Shades of Adamastor

Regrets, I've had a few

2012-02-03T08:52:00.003+02:00

The Telegraph this morning reviews a book written by an Australian palliative nurse who has, over many years, made a note of what her patients tell her they regret when they come to realise that they are dying.

These are the top five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Her original blog entry (which I have shamelessly cut and paste (sorry!)) is here: http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html.

Short of being on one's own deathbed, this is surely the best evidence we are likely to have with regard to what we are going to regret when we are on it. Unless she is lying (and why would she) it is reliable. Perhaps we should take it to heart.

raise high the roofbeam

2012-01-31T12:00:00.007+02:00

How has it come to pass that such a basic thing as trueing a beam is done with so much more grace in Japan.

Rare Earth Wines

2012-01-27T14:52:00.009+02:00

I have discovered a beautiful - and convenient - white wine: Rare Earth (http://www.rareearthwines.co.za/8901.html).

Beautiful in concept, label and taste; and convenient in that it is inexpensive and gets delivered to my doorstep. R210 for six; R400 for twelve (a sip over R30 a bottle). I have ordered three times now, and it has been delivered almost immediately each time.

They currently run with only one wine, and it is excellent for easy drinking. As the showground barkers used to say: you get your money back after the first glass - the rest is for free.

doorknob flashlight

2012-01-18T16:21:00.000+02:00

And how does everyone else open the door once you have taken the handle with you?

sunbrellas

2012-01-17T08:53:00.002+02:00

Why is the use of umbrellas to keep the sun off us so rare?

We do it at the beach, at grand prix, and at weddings. But we don't do it when we are walking, or at building sites, or in queues for concert tickets, or in botanical gardens.

hand shadows

2012-01-17T08:39:00.004+02:00

Click to enlarge and de-blur...

apostrophes

2012-01-13T10:22:00.001+02:00

'The main point of it is to distinguish a plural noun from a possessive. There is a difference between Roald Amundsen, on his way back from the South Pole, saying “I have no more dinner: I’m going to eat the dogs’,” and “going to eat the dogs”.'

Telegraph of today, bemoaning Waterstone's rebranding to Waterstones.

Robin Carlisle and Chapman's Peak

2012-01-13T09:25:00.002+02:00

Robin Carlisle misses the point about the office building that has been approved for construction on Chapman's Peak. By complaining in his usual hectoring way that he challenges anyone to show that it is unlawful he suggests that that is the only standard by which we ought to measure the decisions of politicians. It isn't - lawfulness is a minimum standard. In addition to being lawful their decisions should also try to avoid being very stupid ideas, which building on Chapman's peak would be.

It may also be unlawful, but that will come out in that wash.

Kallis and Bradman

2012-01-13T08:40:00.007+02:00

I have been hearing people say wild things about Jacques Kallis being the greatest batsman ever. I think that the picture below makes it all clear:

The bottom axis shows batting averages. The left-hand axis shows the number of batsmen whose averages are in that range.

Kallis would be toward the right of the middle clump of batting averages, and Graham Pollock, Headley, Sutcliffe and Paynter are at the far right of the middle clump. Bradman is the solitary pink dot at the far right. To put it in perspective, Kallis's average now (about 56) is what Bradman's average was when he faced the bodyline series, a point at which the arms race between batting and bowling most favoured the bowlers.

How Bradman got all the way out there is not that important. The point is that he is so far above other batsmen that no other batsman is likely ever to compare to him; and may well be the greatest sportsman ever.

crumbs

2012-01-09T10:34:00.000+02:00

beirut - elephant gun

2012-01-05T12:27:00.002+02:00

I have watched this video about forty times since first spotting it, and each time it makes me happier.

petrol comes down (slightly)

2012-01-05T10:34:00.004+02:00

I'm not complaining that the price of petrol has come down, oh, 7 or 8 whole cents. It is a little like someone not punching your quite as hard as they were doing, though.

2011-12-25T13:33:00.002+02:00

The Washington Post reports that archivists fron the New York Museum, the Smithsonian, and others have sent teams to collect the ephemera of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. How like a pat on the head that is! And how strong a sign of a stable politic. When Irag went through its most recent turmoil their national museum was looted and the heirlooms of a millenium lost; America will display its turmoil like a sewed-on scout badge.

happy birthday

2011-12-23T17:20:00.002+02:00

Especially at childrens' parties a man should be asked to start the singing of 'Happy Birthday'. Ask a women and she will start in too high a key so that when the song gets to the rousing bits the song reaches into notes that men can't reach and the song fails.

l'oef, l'oef, l'oef

2011-12-22T14:19:00.003+02:00

don't worry, be happy

2011-12-22T09:54:00.004+02:00

Remember Bobby McFerrin? Watch him play an audience as an instrument:

On chess and politics

2011-12-20T09:16:00.004+02:00

We all get to hone and polish our epigrams, and so too Gary Kasparov may if he chooses:

Asked what the difference is between chess and politics, Kasparov tells Kroft (writing in CBS in 2009,:

"Chess has rules. And everybody has to follow the rules. And in Russian politics there are no rules at all. Except one rule: the Kremlin, our opponents, changing rules at their convenience anytime they want."

By 2011, talking to Charles Clover, writing for Slate (http://www.slate.com/articles/life/ft/2011/12/garry_kasparov_on_vladimir_putin_and_why_chess_is_simpler_than_politics_.html), he is firmer, and more stylish:

'...he was more successful at chess (“where the rules are fixed and the outcome is unpredictable”, as he puts it) than he is at politics in Putin’s Russia (“where the rules are unpredictable and the outcome is fixed”)'.

ashes to ashes

2011-12-19T13:16:00.006+02:00

This weekend brought three untimely and sad deaths: Vaclav Havel (lung cancer, at 75); Christopher Hitchens (oesophagal cancer, at 62); and Cesaria Evora (above; stroke following heart surgery, at 70).

All three were described as 'heavy smokers'. Just saying...

great solo singing artists

2011-12-19T09:10:00.005+02:00

I have often asked people to tell me what currently-great male solo singing artist we can point to, and sought to contrast this with the fifties through to the eighties. People generally come up with Robbie Williams, and leave it at that; at which point I say QED and bemoan the fact.

But I have been looking in the wrong places, and it says more about me (I regret) than about music. There are solo male singers who have recorded more number one singles than Elvis*. They just happen to be hip-hop artists, who I sub-consciously disregarded.

Ed Crooks, writing in Slate, (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/ft/2011/12/how_jay_z_common_and_other_hip_hop_stars_have_turned_their_celebrity_into_profit_.html) sets me right:

Rap music is the defining American art form of our time. In its showmanship, its exuberance, its hunger for innovation, its love of technology and its ruthless competitive discipline, it represents mass culture in the US like no other medium.
Country music, the only other contender, showcases a different set of equally American values: community, tradition, compassion, patriotism, resilience, faith. But it is principally a domestic phenomenon, largely ignored overseas. Hip-hop, meaning rap music and its associated culture, is both a global force and a central feature of the face America presents to the world. In Russia, for example, Vladislav Surkov, the powerful aide to prime minister Vladimir Putin, keeps on his desk a picture of Tupac Shakur, the Californian rapper murdered in 1996 who has become a global icon of non-specific militancy.

* Jay-Z for example, has done this

A Hitch in time

2011-12-19T09:01:00.012+02:00

The sadness of the deaths of Christopher Hitchens and Kim Yong Il is not so much that they are dead (for we all must die), but that the order of their deaths prevented Hitchens from writing Kim's obituary.

Having written this http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/02/a_nation_of_racist_dwarfs.html about Kim's state while he was alive, and having written this: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/10/mommie_dearest.html about Mother Theresa once she was dead, we have been robbed of a searing postscript to a wholly unpleasant dictator.

