Johannesburg: sunset and storm

trials and tribulations, cont.d

I'm just back from Johannesburg, South Africa - been on a mission of mercy. My poor father has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma and is already in a fairly advanced stage: he's been in hospital with a severe bout of pneumonia and septicaemia. He was initially expected to pass away over the Easter weekend, but a change of meds pulled him through.

So, I have been resident for the last few weeks in my parents' retirement home - with no internet access and therefore no blogging.

Of course, I was out there last year aound this time, for about three months. He had had a stroke and a fall and broke the C1 vertebra. The hospital he was admitted to - a very zooty northern suburbs one - did not diagnose the stroke or the myeloma. I learn from my reading now that fractures are a primary indicator of myeloma (and advanced age and maleness), as are opportunistic infections of the lungs and renal system (both of which he contracted in a big way immediately upon entering the hospital for 'tests' - he was in their ICU for 8 weeks). So it is not comforting that they missed it, but of course we can't really complain as the condition is incurable anyway.

So. Poor old mum is not accepting the prognosis at all, so that was difficult. But on top of all this she was served with a court summons from last year's doctor alleging non-payment of his bill!! So I had that to sort as well. Luckily a close friend in Johannesburg is an attorney.

The SA medical system has given me a new-found respect for the NHS. SA is completely privatised, so everyone has to have medical insurance. Every medical practice handles their accounts differently, and the practices sometimes claim directly from the medicial insurers and sometimes don't, depending. Neither speaks to the patient, and if you ring the insurers it is typical call-centre hell. Chaos!

Anyway, we gritted teeth and dug deep and discovered Dr M had in fact been overpaid by the medical aid - significantly so. And my mother, confused by the doctor's accounts department badgering, had paid the patient portion three times over. Taken together, the bill was paid literally twice over. And now Dr M is trying for a triple!

One doesn't know whether the good doctor is trying his luck with an elderly and confused patient, or whether his own accounts department is up to something - unfortunately, I gather neither scenario is unheard of. I have compiled all our evidence into a summary of payments and our lawyer is taking to their lawyers.

It's all just beyond belief.

Jo'burg was looking good - had a look at the inner city and felt it was very clean and spruce. The municipality's regeneration project is clearly taking effect. We still had heavy thunderstorms in the afternoons, a typical summer weather pattern for Jozi but very odd for autumn.

Easter weekend news roundup

Riot at Primark - Evening Standard. Exciting times on Oxford Street! I must check out this Primark place of which you speak.

The Queen's loaf is saved - Evening Standard (no link). Apparently, HM The Queen was devastated to hear rumours that Waitrose was about to discontinue her favourite brown loaf - the "Ascot". "Indeed, so upset was she that a member of the Royal household was despatched to Waitrose to ask them to reconsider their decision, and restore the 59p loaf to the shelves."

Happily, the Ascot loaf has not been discontinued but merely repackaged - now it will be known as "thin sliced brown bread".

Waitrose says: "We have been consistently selling our Waitrose thinly sliced brown bread for many years. The bread is the quintessential English loaf, perfect for delicate cucumber sandwiches, or to serve with smoked salmon." Ha! So now we know how to make the perfect Royal cucumber sandwich for tea.

More rather intriguing Royal news/gossip in the Evening Standard:

The very curious world of the royal odd couple (no link, ES 05/04/07 p18). Where did Camilla go to recuperate from her hysterectomy? One of the three Royal palaces she shares with Charles? - or her own private house, away from Charles? The second guess would be correct. The article is interesting in that it reflects on issues arising in the royal marriage, mainly to do with his thoughtlessness. The moral this reader drew from the story: be wary of answered prayers, Camilla. One thing being the bit on the side. Quite another to be the main event.

Gay couples given keys to the Magic Kingdom as Disney relents - The Guardian Now gays can get married at Disneyland!

Chaos on sinking Greek cruise ship - BBC. It is quite unbelievable that a cruise liner can run aground and sink virtually in the Island's harbour. I definitely intend to avoid Louis Cruise Lines. Another of their boats had an engine fire in the English Channel last year, and apparently the company also owns the resort where the two English children died of carbon monoxide poisoning recently. Two French tourists are missing in this latest tragedy.

Finally, some shocking local news: Pregnant woman shot dead at flat. A few weeks ago, a teenager was shot near Clapham North station. This new murder seems to be related to a feud with a neighbour over parking. Just off Northcote Road, this is the epicentre of Nappy Valley, in estate agent speak "between the Commons", one of the most desirable stretches of property in this area. In BBC parlance, definitely "residential".

eggs eggs eggs

Backlash on Chesil Beach

Our national living literary treasure Ian McEwan has long remained gracefully dignified in the face of various moronic allegations of plagiarism. However, Natasha Walter's Guardian review of his new book On Chesil Beach obviously got to him in a big way.

