Pizza pie…

CHRIS BENNETT tries a slice of humble pie…

SCARCELY a Sunday goes by without the newspapers telling me something has to be done to eradicate poverty. This, clearly has nothing to do with the poor, nor with the alleviation of their unfortunate circumstances, if in fact those circumstances are unfortunate.

It has a great deal to do with the empty rhetoric with which our parliamentarians and councillors jump at any chance to show themselves in a good light. Not that there is much chance of that happening.

The poor, as somebody once said, you will have with you always. More recently, in fact last week in the Travel section of the Telegraph, a lady of some note was holidaying at her favourite place, Kerala, in south India. She made this telling observation: don’t confuse poverty with squalor.

I bought a pizza the other day; in fact I bought two (the plural, as I am sure you know, is pizze), from the newly opened parlour in Port Edward. It is where the Kentucky used to be.

The price, of course, was ludicrous. Interesting, isn’t it, that the convenience of these fast foods in the minds of our less fortunate brethren seems heavily to outweigh the cost. Fair enough.

I pondered the pizze.

The origins of this interesting food are lost in antiquity. However, certain erudite food historians, especially that eloquent Welshwoman Elizabeth David, have left us food for thought on the matter.

In her travels before and after World War II, Mrs David, who was fluent in French and German, spent considerable time studying the food of that part of the Mediterranean coast that embraces both France and Italy, the provinces of Provence (the first of the Roman conquests, the Provincia Romana) and Liguria, an ancient land more Greek than Roman. This area is called the Blue Hills, or Cote d’Azure.

The civilisation here, and hence the food, is very, very old. Each side of the border has its styles for what we now call pizza, but both are essentially the same ingredients.

Mrs David has this to say:

“About the pizza tribe a whole book could be written. In its genuine and original form a primitive dish of bread dough spread with tomatoes and mozarrella cheese, baked in a very hot oven, the Neapolitian Pizza is a beautiful thing to look at, and extremely substantial to eat; coarse food, to accompany copious glasses of rough wine.

“There are pizza made with mussels, with mushrooms, with ham; the Ligurian pizza closely resembles the Provencal pissaladiera, with onions, black olives and anchovies.”

So it was originally food for the poor and the not so poor. Would that it were so today.

The origins of the word were not very clear. Google suggested a relationship to the Greek pitta, but I have a doubt about that.

Whatever the case enjoy your pizza and remember the poor, who were probably eating pizza in Liguria five thousand years ago, and still are, only more of it, will always be here to eat pizza. As far as I can make out the squalid are not pizzafisti.

Elizabeth David: Italian Food; Macdonald, London 1966; page 132.

Macmillan Encyclopedia Vol 7: Macmillan, London 1984; page 258.

Crossed lines…

CHRIS BENNETT ponders how we talk to each other.

GLOBAL warming has been high on the discussion list along the South Coast these past few weeks. It seems, so far, to have been a fairly cold October down here, and what with the floods in India and poor old Samoa’s tsunami, who knows?

And now we see the great Copenhagen conference. The idea is for the world’s great minds to discuss global warming and its implications for humanity. I, for one, do not perceive the planet earth being under any kind of serious threat, but the human population certainly seems to be. Let’s hope that those attending the conference can talk to each other.

On several occasions in this column I have bemoaned the sorrowful standard of English taught, not only here, but all over South Africa. The burgeoning use of the awful sms-speak among the population is a disturbing trend. It has now found its way into emails, and doubtless newspapers will soon follow.

The problem lies in two things, as I see it. In the first place those who use sms-speak usually have nothing to say. If they have something to say they have a problem. Idea cannot be expressed through this contrived nonsense.

I recently read (about a week ago) a quote by an English writer, Raymond Tallis. I read it twice.

“The centuries of prattle, of air time and screen time, the miles of column inches, are a sickening misuse of the gift of life; of health and adequate nutrition, of freedom from oppression, of the access we now have to the world of knowledge and the arts. They are stolen from thought about, or discussion of, things that are truly important or worthwhile; fighting poverty, disease and the iniquities and injustice of the world; the profound joy afforded by literature and the arts; questions about the meaningful purpose of life.” *

Food for thought if ever I saw it.