----------------------

My own postscript: Unlikely though my connection of the deaths of Kim and Hitchens was, I was beaten to it by that harbinger of cheer and balance, Conservapedia, which linked them on their 'Atheism and Obesity' page (http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity) saying, of Hitchens' death:

" ... The possiblity that Hitchens' unfortunate death from cancer could have been directly or indirectly influenced by his atheism remains open."

and that

" ...Again it would be presumptuous for a Christian to speak directly on God's behalf, as is Hitchen's most obvious eternal fate according to the Bible (for only God knows for a fact whether or not he repented on his deathbead) nevertheless the possibilities are a good topic of discussion among Christians and non-Christians alike."

I think it a fair bet that Hitch did not repent on his death bed, fond as he was of quoting Voltaire who, when urged on his death-bed to renounce the Devil, told the priest that this was no time to be making enemies.

How cool is Obama?

2011-12-15T15:21:00.001+02:00

He's Frozone cool!

The eyes have it

2011-12-12T09:56:00.003+02:00

A bottle of wine to the person who identifies each star's eyes correctly.

Top to bottom, left to right (top left, then top middle, then top right, then left second row, middle second row, etc.).

Further declines in classical learning

2011-12-12T08:08:00.004+02:00

My Veld and Flora, which arrived in the post last week, tells me that the VIIIth International Botanical Congress has taken a great leap forward in allowing botanical type descriptions of new species to be lodged and published entirely electronically. Quite a modern step. More surprising yet is that the congress has also for the first time dropped the requirement that the type description be in Latin - permitting it to be in either Latin or English.

People make a living doing these translations: http://www.scientificlatin.org/. Or they offer the service at any rate.

It will be sad if they abandon the use of Latin in the system of binomial nomenclature, though, because that is the only spot where natural scientists' hidden humour comes out. Here is a list of quite amusing ones: http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/puns/puns.html. My favourite is the sub-genus of the Bittium beetles. The smaller ones are called Ittibitium.

Some, like Pieza pie and Pieza rhea, take a moment or two to work out.

Budlender Lecture

2011-12-09T11:45:00.002+02:00

I strongly recommend reading Geoff Budlender SC's prepared notes for the Bram Fisher Memorial Lecture: http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/geoff-budlender-bram-fisher-memorial-lecture/.

Pugh's Law

2011-12-08T12:24:00.003+02:00

Pugh's Law (a recent invention of mine) states that the rawer you order your meat at a restaurant the hotter the plate they serve it on will be.

You order it rare, someone else orders it well done. The orders reach the griller at the same time, and the plates must reach your table at the same time. To keep your food hot they put it under the salamander, and the plate gets hot.

I told you so

2011-11-10T10:59:00.002+02:00

The only thing more pleasurable than saying 'I told you so' is saying that you are sorry to have to say it.

I predicted - well before we built the Cape Town Stadium at Green Point - that it would run overcost, that it would not pay its way, and that we would one day have to pay Western Province Rugby to take it off our hands. Not just give them a low rent: pay them.

I was told that I was negative, and that I didn't understand economics, and that we could trust whoever had done the sums.

I said that I had done the reasearch and that all mega-stadiums eventually have to be given away, and for most you have to pay the biggest sporting team in the City to take them on. I said that the research showed that initial costings are never anything less than 50% off-mark, and those that are not are on-mark because they shed features. I said that our City had no need for it, that no soccer match had ever attracted more than 26 000 people to any Cape Town stadium and would not do so after FIFA had gone, and that we had adequate facilitites already which would go to ruin if we built another stadium. I said that the people who do the sums tend to be retained by the party wishing to build the stadium, and tend not to take account of analyses done after sporting events, which are quite illuminating.

And I was right. We went massively, massively over budget, and don't have the retractable roof the original plans called for. We had to rent it out for R1 a year ago - and the tenant decided not to renew even on those terms because we can't get enough events to make it come close to paying its way. Athlone Stadium has lost what little business it had. And we are now going to pay R120m to convince Western Province Rugby to take it on.

My last prediction was that the event itself (the 2010 FIFA World Cup) would not cause an overall increase of tourism in the long term. It certainly hasn't done so in the short-term, but I am willing to wait to be proved right for the longterm.

left-handers

2011-10-18T11:41:00.002+02:00

There is one excellent reason to be left-handed.

With very few exceptions, things that are screwed in are tightened clockwise, and loosened anti-clockwise. For a right-hander this means that you tighten with a handmotion that is naturally strong, and loosen with a motion that is less strong. You run the risk of tightening something to the point beyond which you yourself can can loosen it.

So if you ever encounter a tap and wonder 'who tightened this so far?' the answer may well be 'I did'.

Left-handers, on the other hand, do not have this problem. They loosen with the naturally strong motion, and tighten with the naturally weak motion. the result is that they can't tighten something beyond the point where they can't loosen it.

ain't that true

2011-09-27T09:23:00.000+02:00

infoporn

2011-09-26T15:06:00.005+02:00

Infoporn are having a design contest: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/. They honour the useful display of information, like this 'true size of Africa' graphic above.

The best display of information wins $3000,00. Each month.

so much for Troy Davis

2011-09-23T08:23:00.004+02:00

I was not present on the night that Troy Davis is alleged to have committed murder and can't say whether he did or didn't do it. He has now been executed, of course.

But I can't help but be chilled by Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in the matter, summarised by him as follows:

'This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable.'

(I am not making this up: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-1443Scalia.pdf)

If the US Constitution doesn't permit innocent men to go free then it must be developed such that it does. The notion that the Constitution can't be developed at all - but that innocent men may be executed - is a reductio ad absurdam.

Scalia embraces that reductio, where instead he should reject his initial premise.

His unwillingness to do so - even where a man will die as a result - puts him beyond mere legal fanaticism.

he is coming out swinging

2011-09-20T09:54:00.004+02:00

I had to scroll down on this blog - to April - to the entry where I first spoke about Obama's next best option being simply to tax the rich.

The Buffett Rule is bold. It plays to his strength (he is not reliant on big-donor funding) and will either dig him out of his current hole and establish him in the Lincoln, FDR pantheon - or bury him with such finality that no-one will ever tax a wealthy American in our lifetime again.

farmers must own their land to farm it properly

2011-09-20T09:09:00.003+02:00

I have just returned from the Free State where I visited my wife's family and stayed on the farm that various parts of her family have lived on, and off, for many years. Her ancestors trekked there from the Cape and have lived in the Boshof area through thick and thin - war, depression and rinderpest - ever since.

They have been stewards of their land and it has fed and supported them for that whole period. They know their land - how much it can support, and how easily it can be damaged.

This would not be the case if they merely rented the land, or if they were merely paid to farm it.

And yet that is the experiment that Africa is engaging in, and with which we are flirting. We currently export farmers to the DRC, Mozambique and elsewhere - there they mostly lease land from the State. And we are toying with the idea of taking all agricultural land into the ownership of the State in this country.

Both will be disastrous. If the land is merely leased from the state there is no incentive not to overgraze or overfarm it - the incentive is to put as many sheep, goats or cattle - or whatever high-yielding crop - on it as possible, just so long as the land survives for as long as the lease runs. A dustbowl follows and the country's food-security is destroyed. The depth of knowledge of the land will simply not be there, especially with land for which the margin between successful farming and destroying the land is narrow; and the stewardship is gone.

Steve Biko

2011-09-13T08:43:00.002+02:00

Yesterday was the anniversary of Steve Biko’s death, marked at UCT with the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture – this year delivered by Sir Sydney Kentridge, one of the advocates who represented the Biko family at the inquest into Biko’s death at the hands of the security police.

In passing, Kentridge mentioned that Biko’s death was – as far as could be determined – the 45th such death at the hands of the security police. The outcome of the inquest - that no-one was to blame for Biko’s death – was a factor, Kentridge said, in allowing the security police to believe they could get away with such crimes and another 30-odd deaths followed.

