It's time the world all drove on the same side.

An interesting sign seen constantly along the Great Ocean Road recently was "In Australia we drive on the left hand side" or something similar. Good work I thought as I remembered back to my "difficulties" keeping on the right hand side of the road on France. Sorry to that bloke in Marseilles if you're reading this. Anyway I thought, it's probably a fairly useless sign to most visitors to Oz. It's like putting up a sign that says. "In Australia we write in English" Pointless to those you're trying to communicate to. This was reinforced to me when later along the GOR a person that looked like a tourist tore out of a T junction and onto my side of the road. Only my cat like reflexes avoided catastrophe. It was obvious to me by the look on the other guys face that he had just realised/remembered that "In Australia we drive on the left hand side" So I thought well you know with the world shrinking and people travelling this sort of thing is going to happen lots. It's hard to break a habit and nobody tests you to see if you can actually safely make the change from left to right, or the other way around. So the simple answer is that we should all drive on the same side. Being magnaminous I was going to say right as I assumed that most of the world drove on that side.
But.... look at this list of countries that drive on the left.

Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bophuthatswana, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands, Ciskei, Cyprus, Dominica, FalklandIslands, Fiji, Grenada, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Lesotho, Macau, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Seychelles, Sikkim, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, St Kitts & Nevis, St. Helena, St. Lucia, Surinam, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda, United Kingdom, US Virgin Islands, Venda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Impossible to get this organised. I think Singapore could probably change overnight. If they can get ride of flies this would be easy. But look at this list. It'll never happen. It should though.

Welcome to The Ranch

Where would you find a Longhorn if it were not on a Ranch? Really it is a simple answer. OK.... actually Longhorn's don't always exist on Ranches. But generally they do. Apparently. Anyway that is not important right now. What is important is to get something written up onto this blog I have created so that there is actually something here. So, I guess a note of welcome would be polite.

So welcome to my home.

The Ranch has always been the name of my principle place of residence, so now it is in cyberspace.

Hopefully I can keep this Ranch tidier than other Ranches I've lived in. I don't feel that I'm an untidy person but over the years I guess I have had to accept that I am. My old dog Moet, a flat coated retriever, actually convinced me that I was a bit messy. Moet told me I was untidy one monday morning after a weekend which was fairly full of social activities. She just surveyed the wreckage around the tv. Papers, pizza boxes, red wine bottles, many glasses, CD covers, clothes. Normally a happy, joyous dog who just wanted to play, lick you or eat, Moet seemed to shudder at the scene and just look at me and say "Wow!"

I think I cleaned up two days later. I didn't want to feel nagged by my dog.

So welcome to The Ranch. The aim of this venture is to .............. ? I have no idea. Tidiness is not going to be the goal though I can assure you. Let's just see what turns up OK !! Maybe I should develop a values statement and a mission statement, or maybe not. Let's just leave that for now.