Regarding stuff and other unrelated things

The Greastest Force for Good in the History of the World

2008-10-09T11:47:00.004+02:00

"But the fact is, America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world. My friends, we have gone to all four corners of the Earth and shed American blood in the defence, usually, of someone else's freedom and our own." - Senator John McCain in the Second Presidential Debate in Nashville on 7 OCtober.

Ironic, anyone? (Also, wasn't this the man who sang Bomb Iran to the tune of the Beach Boy's Barbara Ann?)

When going right is wrong

2008-09-29T11:19:00.005+02:00

It was fantastic to see Kevin Rudd replace John Howard as the Prime Minister of Australia at the end of last year. His apology to Australia's indigenous peoples was brave and right. The end of George Bush's reign in a few months is great news for the world (although it's unfortunate that Ralph Nader doesn't stand any chance of replacing him.) Great African traditions of fostering tolerance and opposing prejudice, colonialism, and racism will hopefully be reinforced by the (fragile) power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe and South Africa's peaceful transition of executive power from Mbeki to Motlanthe.

In light of these promising changes in the world it is worrying to see much of Europe (often seen as a leading light in the world) shifting to the right and embracing intolerance. Today's Guardian reported that, "Austria was shaken by a political earthquake yesterday when the neo-fascist right emerged from a general election as a contender to be the strongest political force in the country for the first time." On 1 May this year a thousand neo-Nazis marched through Hamburg in order to launch their "national deployment". Cologne recently had the dubious honour of hosting a large Anti-Islam rally. Anti-foreigner sentiment is rife across Europe and on the increase (Economist, 22 November 2007) . European politics is peppered with alarming popular extremist right-wing parties.

So what should be done to halt the rise of the extreme right across Europe? How best should tolerance be encouraged? Unfortunately, opposition to this rise often takes the form of destructive (and sometimes violent) protest. That said, the world can ill afford for Europe to slip back into its old jingoistic, intolerant, and racist past. Something needs to be done.

What a way to run the world

2008-07-08T11:26:00.006+02:00

The G8 countries are meeting today in Toyako, Japan for the 34th G8 summit (7 - 9 July).

This week's Economist contains an excellent briefing on the need to reform institutions (that often reflect the balance of power in 1945 rather than the world today.) Interesting reading.

Spammed!

2008-06-20T16:44:00.004+02:00

cypersquatterspam!

Ben's book

2008-05-07T11:19:00.007+02:00

Ben, my legendary traveling companion from Cape Town to Cairo and a budding and bounding bodhivista, has been working flat out on a book about our 110-day meandering trip across Africa. It brilliantly captures the spirit of independent travel, the gritty but endlessly promising reality of Africa, and Ben's indomitable spirit and caring, happy-go-lucky approach to life. It's a great story (no bias on my part, of course!)

Ben's trying his best to get it published at the moment, so if you have any publishing contacts, are interested in his story, or simply want to give him some support, drop him an email at bensanders10(at)gmail.com.

European values

2008-05-06T16:38:00.010+02:00

So should European farmers do an honest day's work or should they be coddled and protected by their governments and subsidised by their fellow citizens?

A critical leader in this week's Economist rightly condemns Europe's common agricultural policy (CAP) which, through a complex web of tariffs, quotas, and subsidies, protects European farmers from competition, results in agricultural overproduction, and causes real and severe human suffering in the poor world (especially in Africa). This a real and pressing human rights issue, which sadly too few people in Europe seem either aware of or concerned about.

Just take a look at the three points below, which serve to emphasise the grotesque amounts being spent to support EU countries'- and other rich countries'- bloated and distorted agricultural systems:

The agricultural subsidies paid to farmers by the thirty OECD countries are greater than Africa's total GDP. (Wikipedia)
The EU spends €55 billion every year on agricultural subsidies. (farmsubsidy.org)
The average dairy cow in the EU receives an annual subsidy ($913) that is almost twice the average annual per-capita income in Sub-Saharan Africa ($490) and more than a hundred times more than the average African receives in aid from the EU ($8). (UNDP's Human Development Report 2003)

Africa doesn't need aid. Africa doesn't need starry-eyed do-gooders. Africa doesn't need more lectures. Africa needs an end to the rich world's unfair and destructive agricultural protectionism.

My bicycle (Part 1)

2008-04-11T16:26:00.010+02:00

On Sunday, I decided to collect my bike from my old apartment in Erikastraße. The days are getting longer and the weather better. It was time to dust the old two-wheeler off.