Copenhagen will come and go. It will, in all probability, achieve nothing.

But we can do something, and that is to instil into our young the love for language, and at the risk of being pilloried (or worse) I mean the English language.

It is through this medium that the world communicates, and the fact Julius Malema could not find the hermaphrodite in his Zulu dictionary helps no one, least of all Mr Malema.

Should some of the money from the forthcoming football festival find its way into the library shelves of our schools and the legitimate pockets of our poorly paid English teachers, then the future will be a good one.

*Raymond Tallis is a writer and physician. His latest book is The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head (Atlantic Books). Tanya Potts at Ramsgate Stationers will know about it.

Piers' peers…

CHRIS BENNETT considers a line with hooks and sinkers.

A COUPLE of weeks ago, as I strolled along the promenade at the Strand in Somerset West, I stopped to admire the pier.

It is a completely different design from our rather elegant and shabby pier at Margate. The one in the Strand is long and straight. A couple of fishermen were casting their lines from the sea wall and I asked why the pier was closed. Apparently it had become dangerous. To whom, I asked. To children. I thought here we go again.

Children have no business being on a pier, unless there is a carnival at the end of it, in which case they can hang on to parental hands.

You will have noticed that in this depressing age of litigation-mania it is not possible to enter any premises whatsoever safe in the knowledge that if some prat drops a lavatory on your head from a dizzy height it will be your fault. If the garage man prangs your precious Bentley it is your fault, and so the litany drags on, interminable in its gloom.

My guess is that the pier at the Strand is about the same age, maybe even older, than the decaying molars of our once fine structure.

What I cannot understand is why these things have been allowed to happen. Not so long ago some of our councillors (it had to be more than one because everything is done by committee) assured the good people of Margate, and come to that the bad, that the pier would be rebuilt.

Not before the 2010 World Cup it won’t; and that is what we should have been aiming at five years ago.

The pier’s purpose seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the line. It was one of the great attractions, as piers usually are. There are those of us who can sit on the beach, and then there are those of us who enjoy the paraphernalia and patience that make a good fisherman. They could no sooner sit on the beach than, say, read a book.

Added to this many of the fishermen of Margate come from inland, especially during the quiet season. They fish for different reasons; some for sport, some for gain and some to feed their families.

That our council has not been able to grasp these simple facts is perhaps understandable; what is not so easy to see is why the work has not been done. Maybe the problem at the Strand is the same. Nobody knows how to build a pier any more. The operating memory has gone. Nobody has been trained.

Looking on the bright side of things, the council has been quite diligent of late in keeping most things in order. The verges are well kept, and, with some exceptions, the roads are good.

Talking of roads, I hear that the turnoff to Munster on the Ezinqoleni to Port Edward road, which was recently tarred, will have to be done again.

Now I wonder why?

Whale Runner…

CHRIS BENNETT has been watching the progress of a friend in New Zealand, former South Coaster, Larry Routledge.

EARLY one morning, after our return from three weeks of Cape beaches, vineyards and all the mundane things that go to make a fine holiday, I looked out from the stoep to see a humpback breaching.

Now there is little unusual about that in this part of the world, I’ll grant you. Except that I had just finished reading my friend Larry’s blog. Larry Routledge is a South African in New Zealand, with strong South Coast connections. He is the eldest son of Tegwyn Christie of Palm Beach.

Larry is one of those handy people who can make anything. The bigger, the better. He is working with a non-profit organisation whose aim in life is to put the Japanese whaling industry on a par with the dodo.

Larry’s blog can be seen at http://larryroutledge.blogtown.co.nz/2009/09/13/the-beginning/ .

Photos of one of the boats involved are shown, along with the story so far. The whole exercise will consist of three ships and a jetski. I can’t imagine what the jetski is for.

The crew will be operating in the deep blue bitterly cold waters of the Antarctic, a far cry from the lovely summer warmth Palm Beach.

