A quixote summary of what’s ahead of you, dear reader.
Please note: This draft introduction suggests publication of my latest loss-leading effort is now not far away so all existing draft chapters will shortly be removed from The Bug’s site in a pathetic attempt to get book sales well into double figures – DGB
Book introduction
Maybe the reason is as simple as my first name but I’ve spent a lot of my life tilting at windmills – all with varying degrees of non-success.
And it’s fair to say that the reason you’re reading this book right now is that I’ve never really had the ability to learn from my mistakes and abandon such attacks that have invariably led to my being sat flat on my arse far too often for such folly, totally deserved or otherwise.
And yet, here I am in my 70s still tilting at windmills and it probably hasn’t escaped your attention that the book cover above I designed even before I got into the saddle and rushed at my mechanical, much better armed, foe clearly shows I knew how it would all end up. Flat on my arse! Some credit, please, perhaps, for at least clearly seeing the outcome of this judicial journey I foolishly embarked on?
This is my last tilt ever at an invincible enemy but the one I’m most proud of despite the predicted outcome. More than a half-century as a fairly average journalist who plateaued out as a B grade forged – well, I hope so – a reasonably logical and cynical brain that helped my nose become a competent bullshit detector during my long journalism career. And in life generally as well.
And as you’ll see from the chapters that follow, it didn’t take too long to work out a few things from the get-go about my traffic speeding infringement notice and why I went to District Court appeal over my lower-court conviction for speeding in a restricted school zone.
The first thing that brain, working closely with my ever-increasing gut feeling, picked up on early was that despite police prosecution promises to the contrary, just the one photo showing my vehicle not disobeying a speed sign in front of it would be the only image contained in the final police brief for the Magistrates Court hearing.
Perhaps more of a guess than any brilliant analytical skills was my very strong belief – almost 400 per cent in Donald Trump talk; maybe more! – that a remote camera operator’s certificate claiming all traffic signs in the 40km/hr speed zone on the day of my alleged school-kiddy-endangering, foolish lead-footedness, were clearly visible and adequate quite some time before the camera clicked how many clicks I was traveling at.
That certificate – even the absurd, desperate, argument tried on by the respondent’s counsel at appeal that it never existed in the first place – plays a central role in the judicial journey you are about the share with me.
Please enjoy and by the end I truly hope that if you ever cop a traffic fine that you think is unfair and that you didn’t do anything wrong and, by jove, you can prove that, just pay the fucking thing, okay? Unless you have some lawyer mates who see you as a lost cause and will crack a pro bono for you, save your time and money and have a holiday in Bali.
Even so, by the end of your read, what’s left of that cynical but hopefully still logical mind of mine thinks you’ll agree with one thing:
YOU COULDN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
DGB: That line above, YOU COULDN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP! is being considered as an alternate title for my book. I’m also rather fond of The King and I.
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