However, unlike Jeanette Winterson, who famously and magnificently turned up on the doorstep of a disagreeable critic (in the middle of a dinner-party), McEwan has restricted himself to a critic slap-down on The Guardian's letters page:

" . . . she reported that my views about the peace movement stuck in her throat.

. . . I accept that being forgiven by critics is an occupational hazard, but just for the record and Ms Walter's throat, perhaps I could set this matter straight. When she was still at her primary school I was campaigning, writing and speaking against nuclear weapons. I was a member of European Nuclear Disarmament . . . "

His letter builds up to a thrilling climax:

"I sometimes wonder whether these common critical confusions arise unconsciously from a prevailing atmosphere of empowering consumerism - the exaltation of the subjective, the "not in my name" syndrome. It certainly seems odd to me that such simple precepts need pointing up: your not "liking" the characters is not the same as your not liking the book; you don't have to think the central character is nice; the views of the characters don't have to be yours, and are not necessarily those of the author; a novel is not always all about you."

Take that, Natasha! Oops! Oh, the shame.

100/10

Some exciting milestones: firstly, this is my 100th post! Hooray me! ~ and secondly, The Guardian reminds us this week marks the 10th anniversary of the birth of the blog. Now, a blog is born every second. Go, blogs!

Entertainingly, The Guardian's article quotes Andrew Keen, "a former dot-com entrepeneur" and the author of the forthcoming book Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. The title truly says it all. Mr Keen seems to think that most of web 2.0 is "digital narcissism": "It's seductive in the sense that it convinces people to think they have more to say and are more interesting than they really are," he said. "The real issue is whether it adds any more to our culture. Most of it is just so transient and ephemeral."

Hmmm. That's Life, Andrew. Methinks the description "former dot-com entrepeneur" is indicative - sour grapes, guy! The quality argument is completely fallacious, and has been made of every advance in communication technology since Plato dissed the invention of writing. I do like the "digital narcissism" quote though - I may borrow that for my profile!

The other pundit The Guardian quotes, Dan Gilmour (author of We The Media) is far more blog-friendly. I tend to agree with him:

"Blogging and other kinds of conversational media are the early tools of a truly read-write web," said Dan Gillmor, author of citizen journalism bible We The Media. "They've helped turn media consumers into creators, and creators into collaborators - a shift whose impact we're just beginning to feel, much less understand."

coffee break with shaggy blog stories

coffee break with shaggy blog stories, originally uploaded by hedgiecc.

Yay! It has arrived. Taken a pic to mark it's delivery, and also as part of the Shaggy Blog Stories flickr group marketing campaign. Clicky on piccy to take you to flickr, then click on the Shaggy Blog Stories link to see the rest of the pool.

Alternatively, just buy yourself a copy! To date, just over £2,000 has been raised for Comic Relief.

Those Fox's Creations Luxury Milk Chocolate Shortcake biscuits are my absolute favourites currently. Honestly, Sainsbury's can't restock quickly enough.

They have the ideal choclate:biscuit ratio, which is much more chocolate than biscuit. Yum!

Quote London

"London has survived Britain's century-long decline to carve out a role for itself as a semi-independent city-state. But will the price of becoming the global city prove too high for those who actually live here?" - A City of Capital, an essay in Prospect (via Daily Dish)

weekend news roundup

Miracle Nun: 'I wrote John Paul II's name and I was cured' - The Guardian A nun from Aix-en-Provence is cured of Parkinson's by writing the name of pope John Paul II. This may possibly put JPII on the fast-track to sainthood.

Can I get fired for blogging? - The Guardian. Well, yes. But Catherine Sanderson (Petite Anglaise) has won almost £30K + costs from her ex-employers accountants Dixon Wilson from a Parisian tribunal last week. Yay for her! I really don't know why employers are so touchy about blogging. My policy is not to discuss work at all, and certainly not even to blog from work or in official work time.

Blair: I'll be treading the boards again - The Observer Apparently, Tony has acccepted an offer from Kevin Spacey to act in a production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible at The Old Vic later this year. Tony will play the role of the Reverend John Hale.

This is exciting news. America has had a President who used to be an actor, and we here in the UK are about to have an actor who used to be the Prime Minister! Well done Kevin Spacey! - it's bound to be an amazing success, even if only for the novelty value. But apparently acting was Tony's first love, and his sketch with Catherine Tate for last month's Comic Relief television appeal was actually quite good, so the potential is there. I certainly plan to go.