For those of us who see whales almost everyday the idea of an activity so archaic as whaling is a bit difficult to swallow. The usual excuse put forward by the Japanese, and, I presume, the Icelanders, is research. But do we need to hunt and kill these immense mammals to learn more about them?

They communicate with each other through their exquisite whalesong, among other means. They play and frolic with their young of the coast of Margate and all the villages of this enchanted coast; and they do this year in and year out, as they migrate to and from their breeding grounds a little further to the north.

Young people like Larry Routledge, who is in frequent touch with friends on the coast through email, has made some interesting comments. Here is one of them:

“So the lads at the boatyard have been working flat out to finish the base coat and the first sections of the top coat were applied late on Friday. The finish will be matt black. There’s been an awful lot of work done on the hull and four more layers of Kevlar have been added for protection against the ice we’re likely to encounter down there. Final planning on the jetski ramp has been completed and the pieces are being made up. The prop shafts have been overhauled and were delivered on Thursday. These will be put in early next week once the painting has been completed. The rudder bits are on site too and will be put in after the shafts.

The jetski itself is getting the same matt black finish as the Earthrace and I have been doing that this week. That involves a whole lot of sanding and elbow grease but the result is looking promising. It gets its final coat on Monday and assembly on Tuesday.”

As far as I can make out the matt black is to help in deterring radar detection – stealth technology. A sort of Starfish Wars.

I wish them well and will occasionally add a note to the column about their progress. They will soon be in the news on a TV near you.

Heart and hearth...

CHRIS BENNETT returns from a month in the Fairest cape…

COMING home always seems to be the best part of a journey; to me, and I think to the majority of us.

I miss the ones that matter most: the Widow Christie and the bewitching Samantha; Leon, the diviner and his wife Karin, dog, fish and plant whisperer. There is nowhere quite like home.

Seeing so much of the coastline and the splendid ocean around Africa’s spectacular east and south coast made me very aware of how fortunate we are to live in this particular corner of the world. The weather is, usually, comfortable and the green valleys of banana and sugar reassuring, in that someone, somewhere is growing food. The dry scrubland of the Eastern Cape has its own beauty, but it is still dry scrubland.

Driving on the N2 from the Cape to Natal revealed some interesting road behaviour. By and large, all the drivers were courteous and considerate, which tended to increase my despair for our lot here on the South Coast.

The motorway from King William’s Town to East London is huge and wide; the planned N2 route from Southbroom to Mthatha, which is what the boffins have in mind as far as I can make out, makes even less sense when you see so little use of the route. Bypassing Mthatha would be a step in the right direction and cost a lot less. However, as we all seem to surmise, there are all sorts of wheels within wheels on this project.

Having travelled from the glorious vineyards of the Cape, the leafy lanes and avenues of the delicious Stellenbosch and up along the five hundred kilometres of the coast, with its magnificent barrier of rock all along the way, the Langkloof, there seems to be no great threat to mother earth. I can’t help wondering if the threat is not more to the human race than the planet. Everywhere things grow and thrive, except in the shanty towns sprawling across the land, with seemingly neither hope nor future.

The drive down to the Cape, via Kokstad, Matatiele, Elliot, Queenstown, Cradock and Graaf Reinet; Prince Alfred’s Pass, Knysna and the Wilderness, and finally the wonderful Sir Lowry’s Pass down into Somerset West, was pure pleasure. It may take a little longer and be a little further, but it is very beautiful – to my eyes anyway.

Coming home via the forlorn Grahamstown, nearing its last legs, King William’s Town, much changed since William IV expired and was followed on the throne by his niece, Victoria, and sleepy Gonubie, was a matter of travel rather than touring.

The sight of the rolling hills of sugar cane brought a bit of a lump to my throat as I neared Esinqoleni to turn right and take the peaceful little back road to Port Edward.

All was well at home, excepting that for the first time in forty-something years there was no wagging tail to greet us.

But that is another story.

Down the road a bit…

CHRIS BENNETT has been taking a look at the Karoo and the Cape.

A FEW days spent down in the Cape have been a tonic. My travelling companion was keen to see the Cape again, especially in the spring. The Karoo between the glorious Graaf Reinet and the forlorn dorp Uniondale was a rhapsody of colour.