The death of seventy people, especially in such circumstances, is a serious thing. But look at the figures for 2008 and 2009 in our police holding cells according to the annual report of the Independent Complaints Directorate:

'Twenty-nine people died in police custody "due to the negligent handling of a firearm" ... 80 suspects had hung themselves in police custody. '

Fifty people a year. Twenty nine of them shot to death accidentally; if that is to be believed.

What have we learned from his death if these are the figures?

It's always slower via the hospital

2011-08-26T11:51:00.003+02:00

We need to slow down. Bus drivers should amble gently from point to point, and so not land up in dams, killing our children.

Stigler's Law of Eponymy

2011-08-22T16:31:00.002+02:00

Reading about Meadow's Law, I stumbled on Stigler's Law: that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy.

His law is held to be an example of it, the principle having been noted many times before he drew attention to it.

Oral history is unreliable

2011-08-01T10:23:00.006+02:00

I found myself singing (as one does) a little ditty to my little boy that my mother had sung to me when I was her little boy. It goes like this:

Feeeee-lix kept on walking still
One day he was followed, by a whale - and swallowed
in the tummy of that whale... Feee-lix kept on walking still.

Where is it from? More importantly, how could a whale follow a walking cat?

Felix was an early cartoon character star, who was eclipsed by the star of Steamboat Willy, who went on to fame and fortune as Mickey Mouse. What my mother sang me was a music-hall spinoff current in the early 1920’s, quite likely sung to her by her mother.

Except that she didn't get it quite right. These are the actual lyrics:

Felix kept on walking, kept on walking still.
One day he was collar'd . . . by a whale, and swallowed.
In the tummy of that whale he found himself, but still,
All the same he never frown'd,
He just smiled and then look'd round,
Thought it was the "Underground" and kept on walking still.

The mystery of the walking whale is not quite resolved (how can a whale ‘collar’ a cat), but at least it is no longer ‘following’ him.

So back to the Bible. The story of Jonah contains just such improbabilities. In one generation my mother changed ‘collar’d’ to ‘followed’. How much did the Jonah story change between first being told, and being set down in writing?

qwerty is cool again

2011-07-28T18:14:00.008+02:00

The qwerty keyboard was devised to slow typists down (and prevent keys jamming) by placing frequently-used letters far from each other. but it has a new purpose: keeping fat thumbs separated on tiny blackberry keypads - and this probably now lets us type faster.

Winnie the Pooh

2011-07-05T16:37:00.004+02:00

I got to wondering why Winnie the Pooh is called Winnie the Pooh.

This is the explanation in the book: "But his arms were so stiff ... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think — but I am not sure — that that is why he is always called Pooh'. Not likely.

Harry Colebourn and Winnie, 1914

Milne later said that his son, Christopher, had named his toy bear after Winnie, a Canadian black bear which he often saw at London Zoo, and "Pooh", a swan they had met while on holiday.

I get the Winnie bit - but the 'Pooh' bit is still not very likely.

On woodstock beach

2011-07-05T12:03:00.003+02:00

This is perhaps the saddest photograph I have ever seen. Woodstock beach in the 1940s, before the City of Cape Town cemented over it to provide a rail line and highway to the West Coast.

A Darwin Award is born.

2011-07-05T09:15:00.002+02:00

If this doesn't win the Darwin Award, then I will eat my helmet: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/upstate-ny-motorcyclist-dies-after-hitting-head-on-pavement-during-protest-against-helmet-laws/2011/07/03/AGNicNwH_story.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews.

'State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet.'

1961

2011-06-01T10:55:00.001+02:00

Republic Day passed yesterday, un-noticed and un-missed.
a
a

A poem for Martin Niemoller

2011-06-01T10:52:00.001+02:00

a
a

Hangman
by Maurice Ogden

1.
Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.

2.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.

And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."

Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"

And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;

Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.

3.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"

And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."

The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."

And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.

4.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all

For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.

"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.

For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"

"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.
a
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all Quiet on the Western Front

2011-05-31T11:08:00.003+02:00

a
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I have just read Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.

It would have been useful had the edition had a preface which explained that it is a work almost purely of fiction - just a novel - Remarque having spent a total of a fortnight near the front. But, for all that, it was powerful and it is little wonder that the Nazis insisted on burning it and, disgracefully, executing his sister.
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(im)mortality

2011-05-31T10:55:00.002+02:00

s
s
Death becomes more palatable when we realise that there are people that we would rather not outlive.
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touching idols

2011-05-31T10:48:00.004+02:00

d
d
I don't intend re-reading Madame Bovary, unless it is to have another crack at working out why Henry James regarded it as the best novel ever written, but it has one line in it worth the while of the reading:

'Never touch your idols; the gilding will stick to your fingers'.
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four immutable types

2011-05-17T11:16:00.002+02:00

i
The neglected figure of Kurt Gebhard Adolf Philipp Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, chief of the German army before his anti-Nazi sympathies caused him to be fired, has left us this invaluable managment grid:

I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid and lazy officers. Usually too characteristics are combined Some are clever and diligent - their place is the General Stall. The next lot are stupid and lazy - they make up 90 per cent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent - he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.

i
i

Boerewors

2011-05-04T16:24:00.001+02:00

'There are no legal guidelines as to the specific contents of regional sub-categories, but convention generally dictates that the prefix of ‘Ossewa’ boerewors implies a strong clove flavour while Grabouw indicates mild spicing and Cederberg suggests a sausage that is highly spiced.'

So saith Wine magazine: http://www.winemag.co.za/article/south-africas-culinary-icon-boerewors-2011-04-20

Osama bin Laden

2011-05-04T10:34:00.005+02:00

I have some difficulties with the death of Osama bin Laden.

1. It is surely not a cause for gleeful celebrations. A man has died, and that can never be cause for celebration. Israel marked the death of Eichman with more dignity.

2. It can't be cause for flag-waving. A single man evaded the combined forces of the world's sole superpower for nearly a decade, inspiring millions.

3. Even if it is a cause for celebration and flagwaving, there is a limit to how much. That limit should be 'grim satisfaction', not pulsing crowds chanting U-S-A at hockey matches, and crowds wearing Stars and Stripes banners cheering outside the White House.

4. If you do intend gloating, do it accurately. If you are going to accuse an unarmed 54-year-old fighting for his life against 25 heavily-armed navy seals of cowardice, then you will need some extraordinary evidence. If you say he used his wife as a human shield and caused her to be killed (when in fact he did not, and she is alive) and of dying in a 'fire-fight' (when he didn't have a firearm) you must get it right. Otherwise you look like you are trying to spin for propaganda purposes.

5. I don't think that Americans realise that their actions don't make the rest of the world feel safer. I read an interview (which I now can't find) with a security analyst who explained that the US had to hunt down and kill Bin Laden because that is what you do to bullies - you confront them. It is the only thing they understand, he said. But who is the bully here? It is surely not the solitary 54-year old pacing up and down behind the seven foot prudence barrier around his balcony in his opaque-windowed house in Pakistan. Isn't it rather the owner of the USS Carl Vinson, the operator of the Navy Seals, the sender of drones, the violator of Pakistan's airspace, and the invader of Iraq? I for one do not feel safer knowing that the US cares not a jot about other nations' borders, the International Court or the rule of international law.

out with the books, in with new order

2011-04-21T12:04:00.000+02:00

My wife has convinced me that we have too many books, and that I must start throwing them out.

I know she is right, but it feels like sacrilege.

Indeed they are!

2011-04-21T12:02:00.001+02:00

How long is Obama's tail?

2011-04-20T16:41:00.006+02:00

(Click the graphic to de-blur it.)

Barack Obama has come out of the bruising budget debate swinging: he will raise taxes for the rich.

The conventional wisdom is that Americans don't like such things: they reject tax hikes for the wealthy, even when poor, because they hope one day to be wealthy. It is the American Dream.

