Signs that it’s time to get serious

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

For more than 20 years US magazine Sports Illustrated included a weekly sign that the apocalypse is upon us.

It is intended to shine a light on “mind-boggling bureaucracy, violent behaviour and tastelessness run amok” — among other things — like the Nigerian soccer official who assigned a match to a referee who died several months earlier, or the diehard NFL Green Bay Packers fan who was marrying a woman named Packer and taking her last name.

At times, poking fun at the absurdities of big time sports is like shooting fish in a barrel.

But apocalyptic portents are

A fresh start with Cam Ward

not limited to athletes and sports officialdom.

I cannot be alone in thinking that some of the main players on the world political stage are not so much signs of trouble as proof that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are basically already riding across the globe.

Closer to home, one of the first warning signs I came across was a man washing his car at a service station using only the bucket and wiper intended for use in cleaning grimy windscreens. Maybe he was just trying to minimise his carbon footprint. Maybe he was really spooked by global warming. Maybe he knew something the rest of us don’t ... But this week I came across a sight that made me fear the breakdown of normal society is already here — streets around a primary school at pick-up time. Twice a day it’s as though these streets have seceded not so much from the Commonwealth as common sense. It’s like a scene from the Wild West, only with SUVs instead of horses. But the overriding mantra remains the same: everyone is a law unto themselves.

How else to explain why a driver thinks it’s not only permissible to double park on a narrow street but turn off the ignition and GET OUT OF THE CAR in search of his errant child?

Where does the need to be close and quick overtake basic road rules?

Are we so time-poor that we cannot bear to walk a hundred metres or so from the nearest safe, legal parking space?

Helicopter parenting is in danger of being overtaken by SUV chauffeuring as the next great malady of 21st century society. If war, famine, plague and chaos follow, don’t say you haven’t seen the signs.