Thursday picture: darkness at noon

City Hall from the Tower of London

statistical analysis - daleks and duchesses

Well, analysis shows that if you don't want to be taken for a food blogger stop blogging about food! By far the largest number of hits I'm getting on Google searches are from people looking for "Marks and Spencer Dalek cake".

Sorry, people, I haven't actually written about this cake - I mentioned purchasing and eating a M&S Dalek Easter Egg a couple of weeks back - but the idea of a Dalek cake sounds so great. And the very large number of people looking for one at M&S seems to suggest it might be real.

So I kept a look-out for it at the Clapham Junction branch yesterday but couldn't find it. Maybe they only have them at the larger branches. If they don't have one what an opportunity! M&S product development people take note! The two dalek-themed Easter Eggs were at Clapham Junction, although on floor-level shelving - slightly disrespectful to the glory that is Dr Who, I thought.

The £4.99 egg is all about the packaging - the vaguely dalek-shaped box contains a standard chocolate egg. However, the killer detail on the box is the speaking chip which cries "Exterminate! Exterminate!" on demand.

It is this feature which has to date saved my empty dalek box from the recycle bin.

I still pine for an actual chocolate dalek. However, the production costs of creating a mold for one might scare off licensees, and I understand the BBC doesn't hold the full copyright to the daleks anyway, so any deal would be a three-cornered discussion. Oops.

In other analysis news, my blatant and brazen strategy of naming every random celebrity going is bearing fruit. Out of the celebrities I've name-checked recently - eg Madonna, Terry Wogan, Fern Cotton, Jonathan Ross, etc etc etc - can you guess the one who tops the Clapham Ominbus charts?

Well, in a breakthrough for the British Aristocracy I can exclusively reveal our top celebrity is none other than Her Grace the dowager Duchess of Devonshire. There you go. Who said the British class system was dead, or even off-line?

Save Battersea Power Station

It's sheer hell to be so cynical yet so correct.

"Battersea Power Station’s future remains in doubt as the fantastic hulk of the art-deco building itself remains in sorry dereliction.
Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the new owners of the £400m prime 36+ acre riverside site, Treasury Holdings, had scrapped development plans approved by Wandsworth Council in November last year and speculated whether London might be about to lose the four iconic chimneys altogether to yet another bland, luxury, residential development if the Power Station is allowed to further deteriorate beyond the realms of renovation." (Londonist)

Wandsworth Council and previous owners, Parkview, refused to even consider an alternative report by a team of three companies of concrete experts brought together by the World Monuments Fund & Twentieth Century Society, who have revealed that the chimneys can be repaired for half the cost of demolition and rebuilding.

The independent report also revealed there is no sign of structural distress in the chimneys. When Parkview bought the site thirteen years ago, they promised to restore it, but instead sat on it and did nothing, merely hanging onto it as property speculators. They pushed through planning permission to demolish the chimneys, full of promises to restore the building, but instead immediately flogged it for a £240m profit, since the value of the site had increased hugely as a result of planning permission to demolish the chimneys. Profit not renovation was evidently their aim.

UK voters can sign the government petition here.

The Guardian article can be read here.

weekend news roundup

Cricket coach was poisoned and strangled, police believe
*Bob Woolmer knew hotel-room killer
*He was ready to expose corruption
*Fixing enquiry into Ireland game
- The Daily Telegraph

Poison again - well, at least this time it's unlikely to be polonium. But now a possible crime from the past is emerging:

Family to test Houdini’s body for poison “Descendants of Harry Houdini announced plans to exhume his remains following claims he was poisoned.” - The Daily Telegraph

Houdini died suddenly in 1926 – an international conspiracy of spiritualists is suspected. Houdini mocked the spiritualists. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a keen spiritualist, wrote that Houdini would “get his just desserts very exactly meted out”.

Gay British men pay fertility clinic £33,000 for designer babies - Sunday Times. The Fertitilty Institutes, the clinic in Los Angeles runs the programme. A Gay baby boom!

the tell-tail clue to decoding dog behaviour – it’s how they wag ‘em - Dogs wag their tails to the right when they see something fmiliar, such as their owner, and to the left when confronted with something they want to run away from, it was revealed yesterday. The bias is subtle, requiring video analysis to spot.” - The Daily Telegraph

Will Italy’s laws to cut bad driving get lost in the traffic?
5,000 died, 330,000 injured on Italian roads last year. - The Daily Telegraph

I wonder how the figures compare to the UK's? As a pedestrian, I would like to praise Italian drivers - they are amazingly polite and chivalrous towards idiotic tourist pedestrians. Totally unlike the French or British. A British pedestrian's life is very miserable. Just yesterday I got hooted at by an irate driver while I was crossing the street in front of my own home - miles away from his speeding car.