Turns out that that is not so. With 73% backing Barack on this one (and thus crossing party lines, many of them, to do so) it seems to be wildly popular.

This is wildly popular of course, because people who are not rich out-number those that are, and they will back him (except the usual fringe elements) in the hope that they will get the rich to pay for their social welfare net.

But will it harm him in the fundraising stakes? Coventionally political parties backing taxing the rich simply herd rich donors towards their opponents, and this will happen here.

But will it matter? If Obama does as he did last time and beats the GOP when it comes to getting smaller donations, but many more of them, then he will be fine.

Can he do it? Depends on how he uses social media I would guess.

And he uses it pretty effectively. Twitter ratings are a clue:

1. Lady Gaga, 9.4m followers

2. Justin Bieber, 8.9m

3. Britney, 7.5m

4. Barack Obama, 7.4m

5. Kim Kardashian, 7.2m

10. Oprah, in this context a lightweight, at 5.6m
27. Charlie Sheen (a temporary thing I suspect), 3.6m
38. The NYT, 3.1 (the first newspaper)
49. The Onion (curiously, the second newspaper)
68. The second politician on the list: Al Gore, at 2.2m
75. Not a politician, but here all the same: Stephen Colbert
79. Miley Cyrus (surprisingly low, but her fans don't have computers)
84. The White House (ie Barack again) with another 2m. Add that to his quite creditable 7.4m and he now ties with Lady Gaga (if there are no overlaps, which I admit is a stretch.)
87. The Third politician on the list: Arnold Schwarzenegger (call me a birther, but not a great threat) at just over 2m followers.
125. 10 Downing Street (I know, we are getting into the unknowns here)
141. Fourth Politician: John McCain (and thus into the has-beens).
178. The Dalai Lama (yes, even the Dalai Lama is ahead of the GOP)
216. Hugo Chavez
248. Newt Gingrich, 1.3m
295. Sarah Brown, 1.1m (yes - Gordon's wife)

The first GOP contender on the list is Sarah Palin: 662nd, with fewer than half a million followers. Not even half as many as Sarah Brown.

The GOP will have to sharpen up.

.

SCIO is pseudoscience

2011-04-06T15:44:00.003+02:00

g
I have seen some nonsense in my time, but this is priceless: www.scio.co.za.
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is that an acronym?

2011-04-06T15:39:00.003+02:00

g
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I have made absolutely no attempt to check this, but this may be the longest genuine initialism in this country:

CEPPAWAWU obo Xalo / Chemical Specialities (Pty) Ltd
[2011] JOL 26973 (MEIBC)

Chemical, Energy, Paper, Pulp and Wood Allied Workers' Union.
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...and other pyramid schemes

2011-04-06T10:22:00.002+02:00

The above (rather fuzzy) graph shows the most commonly-used search phrases by means of which people arrive at the Skeptics Dictionary (skepdic.com): 'Illuminati, chupacabra, nostradamus, multiple personality disorder, karma, reiki, loch ness monster, amway, esp'

Amway? I never thought of it in that way until I read their article, but they are quite cult-like, and certrainly a pyramid scheme (albeit not illegal). Article here: http://www.skepdic.com/amway.html.

Tutu kannie swem nie

2011-03-30T11:05:00.001+02:00

j

'In February 1979, at the age of 64, Annand saved his wife from drowning in the River Tyne after the two of them had dined aboard Bacchante. The next day one local newspaper paper carried the headline: "War hero rescues wife from drowning." Another had "Durham magistrate falls in Tyne after naval party". Annand confined himself to the gentle observation that perhaps the reporting said more about the newspapers than about himself.'

j

Ouch.

2011-03-30T09:37:00.004+02:00

One obviously can't tell a judge in open court to fuck off. I think though that an important part of the interaction was this:

'Judge: “You were not involved in another case this morning, were you?”

Ballem: “I was not involved, Judge. I am here now.” (He slams his hand on the desk.)'

Agincourt

2011-03-29T12:21:00.005+02:00

We can learn a lot from small things. Prior to the battle of Agincourt the French were so confident of success that many of them spent the night before the battle gambling amongst themselves for the prisoners that they were sure to capture the following day. In their gambling they used tokens much like we would today use chips.

Their confidence seems to have flowed from the fact that as they had ten men-at-arms to each English man-at-arms there was no need for archers. So they did not deploy them.

In the event their men-at-arms galloped down the field in such an enthusiastic mass that many of them could not raise their arms. There they were massacred by the English and Welsh longbowmen, and their bodies stacked up to form a barrier preventing further charges. The living could not stand up and many were beaten to death by the archers using their victims own weapons. Other simply suffocated where they lay.

The odd thing is that this was not the first time that the English had deployed longbowmen, as they had done it at the Battle of Crecy a generation before, to similar effect.

Crecy and Agincourt are barely beyond walking distance of one another, but the lesson had been lost on the French to the point that in their gambling they had no token with which to gamble for the life of a longbowman.

It was regarded as valueless.

j

Smaller and smaller homes

2011-03-29T10:58:00.006+02:00

I had coffee with a property developer this weekend.

Times being tough, he no longer does expensive developments, but is looking at lower-cost work. He told me that there is really no limit to how little the development needs to offer in terms of square metreage and the like - it is the price that matters. People can only buy what they can afford, and that is often not very much.

The effect is smaller and smaller units.

Another effect, I thought, would be that our family memories would break down. We keep our ancestors in our minds, in part, by keeping their things. I remember my great-grandfather in part by sitting on his couch when I am up at the farm.

But if our flat is not big enough for Great grandfather's couch then we have to give up the couch and, with it, we ultimately give up our reminder of Great-grandfather too. And so he is forgotten.

The developer did not disagree, but pointed out that this may be why we have more and more self-storage facilities in the City.

Squaring the Circle

2011-03-29T10:25:00.006+02:00

People talk about being 'a square peg in a round hole' when they are in a role that clashes with who they think they are. The idiom works because we all know that you would never actually put a square peg in a round hole.

Except, it seems, the joiner who knocked together the tables at the Grand Daddy in Long Street:

a week is a long time

2011-03-11T08:47:00.003+02:00

I'm glad that Obama wants to isolate Gaddafi, and that Hillary Clinton will be meeting with opposition figures next week.

I'm just a bit worried that the delay, and the lack of a military response such as a no-fly zone in the East, means that there won't be an opposition to meet in a week's time.

you get what you ask for

2011-03-03T15:30:00.006+02:00

The notoriously violent ice hockey player Bob Probert died last July at 45. Unsurpisingly, having spent years beating people over the head (and being beaten in return) an analysis if his brain tissue has recently shown that he suffered from 'chronic traumatic ecephalopathy'.

What interests me is the difference between sports. If you were to punch someone in field hockey you would be disciplined and - if you did it more than once - thrown out of the sport. It isn't tolerated.

Probert did it 246 times.

It is the sport's fault. There is no reason I can see why soccer players need to be so rude to referees if rugby players can be made to show such fealty to them. If violent heavyweight boxers can be convinced to respect the referee then any sport can get it right.

You get what you ask for.

bear bum

2011-03-02T20:25:00.000+02:00

I have seen some odd chairs in my time:

Galiano

2011-03-02T18:27:00.002+02:00

I don't come in to bat for anti-semites, and I think that John Galiano is a rubbish designer, but should he have been fired for what we see in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SowCKKxTHaw.

Context is everything. He is blind drunk. He is being taunted by people at an adjacent table. The video is incomplete - we don't know what was said beforehand. Nor does he, so he can't defend himself.

There may be more to it, but if this is it it isn't enough.

short-circuiting price negotiations

2011-03-01T09:50:00.005+02:00

I'm involved in a couple of matters at the moment where we are haggling about price.

In the nature of things buyers want to pay as little as possible - but have a maximum up to which they are willing to go, but beyond which they cannot go. Sellers, on the other hand, want to sell for as much as possible, but have a price at which they are willing to sell, but below which they cannot go.

