Street names are leading us round the bend and off track

CAPE Town’s street names must be rather confusing to visitors. Heaven knows they’re pretty confusing to those of who live here. The road from Muizenberg along the coast to Fish Hoek is called Main Road.

In Fish Hoek it divides into Kommetjie Road and Simon’s Town Road. There’s no road sign indicating it is Simon’s Town Road. A large direction board in Fish Hoek tells us this road is the one to take to Simon’s Town. Apparently you’re supposed to realise the road that goes to Simon’s Town is called Simon’s Town Road.

This is not a logical idea. Not all roads that lead to Cape Town are called Cape Town Road and none of the roads that lead to Gauteng are called Gauteng Road as far as I know.

If you follow Simon’s Town Road it becomes Main Road again somewhere around Glencairn. Again, nobody seems to know where the change is. Further along (somewhere) it morphs into St Georges Street and even further along, there’s a sign declaring you are now in McFarlane Road.

I may have missed a name or two along the way.

To make matters more interesting, the house numbers when you leave Fish Hoek increase from 1 to 200, then when you enter Glencairn they decrease from 200 again down to 1.

I suppose this is why I get mail addressed to other people with the same house number as mine. There are probably at least six houses along this confused road, all with the same number as mine.

I was interested, but not particularly surprised, when I came home the other day to find a new wheelie-bin parked in my driveway.

At first I thought it was merely the kind municipal officials doing an official “update” like the computer folk do.

After a few days I became a bit agitated about the new bin, as I do not have enough parking space for two bins in my cluttered garage and passersby were beginning to regard the new one as public property and discard their empty Diddle-Daddle packets in it.

I peered inside and found a small slip of paper saying it had been delivered to my number in “Main Road”. Then I hopped on the scooter and travelled along, looking for houses with the same number.

Eventually I found the correct one and told the owner my story. He was most relieved. He had been calling the city officials every day and accusing them of non-delivery.

They had been telling him the bin had been delivered and he was a liar. Once the mystery was solved they came and relocated the bin, but not without some angry words on both sides.

A lot of bad feeling could be eliminated by simply erecting a few road signs. It would be a small price to pay for peace.

Last Laugh

In an anatomy exam a student wrote: “The human body consists of three sections – the branium, the borax and the abominable cavity.

“The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abominable cavity contains the five bowels, A,E, I, O and U.”