The bottom left of this world is, of course, Namibia. It is known as the ‘smile on the face of Africa’ and if you look on the map–and also the people–you will see why. The bit that forms the smile is the Caprivi strip, annexed by General Caprivi in colonial times to give the Germans access to the Zambezi and hence a link with German Ost Afrika (Tanzania). Nobody told him about the Victoria Falls. These notes are occasional reflections on my life down here. Some are published on the ‘posts’ page and others (usually the more serious ones) have their own pages.
Latest posts
Some different perspectives on climate change. I wrote most of this immediately after Cancun but did not post it because everyone seemed to be writing something and a bit more would only have increased the boredom. But as I have spent a lifetime trying to get outside the science of climate change and trying to teach a bit about it and explain it in textbooks, I suppose I’m a bit duty bound to report this. Things have recently, I think, got an awful lot worse. Not least because the whole topic seems to have somehow got lost. ..[more]
The Namibian education time bomb. Its results time again. Like so many education systems, Namibia’s is tending more and more to ignore the plight of the slower and disadvantaged learners. The best results, as ever, are coming from a very few schools all of which take children from better-off parents. The children of the poor, out there in the villages are not only being ignored, they are being discarded. I have just sent this off to The Namibian . I wonder if they will publish it? [more]
Robert Lowe (1811-1892), father of Namibian education. There is a strange, unfathomable, feature of the education system here–or rather the strange absence of a feature that is so normal everywhere else it does not have a name anywhere else. It is a thing called ‘automatic promotion’ and it is the work of the devil……[more]
Notes from the vegetable plot. Who invented Moneymaker tomatoes? Whoever it is is on my little list of society offenders best underground. They look great and they are 2m tall but they taste like dirty water. Nothing you do to them can make them worth eating. Breeding them, like breeding scentless roses and fluffy potatoes, should be a capital offence….[more]
Endemic but locally common. And big. This chap, like the rest of us, has had too much sun. Sadly in his case it was fatal as he was caught in my little yard where there is nowhere to hide. He is a solifuge spider which, like a lot of the things that wander around here is ‘endemic but locally common’….[more]
Here we go again. I first published this three years ago in the Namibian. I put it here again because nothing has happened in the three intervening years to solve the problem it refers to. The exam results are now out (just before Christmas, a clever move by the ministry) and I expect just the same problems will arise as before. These will be made worse by the decision not to raise the grade 11 ‘pass’ hurdle because the system currently cannot accommodate all those who this year reached the old pass level. We will probably see quite a lot of students qualified for grade 11 unable to find places. Good news for tent-makers…..[more]
Carl Djerassi, the pill, and why I ended up in Africa. The other day I happened to hear on the Today programme, which I listen to on the internet, an interview with Carl Djerassi. Aged 87, he was over to London as a guest speaker in a seminar promoted by the Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. He is a Vienna-born American playwright and novelist but his life has been mainly in chemistry and he is credited as the ‘father of the contraceptive pill’ which seems to me something of an oxymoron. I’m not sure that it’s quite true either but he is welcome to the accolade, particularly as he did not get what would have been a well-earned Nobel. To me, however, he was, half a century ago, the opposition team manager…..[more]
Taking care of the bugs. I’ve just come in from watering the compost heap. After 20 years I’m just beginning to get the hang of how to grow vegetables in a place where there is no soil, no worms, no rain, and the temperature in the sun regularly gets up to 45. Keeping your compost heap watered is critical…[more]
100 Hiroshimas over Windhoek. That is the amount of energy abserbed by yesterday’s rain as it fell… [more]
Africa’s blocked artery.
The bridge over the Zambezi at Victoria Falls was built in 1905 by the Cleveland Bridge company, bridge builders to the Empire. For years it was the main north-south artery in Africa but now almost nothing goes over it….. [more]
The BBCs latest humiliation. It was sad to see the BBC once again humilitated and groveling over their World Service report on the diversion of Ethiopian Famine fund monies. It recalled the similar occasion of Andrew Gilligan’s report on WMD’s. All aid projects leak and bigger ones leak more than small ones; if only Geldof, and last week, the execrable Michael Grade, had acknowledged just a bit of this, their case might have been believable. But as it was the only conclusion that I could draw was either they didn’t know what they were talking about or they were complicit in trying to hush something up..[more]
Retirement WMDs. The great thing about this recession is that I’m not getting any work any more. So I’m considering myself retired and I started doing those things that retired babyboomers do like complaining a lot. But I haven’t yet bought my Harley and my ponytail is still too short to tie up. But as I have never been in debt and have lost my savings whereas those in debt just seem to lose their debt, I have decided What the Hell and spent all the money I no longer have on a few retirement toys, most of which are highly dangerous….[more]
Into the Wilderness. This week I decided to go into the wilderness after the wild honey and locusts. Not just wild honey though. I also took a jar of lemon marmalade (because the stuff needs eating to provide jars for the new crop) and a bit of old rabbit I found in the back of the fridge…..[More].
The election’s other hole. I’m sitting under a tree on the edge of the Namib writing this. I dont even have a cellphone connection so I have no idea who, if anyone, has won the election at home in England. It was christened ‘the election with the hole in the middle’ by the pundits because of the refusal by all the politicians to notice the 13% of GDP deficit. But even the pundits did not notice the even bigger hole; perhaps because it has been sitting there unnoticed now for 40 or more years…. [more]
Some science notes. Genetic engineering [...]; volcanic ash [...]; why ship exhaust should not be cleaned up [...]; Archbishop Tutu’s genome [....]; why its just as well there were no aircraft flying around 200 million years ago in Namibia [...]; how green is Google [...]; why night is it not as bright as day [....]; how Namibia can avoid power cuts [....], the laser’s 50th birthday [....] why some Namibians, but not all are descended from Neanderthals [....], why Craig Venter’s company in the US has not really made artificial life.[....] , why methane hydrate is important. [....] how uranium is extracted.[....] and why heat capacity should be in the Nambian science curriculum [....], bombs on airliners [....], gamma radiation telescopes [....], life on other planets [....], the end of the world [....], dark matter [....]
Our general erection. So we are having a general election back home. Down here in Namibia where l and r are interchanged in pronunciation, they call these things general erections, an interesting and very African concept. ….[more]
Open letter to Dr Iyambo. Dear Dr Iyambo, Welcome to the Ministry of Education. It’s something of a poisoned chalice but as a fellow scientist you will understand that all poisons have antidotes. And you will also be aware that the antidotes are often very unpleasant. So here are a few antidote ideas. I’ll try and make them as palatable as possible…. [more]
Red spider on my aubergines. Take three. I have been told that Neem oil does for red spiders. It makes them forget to eat and have sex….. [more]
Red spider on my aubergines. Take two. Just after the last post on this I read that Indian scientists may have solved my red spider problem….. [more]
Namibian chemistry…When today’s talk is all of yellowcake, it is comforting to look back at the country’s first and greatest contribution to the well-being of the industrialised world, something a little whiter, birdshit….. [more]
Homely affairs… Living as a foreigner in Africa one of the periodic pleasures is doing business with Ministries of Home Affairs…… [more]
On Namibian red spider mites…. The 2010 International Red Spider Mite convention is currently taking place on my aubergines. Without permission…. [more]
African energy… A year or so ago I was in Tunis which for most of its existence has been called, of course, Carthage…. [more]
Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar, Where are you now? Where are you now?. I have been playing through a huge number of CDs I bought at the end of last year at one of my favourite shops – Gillian Grieg’s Music shop on the outskirts of Taunton ….. [more]