Mail found upon my return:
17 letters, 2 parcels (Amazon), 6 letters with bills, 1 mail with bank statement, 3 postcards (not even sent by me to myself!), 2 notifications to pick up packages at the post office (they are anal!) and - get this - dozens of junk mailings that I don't even bother to count, let alone to open.
Current Music (Spotify enhanced): Neneh Cherry – Kootchi
Followed by: Metric – Stadium Love
Tuesday 31 August 2010
He's b-a-a-a-a-ck!
Oh deary me, why can't I just be one of the gazillions dumb proletarian Europeans, who spend their holidays with likewise chavs on overcrowded and polluted beaches of Spain, Italy or Turkey - or wherever the no-frills near-bankrupt tourist organisations "Made in England would take them - and just roast in the sun as a prelude to a full-blown skin cancer a few years later?
Instead, I ventured off to see my homeland, the Western Cape, enjoyed all the allure and culture it offers, dropped into Madrid for a fun-filled job-related function and relaxed for 4 days in Barcelona, a city so rich of life and haute culture; so not British!
As a consequence to the fast paced time-off I need now - a day before my new job commences - a vacation!
Current Music: JAMES - Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
Instead, I ventured off to see my homeland, the Western Cape, enjoyed all the allure and culture it offers, dropped into Madrid for a fun-filled job-related function and relaxed for 4 days in Barcelona, a city so rich of life and haute culture; so not British!
As a consequence to the fast paced time-off I need now - a day before my new job commences - a vacation!
Current Music: JAMES - Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
Monday 23 August 2010
On the move...
Time to pack up things at the scene and to prepare for trecking northwards again. What a good time it's been, and I want to thank friends who came to see me, friends who stayed with us and provided so much joy and entertainment. If it wasn't for the fact that I am back here in a few months I couldn't leave now. The lure of Africa is deeply engrained in me now; the time to burn bridges with Europe has come.
Talking of which: off to Madrid tomorrow, then a weekend in Barcelona before the return to summer-less London. Western Cape, I miss you already.
Current Music (MP3 Player): EDIE BRICKELL & NEW BOHEMIANS – Good Times
Talking of which: off to Madrid tomorrow, then a weekend in Barcelona before the return to summer-less London. Western Cape, I miss you already.
Current Music (MP3 Player): EDIE BRICKELL & NEW BOHEMIANS – Good Times
Sunday 15 August 2010
Barack Muhammad Obama
I went to great lengths to be able to post this: a 9-mile drive from our compound to a place with internet access. But the plans to build a mosque as part of a $100 million Islamic center smacked next to the site of the WTC attacks leave me too angry to remain silent.
The lawyer, junior senator and one-term president clearly endorses the construction of a mosque next to the site of mass-murder committed by Muslims, in the name of Allah.
Shamefully, the president is too cowardly to elaborate on his well-crafted statement of indifference, namely to link the erection of the mosque with freedom of religion.
Barack Obama, the opponents of the mosque do not question the guaranteed freedom of religion; not even you can change that anyway. They oppose the construction, because it is a distasteful, appalling and offending reminder of who the perpetrators of the 9-11 atrocities were, right next to the site where hundreds of victims burned, suffocated, crushed or fell to their deaths. You, as the president of a nation far greater than you can ever claim to be, render yourself to be a cohort of those who want to gloat now about the first ever attack on US soil, which in my eyes borders to high treason.
You are a despiccable little man from the slums of Chicago, which may influence your vendetta against what the WTC towers represented, as compensation of your own dismal roots and dysfunctions within your family.
Your characteristic indifference and total lack of any compassion will assure that you will become forever nothing more than a footnote of the history of this great country, and a mere one-term president, disappearing in 2 years back to the obscurity you have unfortunately emerged from a few years ago.
The lawyer, junior senator and one-term president clearly endorses the construction of a mosque next to the site of mass-murder committed by Muslims, in the name of Allah.
Shamefully, the president is too cowardly to elaborate on his well-crafted statement of indifference, namely to link the erection of the mosque with freedom of religion.
Barack Obama, the opponents of the mosque do not question the guaranteed freedom of religion; not even you can change that anyway. They oppose the construction, because it is a distasteful, appalling and offending reminder of who the perpetrators of the 9-11 atrocities were, right next to the site where hundreds of victims burned, suffocated, crushed or fell to their deaths. You, as the president of a nation far greater than you can ever claim to be, render yourself to be a cohort of those who want to gloat now about the first ever attack on US soil, which in my eyes borders to high treason.
You are a despiccable little man from the slums of Chicago, which may influence your vendetta against what the WTC towers represented, as compensation of your own dismal roots and dysfunctions within your family.
Your characteristic indifference and total lack of any compassion will assure that you will become forever nothing more than a footnote of the history of this great country, and a mere one-term president, disappearing in 2 years back to the obscurity you have unfortunately emerged from a few years ago.
X-posted with
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Current Music (MP3 player): THE STRANGLERS – Golden Brown
Monday 9 August 2010
Friday 6 August 2010
Randomly on religion
After a two-week hiatus from my intellectual world here in England, spent on such profane things as family and sun worshipping on distant (summer-like) shores, it was great to see friends for a good lunch in drab London again. The poor weather provoked me to mumble "the gods must hate England for the lack of summers here." Now, in California that would have caused no more than a broad grin with perfect teeth; but not here, not with friends whose skin has the shade of Philadelphia cream cheese. Hence a lengthy discussion on god and religion ensued, which in the end led me to sigh and - a glass of crisp white wine in hand - muse about some principles of mine:
I am staunchly agnostic, hence I disagree with the connotation that religion helps "explain the complexities of the world."
More accurately, religion works as a pacifier for human beings, trying to console mortals why they cannot understand such 'complexities' and mystifying things that cannot be explained. I am too rational to be happily lulled into the belief of great gods organising the temporary existance of an earthling and rather reduce our existance to the freakish coincidences of chemical reactions; nothing wonderous and godly about it.
I also resent the - say Christian - knack to be patronized by fellow earthlings dressed in fancy robes who claim to have seen the light and drag me into the blinding arena of a church run like a business. I have been raised Roman Catholic and enjoy my life without it, having replaced mystification of unexplainable things with the acceptance of the fact that I simply don't have all the answers.
Current Music (Spotify enhanced): Zazie – Un Peu Beaucoup
I am staunchly agnostic, hence I disagree with the connotation that religion helps "explain the complexities of the world."
More accurately, religion works as a pacifier for human beings, trying to console mortals why they cannot understand such 'complexities' and mystifying things that cannot be explained. I am too rational to be happily lulled into the belief of great gods organising the temporary existance of an earthling and rather reduce our existance to the freakish coincidences of chemical reactions; nothing wonderous and godly about it.
I also resent the - say Christian - knack to be patronized by fellow earthlings dressed in fancy robes who claim to have seen the light and drag me into the blinding arena of a church run like a business. I have been raised Roman Catholic and enjoy my life without it, having replaced mystification of unexplainable things with the acceptance of the fact that I simply don't have all the answers.
Current Music (Spotify enhanced): Zazie – Un Peu Beaucoup
Back, not for long
Back in London, but barely for enough time to have 2 formal dinners to go to, 5 showers and 2 nights of sleep before taking off for South Africa. Monday off to Khartoum (don't ask!) before getting into Cape Town Tuesday evening. Two weeks of bliss and fun ahead I can hardly await it.
More later...
Current Music (Spotify enhanced): Najoua Belyzel – M (Hey, Hey, Hey)
More later...
Current Music (Spotify enhanced): Najoua Belyzel – M (Hey, Hey, Hey)
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