Perhaps I could have chosen a worse day, but I doubt it. Just before I arrived in Erikastraße it began to rain. A nonstop, plopping, soaking rain. Also, to call my my bike characterful is to be generous. Rusty, with suspect brakes, a cracked front mudguard (which maliciously jams itself into the front wheel when least expected), and a chainguard held in place by two twigs; someone less diplomatic might, rather unkindly but honestly, call it a good-for-nothing-piece-of-useless-crap.

After oiling the (slightly) rusted chain I set off for home - a ride of six or seven kilometres. I'd made it about a kilometre when, without provocation, the gear changing lever popped off; pieces of plastic, screws and springs flying in different directions. After scrounging around to collect the bits and pieces I could find (and perhaps some that had been previously unacquainted with my bike), I managed something resembling a temporary fix. Then, I pushed my bike as far as a small cafe on the western edge of Stadtpark, where the driving rain forced me inside in search of a stiff curative.

Upon leaving, suitably fortified but still soaked, I noticed that the chain had decided that a separation from the rest of my bike was in order. (Let me tell you, there's nothing like putting a freshly-oiled chain back on in the pouring rain. Really there isn't.) Eventually, freshly-oiled myself, I managed to return the chain to its proper place and headed into muddy Stadtpark.

Stadtpark is a glorious park for cycling and, in spite of the dismal weather, I enjoyed squeaking and grating and grinding my way through it. At least until an irregular seesawing motion alerted me to the fact that something might be amiss. Something was: my back tyre had been punctured.

Unable to do anything, and finally defeated, I pushed my bike the rest of the way home, miserably wondering if anything could be learnt from all this. The best I could come up with was that bikes dislike being out in inclement weather, but I imagine this depends very much on the bike in question.

Finally, I made it home, securely locked my bike up, and we haven't been out together since. Some things take time..

(Called Part 1 in anticipation of a sequel starring my newly fixed and dazzling bike whizzing along Hamburg's streets; me gamely hanging on. Watch this space.)

The path to a greener world?

2008-04-10T08:13:00.017+02:00

While suspicious of subsidies (and the resulting market distortions and waste), an article in this week's Economist makes for interesting reading about Germany's use of subsidies in its drive to become greener, and quickly so.

Basically, Germany provides huge subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines in order to speed up their development and production, reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, lower the costs of renewable energy, and support German industry - all admirable goals.

One has to ask the question, though, of if subsidies have a role to play in addressing the problem of climate change. Some will say yea, some nay. I suspect that the solution lies in pricing carbon properly rather than subsidising the production of environmentally-friendly energy.

Losing my mind

2008-04-09T16:29:00.011+02:00

I got back from Bristol just over two weeks ago and I've been meaning to write about it and let you know what a wonderful and entertaining time I had - but I forgot. Numerous times. I also forgot to buy some Marmite while I was there. When I was in Spain a few months ago I put my hand luggage through the airport scanner and forgot to pick it up on the other side. I forget a lot. (If I'm losing my mind, I'm not too worried because I'll probably forget to lose it.)

Unfortunately, the rot has spread further than mere forgetfulness. For instance, this morning before work I tried to give my shoes a polish with shaving foam instead of foam shoe polish. I'd like to think that the cans look similar but they don't - and they're not even kept in the same room. (For anyone thinking of trying this at home: shaving foam makes leather shoes soggy and not shiny.)

Arriving at Habichstraße station, on my way to work, I decided to buy a caffeine-laden energy drink to give my ailing mind a boost. I sauntered up to the counter and tried to hand my €2 over. The elderly Turkish man on the other side of the counter just stared at me. I stared back, not quite sure why he was reluctanct to take my money. Then I realised. I'd forgotten to take a drink out of the shop's fridge.

Last week, in another incident, I had some difficulty leaving a Barmbek döner kebab shop. Trying to leave, I gave the glass door a push but it wouldn't open. I gave it another shove but still it didn't budge. I checked the door - it said drücken which is German for push - and tried again. And again. By this time everyone in the small shop was staring at me. I gave the door a kick. Still nothing. Then, looking at the door again, the reason for my failure became apparent. I had read drücken backwards through the glass door. I pulled the door open and left quickly.

The worst thing about losing one's mind is the paranoia: worrying that I'm going to forgot something or do something stupid. And thus distracted I inevitably forget something or do something stupid. Luckily though, the self-recrimination doesn't last long; I just forget or get distracted or do something worse.

The best thing about losing one's mind? It's a fairly carefree life with the mind (and memory) of a goldfish.

