadel earlier, with rice, telor puyuh AND cap cay, and all for Rp 26,500 – and that included my es teh AND a take-away of three gorengan with a couple of eggy things that resemble veggie-omelettes, for a late-night snack.

So I must be getting into the spirit of the local Festive Season!