Lowry's dark imagination comes to light - The Observer. Disturbing and sexually deviant drawings have remained hidden since the iconic British painter's death in 1976.
Hmmm. LS Lowry left his entire estate to a teenage girl fan. I'm actually not a fan of his stuff.

Tate buys women's art for sex equality - The Sunday Times. The Tate does not possess a single Georgia O'Keefe or Frida Kahlo.

"Silicon Valley's dot-com era may be givig way to the watt-com era. Out of the ashes of the Internet bust, many technology veterans have regrouped and found a new mission in alternative energy: developing wind power, solar panels, ethanol plants and hydrogen-powered cars." - The New York Times


Fyffes warns of dearer bananas “Britain’s favourite food – the humble banana – is set to increase in price after Fyffes, one of the world’s largest importers, said it would pass on soaring costs of production to consumers.” - The Daily Telegraph

Abolition

"We may now consider that this trade as having received its condemnation; that its sentence is sealed; that this curse of mankind is seen by the House in its true light; and that the greatest stigma on our national character which ever exisited is about to be removed." - William Pitt in the House of Commons, 2 April 1792. Slightly prematurely, as the slave trade would only be abolished 15 years later, on 25th March 1807, and slavery itself banned throughout the British colonies in 1833.

Today is the 200th anniversary of the banning of the slave trade in the British Empire. While Britain was the most active and successful slave trading nation in the
18th century, it was also the first nation in recorded history to ban slave trading, and thence forward actively promoted the end of slavery internationally. From our perspective, slavery seems obviously wrong, but at that time it was common to justify slavery on biblical grounds - the dreaded Leviticus, no less, sanctions it. Fifty years after Britain banned the slave trade, the southern States of the USA were still using Leviticus to justify slavery, a position which led to the Civil War.

The Devil Wears Hennes

Yay for Madonna!

I can’t vouch for the clothes, but H&M’s PR department must be totally chuffed – The Guardian, no less, ran a photo-essay on the day the clothes hit the stores.

The ad is so cool; so visually gorgeous: and Madonna herself is so cool, so visually gorgeous, and yes, so funny – one can’t help but wonder why she has to date not made that iconic film performance. Surely with the right script and director it could still happen? It just has to! The poor woman is pushing 50 – she can’t be a dance diva forever!

The ad is Madge’s riff on The Devil Wears Prada – but this version ends happily, with the acolyte running off with the devil.

The You Tube phenomenon is fascinating, non? – with Viacom suing Google for millions, the only content producers happy about You Tube’s freedom are advertisers – totally free advertising downloaded and watched by people who are motivated to watch! Surely the Ad industry’s dream come true? I predict this is the future of advertising – product ads so sensational they achieve an indefinite half-life on the internet.

And once again Madge is on the crest of the wave. Clever girl – keep your focus on the product!

rhubarb update

It's best harvested by candlelight.

Shaggy Blog Stories

Mike at Troubled Diva has organized, compiled and produced a book of 100 of the best comic blogs in the UK to raise money for Comic Relief. All in one week! Astonishing commitment and energy, as well as a great idea. Shaggy Blog Stories features comic writing from not only the cream of British blogging, but also the best up-and-coming and undiscovered writers publishing their work on their own websites. It sounds like a really nice book to dip into, and to see what's happening out there on teh internets. After all, we are in the middle of the biggest revolution in informations systems since Gutenberg's printing press.

The book is produced and distributed by Lulu.com, an internet print-on-demand publisher (who is also donating their profits from the book to Comic Relief), so the entire project is very cutting-edge new media. I've ordered my copy today and you can too at:

www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk

Thursday photo: Magnolia (still hoping for Spring)

Cold, drizzly and nasty! - this photo seems like it was taken a lifetime ago. I want summer!

Grandad's medals

Grandad's medals, originally uploaded by hedgiecc.

Today my grandfather would have been 107 years old. These are his medals. He ran away from home at the age of 15 and lied about his age in order to join the airforce - before it was even called the RAF. He spent his entire working life there, rising to the rank of Wing Commander, and serving all over - Malta, Egypt, Aden, South Africa, Burma, Suez.

He visited us in Johannesburg when I was about 10. Every day, we would walk together to what he called "the village" - our local suburban shopping mall, where we would sit in a cafe drinking tea (and/or chocolate milkshakes and waffles).