The frustration is that you don't know in advance whether the buyer's maximum is greater than the seller's minimum. If it isn't then everyone is wasting their time. If it is then they are not.

The problem could be solved by a simple mechanism: both parties appoint an honest broker. His job is to look at the buyer's maximum number and the seller's minimum number and simply inform the parties whether the buyer's maximum is greater than the seller's minimum. In the unlikely event that the two numbers are identical he can declare that too.

In other words he can say one of three things: 'a deal is possible'; 'no deal is possible'; and 'you have a deal'

He doesn't tell them whether they are close or far. That is for negotiation. But he does tell them that there is a range within which they can find one another.

This will prevent long negotiations which end with the frank realisation that price cannot be settled because the seller wants more than the buyer is willing to offer; and prevent parties' thinking that that is the position when in fact what is happening is that signs are being misread.

It would require the honesty of both parties, but there is an in-built mechanism to ensure it. If the seller states as a 'maximum' anything less than what he is willing to pay he runs the risk that there is no overlap. He will never know whether it was by a small or a large margin, and can't call for a subsequent ballot because to do so he must admit that he lied in the first one. So too with the purchaser: if he states a 'minimum' which is in truth greater than his actual minimum then he runs the risk that there will be no overlap, and he too will not know by how much, and will not be able to call for a fresh ballot.

beautiful chairs

2011-02-28T09:13:00.003+02:00

A client of mine, Rivets and Rockets, makes very stylish, comfortable chairs:

You can find them here: http://www.rivetsandrockets.com/?p=12

And still he hangs on

2011-02-28T00:13:00.002+02:00

But for how long?

swift justice

2011-02-23T07:29:00.002+02:00

An account of Dick Turpin's trial:

Presiding over the trial was Sir William Chapple, a senior and respected judge in his early sixties. The prosecution was directed by King's CounselThomas Place and Richard Crowle, and proceedings were recorded by a York resident, Thomas Kyll. Turpin had no defence barrister; during this period of English history, those accused had no right to legal representation, and their interests were cared for by the presiding judge. Among the seven witnesses called to testify were Thomas Creasy, and James Smith, the man who had recognised Turpin's handwriting. Turpin offered little in the way of questioning his accusers; when asked if he had anything to ask of Creasy, he replied "I cannot say anything, for I have not any witnesses come this day, as I have expected, and therefore beg of your Lordship to put off my trial 'till another day", and when asked about Smith, he claimed not to know him. When questioned himself, Turpin told the court that he had bought the mare and foal from an inn-keeper near Heckington. He repeated his original story of how he had come to use the pseudonym Palmer, claiming that it was his mother's maiden name. When asked by the judge for his name before he came to Lincolnshire, he said "Turpin".Without leaving the courtroom the jury found Turpin guilty of the first charge of stealing the mare and foal, and following further proceedings, guilty of stealing the gelding. Throughout the trial Turpin had repeatedly claimed that he had not been allowed enough time to form his defence, that proceedings should be delayed until he could call his witnesses, and that the trial should be held at Essex. Before sentencing him, the judge asked Turpin if he could offer any reason why he should not be sentenced to death; Turpin said: "It is very hard upon me, my Lord, because I was not prepar'd for my Defence." The judge replied: "Why was you not? You knew the Time of the Assizes as well as any Person here." Despite Turpin's pleas that he had been told the trial would be held in Essex, the judge replied: "Whoever told you so were highly to blame; and as your country have found you guilty of a crime worthy of death, it is my office to pronounce sentence against you", sentencing him to death.

Swift, but not so sure. The reference to Essex was likely a jurisdictional point.

The evil men do

2011-02-23T07:20:00.002+02:00

We are too quick to rehabilitate rogues.

This is an account of a crime committed by Dick Turpin

On 4 February 1735 he met John Fielder, Samuel Gregory, Joseph Rose, and John Wheeler, at an inn along The Broadway in London. They planned to rob the house of Joseph Lawrence, a farmer at Earlsbury Farm in Edgware. Late that afternoon, after stopping twice along the way for food and drink, they captured a shepherd boy and burst into the house, armed with pistols. They bound the two maidservants, and brutally attacked the 70-year-old farmer. They pulled his breeches around his ankles, and dragged him around the house, but Lawrence refused to reveal the whereabouts of his money. Turpin beat Lawrence's bare buttocks with his pistols, badly bruising him, and other members of the gang beat him around the head with their pistols. They emptied a kettle of water over his head, forced him to sit bare-buttocked on the fire, and pulled him around the house by his nose, and hair. Gregory took one of the maidservants upstairs and raped her. For their trouble, the gang escaped with a haul of less than £30.

By 1834 William Ainsworth was describing him thus:

Rash daring was the main feature of Turpin's character. Like our great Nelson, he knew fear only by name; and when he thus trusted himself in the hands of strangers, confident in himself and in his own resources, he felt perfectly easy as to the result [...] Turpin was the ultimus Romanorum, the last of a race, which—we were almost about to say we regret—is now altogether extinct. Several successors he had, it is true, but no name worthy to be recorded after his own. With him expired the chivalrous spirit which animated successively the bosoms of so many knights of the road; with him died away that passionate love of enterprise, that high spirit of devotion to the fair sex, which was first breathed upon the highway by the gay, gallant Claude Du-Val, the Bayard of the road—Le filou sans peur et sans reproche—but which was extinguished at last by the cord that tied the heroic Turpin to the remorseless tree.'

Chivalrous. I wouldn't think so.

Gaddafi must go

2011-02-23T04:12:00.006+02:00

Not because he is a blood-thirsty dictator or a delusional megalomaniac, though those things are true.

But because he teases his dyed hair, and wears designer military uniforms with medals he hasn't earned. He is a cross between Michael Jackson and Hermann Goering.

find a penny, pick it up...

2011-02-10T11:44:00.004+02:00

I keep on picking up five cent pieces on pavements, and my brother-in-law commented recently to my wife that he had been behind a bergie in a queue who was buying a loaf of bread with a large number of them. Both of us wondered why.

Walking back from lunch with my friend Graham I spotted another and picked it. He told me that he has often seen car guards throwing them away - presumably because they are worth so little.

It all seems to fit.

I will stop picking them up, and the bergies can buy bread with them.

why judges are so slow with written judgments

2011-02-07T16:48:00.003+02:00

'If a judge tries a case, reaches a decision, and presents his judgment in writing; and later it is discovered that his decision was in error, and it was his own fault, he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case and be removed from the judge's bench.' Code of Hammurabi

why is Gaddafi not sweating?

2011-02-01T16:48:00.003+02:00

Tunisia's government has fallen; Jordan's King has sacked his government; Yemen is unstable; Egypt has become ungovernable.

But not a peep about Libya. Why not? Surely Gadaffi is the obvious one to go next.

A new kind of shock therapy

2011-01-13T08:11:00.003+02:00

"Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, was in Gabrielle Giffords' hospital room when she opened her eyes for the first time since being shot in the head last Saturday, Obama administration and congressional aides said." NYT, 13 Jan 2011

Or what?

2011-01-11T14:34:00.002+02:00

I love heraldic descriptions, this one from today's government gazette, for the SAPS's diplomatic protection service:

EMBLEM: An armillary sphere Azure hooped Argent, charged with a descending eagle Or, holding in his claws, a sword bendwise Argent, hilted and pommeled Or; the whole within a ring Azure, edged Or, charged with the words SAPS above, DIPLOMATIC POLICING on the sides and MUNUS VIRTUS below Or; issuant from the ring is placed eight sets of five star rays Or.

...a thousand words does not necessarily give you a picture.

These are our State Herald and his assistant (on the left), by the way:

They are wearing their 'tabards'.

Not to keep miggies off, as you may think, but so that they may blend in with other heralds.

