Valid Until Midnight
Dear Abbot,
Monk here.
Wednesday. Six capitals of timing, and not one clock agreed with another.
TALLINN. In Tallinn, the police raised the threshold on their eight mobile speed cameras from 3 to 6 kilometres an hour over the limit. Parliament then required warning signs before each one. In September the cameras issued 2,939 fines. A year earlier, 26,228. The chair of the legal affairs committee: “If the police say the number of fines has fallen by 90 percent, that’s a good thing.”
A study published the same month found that 77 percent of drivers speed on at least some kinds of road.
So the speeding goes on and the fines have stopped. The camera has learned manners.
COLOMBO. In Colombo, Sri Lanka Customs passed its revenue target for the whole of 2026 by 13 October: Rs. 2,208 billion collected against Rs. 2,207 billion. Last year it got there on 11 November.
Done with two and a half months to spare, and one billion rupees over. The target is finished. The year has not been told.
BOGOTÁ. In Bogotá, the central bank’s general manager told senators that inflation will very probably miss its 3 percent target in 2026, the sixth year in a row. September came in at 6.2 percent. A return to target may take until 2028.
“Why not raise the target?” asked the boy. “Estonia moved its line.”
“A central bank that moves its target is a shop.”
“A shop that sells what?”
“Hope, at 12.25 percent.”
KINGSTON. In Kingston, Jamaica’s Integrity Commission told Parliament that in 2025 a government buyer gave the same contractor two or more single-source contracts on the same day 1,618 times. That came to 4,317 contracts worth $11.5 billion. The record was 19 awards to one contractor in one day. In 416 cases, every award sat within the single-source limit while the day’s awards, together, went over it. The commission notes such patterns “may reflect legitimate arrangements.”
A staircase of small steps, each one too low to trip over, ending on the roof.
Noted.
ISLAMABAD. In Islamabad, the government cut petrol by Rs2.71 a litre, to Rs392.66, and diesel by three paisa. The new prices are good for Wednesday only. Pakistan has fixed its fuel prices daily since July. The tax on petrol stays at Rs114 a litre, whatever the day.
The price is weather. The tax is climate.
AUCKLAND. And in Auckland, the water company Watercare took about $6.14 million from 43,835 accounts eighteen days before the bills were due. It blamed “an error during an upgrade of our billing system” and is refunding anyone who asks.
Chuang Tzu tells of a keeper who offered his monkeys three nuts in the morning and four at night. They were furious. So he offered four in the morning and three at night, and they were delighted. The sum never changed. Today the whole circuit was arguing about the morning: fines that wait for a sign, a target met before its year, a price valid until midnight, a bill paid before it was owed. Nobody touched the total.
The boy has heard the story and now wants his nuts at breakfast.
Petrol: valid until midnight. Tea: early, and not refunded.
Yours, eighteen days ahead,
The Monk