Remembering Sharpeville

2008-03-21T09:52:00.000+01:00

Just a quick hola! from Bristol (Europe's a mad mix of multiculturalism) to wish everyone a restful, reflective and happy Human Rights Day and Good Friday. I wonder what Pontius would have to say about this double whammy?

Anyway, enough pontificating. I've got bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, mushrooms, and tomatoes to cook for breakfast. All fried. God bless the Queen.

Meteorological update

2008-03-20T12:31:00.000+01:00

Waking up to a white wonderland yesterday, I realised that my poetic celebration of Spring's glorious arrival might have been a smidgen premature; or perhaps that a confused Spring's best efforts to encourage sprouting and budding and greening were being thwarted by an equally confused Winter sending forth flurry after flurry of snow and rain. (For more on how muddled our dear seasons are becoming click here.) For the moment, at least, it looks like Winter has the upper hand and a white Easter is forecast for Hamburg.

There is one spot of good news though (at least from the stand point of my psychological well-being). From tomorrow, the Spring Equinox (for those who care), Hamburg will enjoy more hours of daylight than Cape Town. (Unfortunately, the maximum temperature won't been quite as obliging. Easter Sunday's forecast: Hamburg 0°C, Cape Town 32°C.)

I'm off to Bristol now, in search of Marmite and, hopefully, a little Spring!

By the willow and over the pond

2008-03-15T13:50:00.000+01:00

An idle Saturday morning spent reading and watching two sons and a father muck about with a remote-controlled sailboat on the pond outside my window inspired me to a short turn of bad poetry in celebration of Spring's recent arrival:

The cherry blossoms are blossoming -
the whitest of whites; pale, pure yet gay
The willows are turning and greening
all along Hamburg's watery ways

Spring has arrived!

Throw the lumber over, man!

2008-03-14T16:10:00.001+01:00

I thought I'd post the following passage, from Jerome K. Jerome's novel Three Men in a Boat, which echoes the sentiment expressed in my last post (just with more eloquence and humour than I could ever hope for):

"George said:‘You know we are on the wrong track altogether. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.’

"George comes out really quite sensible at times. You’d be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.

"How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha’pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with—oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all!—the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal’s iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!

"It is lumber, man—all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment’s freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment’s rest for dreamy laziness—no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o’er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombrewaving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the blue forget- me-nots.

"Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

"You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work. Time to drink in life’s sunshine— time to listen to the Aeolian music that the wind of God draws from the human heart-strings around us—time to——"

Time to do what? You decide.

Stuff the stuff

2008-03-02T18:07:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, after living for five-and-a-half months with Maika, the epitome of a German greenie, in Eppendorf and for six weeks by myself in a shoebox flat in Barmbek, I was moving again. Just a few blocks this time, to a beautiful modern apartment with south-facing views over a small park and pond in Elliersweg.

Foolishly, I had declined, my Australian colleague, Brian's offer to help me move and laughed off his question as to whether I had a car. It was only a few blocks and I didn't have much stuff. Right?

Wrong. Continuing in my foolish vein, I refused, a tenant in my new building, Markus' kind offer to help. I thought his Saturday morning would be better spent with his young children than by helping me lug my stuff around. Idiot. After a hard five hours and three trips (laden like a pack mule each time and drenched by the worst storm in over a month) I had learnt the folly of my ways. How had I accumulated so much stuff, despite my best efforts not to? Deflated, cold and sick I was still happy to be in my new apartment: which is easily the best accommodation I've had since moving out of my parents' place six years ago.

My exhausting move across about a millimetre of the Hamburg map left me to wondering about the essential essentials. What do I need to live comfortably, even well, but without accumulating all the useless bric-a-brac, heirlooms, and other rubbish that so many people seem to accumulate? I don't think I've got too much stuff: some backpacking stuff from crossing Africa (tent, sleeping bag, etc.), clothes, work stuff (files, shirts, trousers, smart shoes, ties, etc.), books, various gadgetry (laptop, cellphone, digital camera, etc.), a bicycle, important documents (passports, bank details, contracts, etc.), and some miscellaneous stuff (running shoes, climbing shoes, etc.). More than I need I'm sure.

By the time my lease expires (31 May), I want to have trimmed my possessions down to the essentials - discarding what I don't need and adding the few extras I might. Perhaps, you can help me: What do you consider the essential essentials?

Let me know.

Benson, you're a legend!

2008-02-29T20:47:00.000+01:00

Exactly a year has passed since I stepped onto the Jo'burg-bound Shosholoza Meyl in Cape Town with my sister, Erika, and my friend, Clayton: beginning an absolutely unforgettable overland trip to Cairo.