Fathers be nice to your sons

2011-01-10T12:52:00.004+02:00

The NYT today threw up this telling correction in the unfolding tale of Jared Loughner, who yesterday shot congresswoman Giffords:

'Correction: January 10, 2011

A photo caption with an earlier version of this article said that a neighbor had called Jared L. Loughner “very aggressive”; the neighbor was referring to Mr. Loughner’s father.'

--------------------

By no means the only errors committed: http://www.regrettheerror.com/2011/01/09/required-reading-the-media-accuracy-and-the-rep-giffords-shooting/.

I saw one from the NYT which -fleetingly - advised the reader that the views ascribed in a previous entry to Sarah Palin were actually from a Palin parody site, which is not great reporting.

One understands that it might be hard to distinguish them though.

was/ has been

2011-01-06T12:11:00.003+02:00

Is it just me, or is there something wrong-sounding about MS Word's pop-up box telling me that 'This document was sent to the printer'?

Shouldn't it say 'This document has been sent to the printer'?

The demon drink

2011-01-04T16:49:00.004+02:00

In a recent article in The Lancet members of the British Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs reported on the outcome of their deliberations aimed at ranking drugs according to how harmful they are. This is the ranking that they arrived at:

From least harmful to most, scored out of 80:

1. Mushrooms, 6

2. buprenorphine, 7 (opioid popular in the UK)

3. LSD, 7

4. Ecstacy, 9

5. anabolic steroids, 10

6. khat, 9 (this is the chewable leaf)

7. butane, 11 (you sniff it, like glue)

8. mephadrone, 14 (similar to khat and ecstacy)

9. methadone, 14 (an opioid)

10. ketamine, 15 (a horse tranquilizer)

11. benzodiazepine, 15 (muscle relaxant)

12. GHB, 19 (one of many so-called date rape drugs)

13. cannabis, 20

14. amfetamine, 23

15. tobacco, 26

16. cocaine, 27

17. metamfetamine, 33

and now it really starts to climb:

18. crack cocaine, 54

19. heroin, 55

and, lest we forget

20. alcohol, 72.

The dangers are split into many categories - some being dangers to the user, some being other dangers like cost to society.

If you reduce it to only the increased rate of death for the user alcohol is still in the top five. Least harmful to the user are shrooms and acid.

Chart here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673610614626/images?imageId=gr4&sectionType=red

and full article at: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61462-6/fulltext?_eventId=login.

You may need to login, but it is free to register to do so.

Ah lack of effort, lack of effort, can't think it's a lack of effort

2010-12-13T16:32:00.005+02:00

God Bless you Brendan Venter for the best post-match interview I have ever seen:

For non-followers of Rugby, the background is that he was recently fined for being a bit blunt about bad refereeing, and fined 25 000 Euros, 15 000 suspended.

This is his first post-fine interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FgchHlaSQE\

Man's a genius.

the axe man cometh

2010-12-13T10:26:00.006+02:00

I am the proud owner of two very beautiful Gransfors Bruks axes. Handforged, (one by Matthias Matthson, the other by Ulric Nilson) in the little village of Gransfors Bruks in Sweden, they are the last word in axe technology, owing nothing to the last few hundred years and much to a time when Swedish axes were stowed in long boats and carried ashore in England by the light of high-held tar torches.

The first I bought direct from them in Sweden and had shipped out. It is quite fearsome:

Long enough (2'4'') not to fit on my blog, and weighing in at over 2kg, you would think it would be quite dangerous to the user, but I have had no trouble with it.

My new one is a toy, really.

A little longer than a ruler, and weighing less than some steaks, you would think it would do no harm.

Sadly this is not so. When you miss with the big axe the length of the handle keeps the head safely away from you; when you miss with the little one it is your legs that are in line for some axing - in my case straight through my jeans and into my leg.

Just the inside corner of the blade fortunately, and only an inch long, though deep. It bled for some time.

Note to parents! Give your kid the big axe to play with! He won't be able to swing it properly, and when he misses it will do him no harm. But don't give him the little one.

Of course, if you have more than one child both axes might have to be locked away.

-------------

I am grateful for having had it pointed out to me that the original post described my wound as having 'blead', instead of having 'bled'.

Fred and Inge

2010-11-25T09:03:00.003+02:00

Freudian slips can be very revealing. In this morning's Cape Times A'Eysha Kassiem tells us that

'...in the packed court 19 court room Van der Vyfer, dressed in a dark suit and striped tie, faced more than three hours of questioning by his defence counsel, Henri Viljoen SC...'

All very well, except that Fred is the Plaintiff, and the State is the Defendant. Clearly the idea that he did it is so entrenched in the reporter's mind that she assumed that he was the Accused.

Tretchikoff

2010-11-17T16:22:00.004+02:00

Art South Africa Magazine tells me that

'...[a] major retrospective of the artist Vladimir Tretchikoff, entitled Tretchikoff: the People's Painter, will open at the Iziko South African National Gallery in 2011. The exhibition organisers are issuing a general call for original works (as opposed to prints) to be exhibited on this show. Originals paintings tend to have a textured, layered surface.'

For those who are still uncertain, try running your finger over the print above.

wordificationate

2010-11-16T08:04:00.004+02:00

I see that Sarah Palin's nonse-word 'refudiate' is the OED's 'word of the year'.

I rather liked a word I saw recently: 'palindrone' - a political statement which makes as little sense read forwards as backwards.

And my morning coffeemate and I use the word 'preciprocate' - paying for someone's coffee or meal in the sure knowledge that you will have coffee paid for in the future.

As far as I can tell they haven't actually added refudiate to the dictionary, as these are the 39 new words and phrases (and one acronym) that they have in fact added:

chill pill - a notional pill taken to make someone calm down

chillax - calm down and relax

turducken - a roast dish consisting of a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey

bargainous - costing less than is usual or than might be expected; cheap or relatively cheap

staycation - holiday spent in one's home country

fussbudget - a fussy person

vuvuzela - long horn blown by fans at soccer matches

national treasure - someone/thing regarded as emblematic of a

nation's cultural heritage

buzzkill - a person or thing that has a depressing or dispiriting effect

social media - websites and applications used for social networking

microblogging - the posting of very short entries on a blog

netbook - small light laptop

dictionary attack - an attempt to gain illicit access to a computer system by using a very large set of words to generate potential passwords

paywall - an arrangement whereby access is restricted to users who have paid to subscribe to a website

freemium - a business model, especially on the Internet, whereby basic services are provided free of charge while more advanced features must be paid for

automagically - automatically and in a way that seems ingenious, inexplicable, or magical

carbon capture and storage - the process of trapping and storing carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels

geoengineering - manipulation of environmental processeses in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming

toxic debt - debt which has a high risk of default

deleveraging - the process or practice of reducing the level of one's debt by rapidly selling one's assets

overleveraged - having taken on too much debt

quantitative easing - the introduction of new money into the money supply by a central bank

exit strategy - a pre-planned means of extricating oneself from a situation

overthink - think about (something) too much or for too long

catastrophizing - view or present a situation as considerably worse than it actually is

soft skills - personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people

matchy-matchy - excessively colour-coordinated

LBD - little black dress

frenemy - a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry

cheeseball - lacking taste, style, or originality

cool hunter - a person whose job it is to make observations or predictions about new styles and trends

hikikomori - the abnormal avoidance of social contact, typically by adolescent males (in Japan)

steampunk - a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advance technology

tweetup - a meeting organized by means of posts on Twitter

bromance - a close but non-sexual relationship between two men

wardrobe malfunction - an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as a result of an article of clothing slipping out of position

defriend - another term for unfriend (remove someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site)

Interweb - the Internet

hater - negative person

I'm astonished steampunk took so long.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

2010-11-10T18:27:00.002+02:00

One of my Anonymous correspondents sent me this this morning:

'It is 50 years since Lady Chatterley's Lover was published and I thought I couldn't possibly let this auspicious date slip without sending you the best ever review of the book:

"Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's ''Practical Gamekeeping.'' (From "Field and Stream")'.