Finally, it was time for him to take the Blue Train back down to Cape Town to join his ship sailing back to England (despite his long career in the airforce he hated flying). I kind of knew that this would be the last time I saw him, and therefore decided to "interview" him on my tape recorder. I remember he said he hoped the next time he saw me I would be "a general in the army".

The army was never my thing - even as a child I didn't like playing with toy soldiers, so I was slightly disappointed with his comment.

But my intuition was right - it was the last time we saw each other. Three years later he died of a stroke. Dad flew to London for the funeral, bringing back the medals.

Later, I came to London to study and stayed on afterwards. My aunt told me on his bedside table they found the poem I had written for him and read on the platform at Johnannesburg station all those years ago.

weekend news digest

Home sales gridlocked - The property supply is at a 10-year low, fuelling higher prices. Between 80 and 100 buyers are pursuing every property for sale. The average house price is now rising by £122 a day - Daily Telegraph. Ooh, sorry, hard for me not to be obnoxiously smug here . . .

Rocky Mountain High by John Denver, once nearly banned by the US for its alleged glorification of drug use, has become the Colorado state anthem - The Guardian

Sculpture that cost £132,000 crushed to dust - “A sculpture by Anish Kapoor, entrusted to a specialist fine art storage firm, was probably mistaken for builders’ rubble, dumped in a skip and destroyed by a waste crusher, a high court judge concluded yesterday” – The Guardian. The picture shows Anish Kapoor in happier times with his amazing installation Marsyas in Tate Modern’s turbine hall.

Police raid on theatre saves a lobster from certain death. “Avant-garde theatre is under attack in Italy for pushing the boat out too far after police raided a Milan playhouse to save a lobster from being bludgeoned to death and eaten on stage.
Following complaints from animal rights groups, the first-night performance of Incident: Kill to Eat by Argentinian playwright Rodrigo Garcia was broken up by three plainclothes officers who spared the lobster from an all-too-real death scene.” - The Guardian. Apparently, theatre is now more popular in Italy, with 13 million theatre tickets being sold last year, against 9 million football tickets.

£25 fridge gadget that could slash greenhouse emissions - The Guardian. This brilliant device (the e-cube) converts fridge thermostats to measure food temperature rather than air temperature, and thus saves huge amounts of energy. Fridges account for around 20% of domestic energy use, and fitting one of these to every fridge in Britain would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 2 million tonnes a year, as well as saving on energy bills. A totally common-sense idea - hooray!

Exodus – villages empty as 3m flee in search of hope abroad. Zimbabwe today – average life expectancy – 37 (as opposed to 60 in 1990); infant mortality rate up to 81 per 1,000; national income per person is $340 against South Africa’s $4,960; 5.5m Zimbabweans live with HIV; 1.1m Aids orphans; 6 out of every 100 have a phone (47 in South Africa); 56% of the population live on less than $1 a day - The Guardian. This is all mainly thanks to the ineptitude and corruption of Robert Mugabe and his cohorts in Zanu-PF. I was born in Zimbabwe, and it is tragic to see how that wonderful country has failed.

End of the line for HP sauce - ‘The last bottle of HP sauce to be made in Britain rolled off the production line yesterday. The final batch of the iconic brown condiment was made at the company’s factory in Aston, Birmingham, at 6am.
Heinz, the parent company, is moving production to the Netherlands with the loss of 120 jobs. A spokesman for the Transport and General Workers’ Union said last night: “The plant has been a landmark for 108 years – you could smell it from miles away.”’ – The Telegraph

Britpop goes rocking back into the US: Amy Winehouse and the Fratellis spearhead British music’s new transatlantic chart assault - “A new wave of British bands is taking the Unirted States by storm – and being credited with ‘saving pop music’ in America. ‘British empire strikes back’ yelled the the USA Today newspaper, adding ‘The British are humming’ as it feted at least half a dozen UK artists poised to make it big across the Atlantic.” – The Sunday Times

Right – let’s talk rhubarb protection - “Food from Britain, the government-backed marketing organization, has launched an appeal to producers of local ‘signature foods’ to apply for European Union protection.” To date, 35 British foods have been awarded this status, against 161 French foods and 155 Italian foods. Surprise, surprise, listing means enhanced access to Euro-funding.
“Among the British foods now bidding for protected status is Yorkshire rhubarb, which is grown in an area around Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield known as the ‘rhubarb triangle’.
The application for EU recognition states the rhubarb is grown indoors, benefits from the cold, heavy Yorkshire soil and has a ‘superior’ flavour to its rivals.” - The Sunday Times