This, below, is my comrade-in-arms, companion extraordinaire, and dear friend, Ben's recollection of our initial commitment to set out for Cairo:

"Like most great things in life, it started on a whim. Almost by chance, as if the great power beneath it could only be realised by the random musings of everyday life. And like many great decisions it was made spontaneously and in drunken revelry. It was just another Monday; the location was a Barristers Bar and it was time to set sail once more.

"‘Cape to Cairo’, the three of us chanted, clinking our pints together in unison, imagining with dewy-eyed optimism the trials and tribulations of such a trip. From the southernmost point of the wildest, most diverse and easily least developed continent on Earth to its northern partner, its biggest city, the link with the Middle East and Europe at the very head of the awe-inspiring Sahara Desert. Plus the name sounded pretty damn cool.

"To tell the truth, there was no great epiphany behind my decision to set off – it just seemed like the right thing to do and it came at the right time. And if there’s one thing I have learnt – and I have not learnt nearly enough in my short life – it is that we need to grab these chances and suck the life out of them while we can. Carpe Diem so they say.

"So I seized my pint glass, and the day with it, and made a decision that I would often rue, curse and regret, but ultimately would treasure for the rest of my life.

"It was me, Pete and Eri, or me, Eri and Pete as it was in those early days. Erika, one of my best friends from school, a great girl and a guy’s girl, one that could knock back beers with the boys and rough it on the road. Pete is her brother, a guy I had been seriously intimidated by when he was above me at school and when I used to sleep over at their house after one too many beers prevented me from making my way home.

"And the plan had been hatched like this: me and Eri had met up earlier at a German beerhouse, had a few drinks and talked about escaping the rat race. Enough getting stuck in traffic with everyone else, enough of a virtual world in front of a computer screen, enough of being a pawn in their game – it was time for a change. It soon transpired that Eri, Pete and some mates were heading off to Mozambique in a few months for a couple of weeks holiday, after which Pete was to continue up the east coast of Africa to Cairo.

"I always had visions of this trip – I would do it one day, I told myself but not now. ‘Sometime soon, in the near future, just after I finish my job, buy a house, have kids, always after something else.’ Often we put the things we really want out of life on the backburner and they wallow there for so long that by the time we get round to them, the moment has passed. But this time was different - I was determined to make it happen.

"‘Who is Pete going with?’ I ask tentatively.

"‘Not sure, bru’ replies Eri, immediately noticing the glisten in my eye.

"‘Let’s do it!’I exclaim, as usual getting far too carried away, far too early, unable to understand the ability to distance oneself from one’s wishes. But why should we? Is it not better to hope, to have great expectations, than to settle for an idle if easy life? I think so. Eri shares my misguided enthusiasm, which was to misguide me and Pete across an entire continent, along beaches, across lakes, down rivers, up mountains, into villages, in and out of cities and through a vast swathe of simmering, sweltering desert punctuated by the mighty Nile.

"And so a plan is formed, and soon there are four of us, well in my mind at least. Me, Eri, Pete and my girlfriend at the time, Adi, an absolutely amazing Israeli girl, who I met over a spliff in the jungles of Brazil and courted during Carnival, a far more romantic story than perhaps it ever really was. She was planning to return to the Holy Land soon and her dream was to travel overland from my doorstep in Cape Town to hers in Israel. So instead of resigning ourselves to a relationship on the wane, we decided to make the most of it, to love and (probably) lose rather than never get hurt. And so it was – just like we said it would be – the four of us readying ourselves for an epic adventure, a setting forth from home outwards into the unknown, the much-maligned Heart of Darkness.

"And I was determined to prove Joseph Konrad, and all the European and American doubters, wrong, to show them that Africa was navigable, that it had something which the western world can only ever aspire to – a sense of goodwill and community even in the most desperate of places and times. As George Kimble wisely noted: ‘The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.’

"To cut a long story short, where there was once four, there ended up being just the two. After committing to brave it all together, me and Adi realised that a relationship on the wane can not be solved by escaping, not even into the interior of Africa. The irony was not lost on either of us, but such is life. And so in the space of a month, I had quit my job, moved out of my house and broken up with my girlfriend. Not to worry, I was planning to travel up a continent ravaged by civil war, corruption, famine and mass poverty.

"Eri was the next to drop out – and for exactly the opposite reasons. A rapid romance in Australia with a lad from Bristol had blossomed over the Antipodean summer, and now she was planning to pack her bags for the south-west of England, rather than the east coast of Africa. And so there were two, me and Pete, guys who had never spent any real time together – and less than four months later we would be colleagues, companions and comrades in arms of the highest order.

"This is the story of how it all happened."