And a good review it is.

The review was indeed published in Field and Stream, very much tongue in cheek, written by Ed Zern. JR Miller's Practical Gamekeeping seems not to exist.

apres moi

2010-11-02T08:14:00.005+02:00

We shower before we go to work, or at the gym, but generally (I have asked around - let's not have a deluge of funny remarks) not before we go to bed.

Why would we? We don't get dirty at work - there is no earth to clean from under our fingernails or coaldust from our skin. In fact we don't really get dirty. The reason we shower is to wake ourselves up.

If we really worked we wouldn't bother showering in the morning, and would have to in the evening.

This is probably one of the reasons why shower adverts so seldom have soap in them. (Try 'shower cubicle' on google images: 4 of the first 68 images.)

Mandelbrot is dead

2010-10-21T07:54:00.004+02:00

There should be a word for the feeling that you experience when you hear of the death of someone you admired, but didn't know was still alive.

So it is with Benoit Mandelbrot, the fractal mathematician, who died this week.

World War I is finally over!

2010-10-19T07:01:00.004+02:00

This month saw the final payment by Germany of the reparations agreed to in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

At the time the amount agreed to - just the cash portion - was equivalent to 100 000 tonnes of gold.

Payment of the debt was jerky. The Depression caused it to trickle. The Dawes Plan tried to get it back on track. And then the Young Plan. And then the Treaty of Lousanne agreed to write much of it off, but was not ratified by America. Hitler stopped paying. In 1953, unwilling to get West Germany to pay it all and unable to get East Germany to pay at all, the Allies agreed to shelve the debt's payment until Germany was re-unified.

Upon re-unification it was agreed to revert to the terms of the Treaty of Lousanne and thus the repayments began again in 1990, and have finally been completed in 2010, on 4 October, the anniversary of German Re-unification.

AIDS and poverty

2010-10-15T13:32:00.000+02:00

This month's copy of The Lancet reports on various efforts to reduce HIV prevalance amongst women in sub-Saharan Africa, including this:

'Promising, preliminary results from two less-profiled but rigorous intervention studies for another potential prevention method controlled by women were also presented at the XVIII International AIDS Conference—ie, conditional cash transfers. In the Schooling, Income, and HIV Risk (SIHR) study in Malawi, 3796 young women aged 13—22 years were randomly assigned to two groups, with half the women receiving cash payments of varying amounts. After 18 months' follow-up, girls in the cash group who were in school at the start of the study had a 60% lower HIV prevalence compared with schoolgirls who received no payments (1·2% vs 3·0%, p<0·05). This result was probably due to a reduction in transactional sex with older men. Importantly, the results held even for a group of girls who received cash with no school attendance requirements (unconditional cash). The effect increased with payment size, which suggested that extreme poverty had a central influence on girls' sexual choices.'

Thabo had a point.

2010-10-15T10:04:00.003+02:00

"In all those years he was the beneficiary of the infinite generosity of women, but he was the victim, too, because their forgiveness made possible the deepest and sweetest corruption of all, namely the idea that he was doing nothing wrong." - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Curious way of looking at it.

My hundredth post by the way! How time flies.

Knock it down.

2010-10-12T09:22:00.003+02:00

The City says that it can't say how much it will cost to maintain the stadium, but it is believed to be in the hundreds of millions per year.

Robby Ross says he will knock it down - and then clear the site - for R15 000 000,00.

We don't need it - we have Athlone, Newlands and Hartleyvale.

No-one wants it.

It is ugly.

Let's just knock it down.

The Consumer Protection Act and selling fixed property

2010-10-04T16:50:00.002+02:00

The bulk of the Consumer Protection Act is not yet in effect and won't be for quite some time, but estate agents understandably want to know what its effect on them and the property market will be if it is brought into effect.

What follow are my thoughts.

1. Does the Act apply to fixed property at all?

Yes. The Act regulates the supply of 'goods' and 'services'. The word 'goods' is defined to include 'a legal interest in land or any other immovable property, other than an interest that falls within the definition of service'. 'Service' is defined to include 'access to or use of any premises or other property in terms of a rental'. So both the sale and rental of fixed property are included.

2. Does it apply to all sales of fixed property?

Almost certainly not. The word 'supply' is defined as '...sell, rent, exchange and hire in the ordinary course of business...'. 'Business' is defined as 'the continual marketing of any goods or services'. A person who is simply selling his or her home cannot be said to be engaged in 'the continual marketing of any goods' as it is a one-off transaction - it is not his or her business - so the Act does not appear to apply to the one-off sale. A developer, on the other hand sells properties as a business, and the Act certainly applies to that sale. So too someone who makes a business of buying and selling properties.

3. Can we still sell property voetstoots?

It is complex, and there are various ideas. The Act is new, and no court has looked at it, so there is no certainty.

I think that sometimes you can, and sometimes you probably can't.

The underlying rule (both in the new Act, and in fact at Common Law) is that the purchaser is entitled to goods that are free of any defects - and that includes latent defects. This is set out in section 55 of the Act, and in the Common Law is the implied warranty against latent defects. It is because there is such an implied warranty that we have voetstoots clauses - without them the seller would be liable for the latent defects every time, instead of just when they were concealed.

If the sale is a one-off and the Act does not apply to it at all then you certainly can use a voetstoots clause - nothing has changed. This is probably going to be the case with most sales.

The right to have a defect-free product does not apply where the purchaser has been told about the defect and agrees to take the goods anyway: ('This vase has a crack in it, I am afraid'. 'That's fine, I want a vase with a crack in it.') Some argue that argue that section 55(6) of the Act - which gives a purchaser a right to have a product free of defects - does not apply because by using a voetstoots clause the purchaser has been expressly advised of the defects (he has been told that it has defects, and he takes it 'as is') and has agreed to accept them in that manner. But he has not actually had the defects 'specified' as the Act requires, instead he has been told that they can't be specified ('This vase may have underlying defects of which I am not aware, I am afraid' 'Really! What defects? Can you specify them?' 'Ummm, no''. He doesn't know what he is agreeing to. I think that this is a weak argument which, if accepted, will undermine the Act. So it won't be accepted.

If you want to use the voetstoots clause, then you are asking a purchaser to waive his rights. This can be done in terms of the Act, but only on terms that are 'fair', 'reasonable', and 'just'. None of the words is defined. In my view a voetstoots clause is not unfair, unreasonable or unjust when you are selling a second-hand house - risk has to be borne by someone, and as long as the seller is not concealing a latent defect then that is not unfair. If he is, then the clause will not protect him anyway. So long as the defect that emerges is one he knew nothing about he can say 'I got it like this! Why should I be left holding the baby? It is no more unfair that you agree to.'

With developers it will probably be different. They sell new houses. They have not bought a house voetstoots from someone else and they can't be heard to say 'We got it like that! Why should we be left holding the baby?' The defect will be one that they caused. In my view a court will not permit the sale of a new house to a purchaser on the basis of a voetstoots clause.

But there are gray cases in the middle: what about those who buy and sell for a living? I think they are closer to the ordinary main-in-the-street seller. What about those who buy, re-develop and sell on? I suspect that a court will be slow to let them escape liabilty for a latent defect caused by the work they did; and willing to let them escape liability for a latent defect that they did not cause.

4. Does the Act apply to agents?

Yes, they are supplying a service as defined.

5. Are agents 'intermediaries' in terms of the Act?

No. The definition excludes persons whose activities as an intermediary are regulated in terms of any other national legislation. Estate Agents are regulated by the Estate Agency Affairs Act and Regulations.

6. Are agents 'suppliers' in terms of the Act?

Firstly, why would you care even if you were? You would care because a purchaser can return the goods to the supplier and demand a full refund for the goods if they are defective. This is even if it is not the supplier's fault, and the defect is one the supplier knew nothing about.

You would think that the estate agent obviously is not a supplier because they never get paid for the goods and you can't 'return' the goods to them because of how transfers happen. But the definitions are very confusing: "supplier" is defined to include "any person who markets any goods...", "market" means "to promote or supply any goods" (my underlining); "promote" means "advertise, display or offer to supply any goods"; and "supply" includes "sell, rent, exchange and hire". You will see that the definitions are a little circular

My view is that the Estate Agent is not a supplier because the Estate Agent never sells anything. Although we talk loosely about Estate Agents 'selling' property they in fact never do. They simply introduce buyer and seller and cause them to buy and sell respectively. We also talk about their being the 'seller's agent', but they don't act as agent in the sale - the seller signs the deed of sale. This impression - that the word 'sell' here means what the Estate Agent's client does, not what the Estate Agent does - is strengthened by the remedies available to the purchaser: he can demand to return the goods and expect a refund. That makes no sense in a context where the agent never received a cent for the goods and where transfer happened directly from seller to buyer.

But the underlined 'or' two paragraphs above causes confusion. Agents do 'advertise' and 'display' goods, so they do 'promote' them, so they are suppliers as defined. I think that this is unintentional, but it would be better to clarify this in the Act.

Our Lovely Stadium

2010-10-01T09:47:00.003+02:00

I mentioned a while ago that, despite general disbelief that this had happened, our stadium had been rented out to a consortium headed by Morne du Plessis for a Rand. Now the Consortium is trying to back out of the deal. I presume the rent is too high.

The City should have a public contest to decide what to do.

I would say: knock it down. Leave us with a doughnut-shaped pile of rubble. Smooth it, grass it, plant a ring of sycamores on it. Leave a walking and jogging track between the flat inner lawn and the ring and let the public use it.

The ring will block most of the noise from the open-air concerts we will still be able to have inside the doughnut, with people sitting on the flat and on the ring.

It will be a great deal more beautiful than what we have, and cost a great deal less to maintain.

It will also be used by more people.

2010-10-01T09:39:00.003+02:00

One of my partners alleges that today is National Breast Appreciation Day, though I have found nothing to support his view.

It may be a personal genuflection.

Our Constitutional Court's workload

2010-09-30T09:24:00.003+02:00

I have just read Jonathan Lewis's 2009 article in the Law Quarterly Review on 'The Constitutional Court of South Africa'. I would attach a copy, but for the copyright implications.

Here is what he says about the court's workload:

'The CC has a light workload. It heard 15 substantive, independent appeals in 2005; 20 in 2006; 20 in 2007 and 22 in 2008. ...'

Bear in mind that there are eleven judges and that in those years the Canadian Supreme Court heard 93, 80, 53 and 82 matters respectively.

'The lack of work on the part of some CC judges is remarkable: in each of 2006 and 2007, Nkabinde J. wrote only two judgments; Mokgoro J. produced only three judgments in each of 2005, 2006 and 2007. Indeed, if the current number of judgments handed down in previous years were distributed equally among the CC judges, on average each CC judge would write fewer than four judgments per year.'

With this little work to do, do they then get their judgments out swiftly? One would expect so, but, as Lewis says, statistics say otherwise: the court takes on average 177 days to produce a judgment in 2005, 142 days in 2006, 167 days in 2007 and 159 in 2008. The New Clicks case (an urgent matter) took 198 days.

religious ignorance

2010-09-29T08:27:00.001+02:00

The NYT has this interesting snippet about the levels of religious knowledge of religious and non-religious folk:

I say nothing.

Finding the Venster

2010-09-27T12:01:00.002+02:00

Embarrassingly, after climbing the India Venster route for fifteen years, I have only this weekend, while walking with friends, found the 'venster' part of it:

I thought that the route could not be improved, but a 20m walk to the venster certainly does improve it.

Seeing red

2010-09-27T11:53:00.004+02:00

The main risk to hunters is not, as you might think, wild animals - by and large wild animals are not much of a match for rifles.

But neither are humans, which means that the main risk to human hunters is getting shot by your fellow-hunter. This mostly happens because everyone has guns, and everyone wears camo gear - and accidents will happen.

It would all be safer if the hunters wore bright orange gear and that - to my surprise - is exactly what they do:

(That is not me, by the way. I don't kill animals with guns. And if I did I would be too ashamed to pose with the victim of my unequal quest. Do you pose with Woolies chicken breasts?)

Deer are colourblind, so what looks garish to us looks drab to them.

Unless you wash it with detergent, that is - they see better in the blue part of the spectrum, so if your detergent has an additive to make it 'whiter than white' (for us), it will look like bright ultraviolet to them.

Sleep tight

2010-09-08T14:10:00.006+02:00

Bedbugs have made a phenomenal recovery in the last decade, going from unheard of (except when saying 'night night') to a phenomenon.

This site: http://bedbugregistry.com/ solicits and reports on infestations, and has compiled an epidemiological map:

The first reports of infestations came from New York, and the cases thus cluster there more thickly.

The Broad Street Pump

2010-09-08T11:25:00.003+02:00

John Snow's name should be better known.

He is the fellow who, in 1854, discovered that the cholera epidemic of that year could be traced back to a specific communal pump from which some of the residents of Soho drew their water. He did this by marking the cases he encountered on a map:

He soon saw that most of them were closer to the pump in Broad Street than any other pump. Those that were not were discovered on enquiry to be people who preferred the water from the Broad Street Pump to the water of the closer pump.

Armed with his map he convinced the authorities to remove the pump's handle, and the outbreak stopped.

The pump, it turned out, had been sunk next to an old septic tank, and fecal matter was being introduced into the water. Snow's insight was remarkable when one considers that the germ theory of disease had not yet been proposed. The accepted view was that miasmas (the same 'bad air' that gave malaria its name) caused diseases like cholera.

The pump is no longer there, but more or less on its site is a pub called the 'John Snow' which welcomes members of the John Snow Society with a free pint, presumably out of respect for Snow's having been a teetotaler.

The birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees

2010-09-06T10:43:00.006+02:00

I have quite a few nature guide books - a bird book or two, an insect book, a tree book, many flower books.

They are good at helping me work out what plant or insect or tree or bird I am looking at, but quite bad at telling me how they fit together.

I am glad to be told what a plant is called, but have learned nothing about that plant unless I am also told that this wasp polinates it, and that spider feeds on the wasp, and this mouse eats its seeds and spreads them. Then I know how they all fit together.

Are there such books?

The Britannica has finally lost it

2010-08-30T16:50:00.004+02:00

I was brought up with the Encyclopedia Britannica. It was the source of all knowledge, and it was the final and unimpeachible authority.

Or so I thought until I started following the debate between proponents of the brit and of Wikipedia; and read the article in Nature that rated Wikipedia's accuracy as the higher of the two.

The brit's backers say that their publication is better than Wikipedia because its authors are qualified.

I grew up with the 13th or 14th edition of the brit (now lost to a fire) and remember the article about the Arabian campaign of World War I - contributed by Lawrence of Arabia. I now see that while he may have been there at the time, he certainly was not unbiased. His hatred for the Turks (at whose hands he is believed to have suffered a brutal rape, and who he is said to have shot out of hand as prisoners on one occasion) and love for the Arabs (whose dress he assumed, and to whom he remained loyal against his own country) is a classic example of partisanship.

He was, in a word, unqualified to write about it. And yet they let him.

One would think that they would see the error of their ways, and yet my post today brings me an email from the Brit in which they again talk about what they call 'esteemed britannica contributors'. One of them is Bill Clinton, who contributed an article on the Dayton Accords.

Now I happen to have a fairly high regard for Bill Clinton, but can't they see that having him contribute the article about the Dayton Accords - to which he was a signatory - is no better than getting the Turk-hating Lawrence to be objective about the Arabian campaign?