I am colour-blind; however, my companion is not and he pointed out much which I would otherwise have missed.

It is a funny thing, colour-blindness. Very few women are affected by it but nearly ten percent of the male Caucasian population has to put up with it.

I have always been surprised at how ignorant people are about how we see things. Don’t they ever talk to their optometrists? I seldom see green at all. I see red, yellow and blue. Add the yellow and the blue and I shall see whichever is the predominant colour in the mix. If the mix is a perfect balance I shall be confused; not a difficult thing. Similarly purple is either red or blue.

But what about traffic lights, say the unschooled. Well, in the first place they are stacked and in the second place they are three perfectly distinguishable bright colours: Dark red, light red and blue. Which I am sure you find very funny, although I would prefer it if you didn’t.

The dazzling spring sunlight in the awe inspiring Prince Alfred’s Pass between Uniondale and Knysna is one of the wonders of our land. The road seems to be narrower than the equally breathtaking Swartberg pass, and the 18 kilometre drive wends its way through gorges of what look like the product of some mad giant confectioner, great twisted ropes of rock, loops and whorls that play tricks on the mind.

The drive takes the best part of three hours.

My first visit to Knysna in about fifteen years was rewarded with a look around the beautiful waterfront centre they have built. It echoes the timber clad past of this pretty town, and is refreshingly free of canyons of concrete. We stayed in Robin and Dawn Whales’s lovely place, high on the hill overlooking the tranquil lagoon. One other couple were guests there, whose car also had an NPS number plate. They had recently moved from Soutbroom to Port Alfred. A small world.

Council’s seem to have a thing about fixing broken piers. A walk down the road from our flat on the beach at The Strand in False Bay took us to the long and inviting fishing pier. It was closed; permanently.

The notice attached said it had become a danger to the public. I thought of our lovely pier at Margate. What became of all the engineers and architects.

Or maybe I should be asking what became of all the money?

Spring rolls on…

Preparing for a drive around the country, CHRIS BENNETT was confronted with charm and courtesy on the South Coast.

THE first green, for which the Italians have the beautiful word ‘primavera’, and for which we use ‘spring’, is the most sparkling of all the splendid seasonal carpets that unroll across South Africa during the year.

Admittedly, on the South Coast this year we experienced a quick reversion to winter, with rain and low temperatures to dampen our spring enthusiasm.

I was delighted to find an outbreak of kindness and helpfulness in a number of businesses as I prepared to set off on a long and winding journey around the country to help a friend see the country he loves and will soon have to leave.

Padkos was a bit of a problem. I like to take things like liver patties, which are good eaten cold by the side of the road, along with coffee from the flask. My friend was not up to making the patties and I didn’t know where to begin.

However, the day was saved by the OK Grocers in Port Edward, which has, unsurprisingly, won the regional franchise of the year award this year. Those of you who have know the shop for some time will appreciate the work the Llewellyn family has put into it. The butcher made scotch eggs for us as padkos. They were quite brilliant and full of the joys of spring when eaten on a cold early morning in the middle of the Karoo.

On another occasion I was searching for two litre bottles of a ‘lite’ cool drink from the world’s biggest manufacturer. I gather deliveries in this part of the world have gone rather awry. But once again a local shop manageress, this time at the Spar in Manaba, took some plain Coke to her neighbour, a bottle store, and swopped it on my behalf. Service above and beyond the call of duty, I think.

The third experience was buying new tyres for the car. The man who has been in charge of my car’s well-being since I bought it more than three years ago, the excellent Sadah Govender, sent me over to the tyre shop of one Ahmed, a man of no mean mystique, who could talk the hind wheel off a Golf.

He sold me new tyres, gave me useful advice and offered his blessing on my long journey. Again, unsolicited, welcome and as fresh as spring, his thoughts were generous and kind. Spring was in the air.

My friend and colleague, Dave Holt-Biddle, came for a light lunch; he and Sue were bearers of tour guides and maps – more than enough, and again a kindness as fresh as the feathery tips of the native tree that the weavers turn into a sort of avian condominium block at this bright and cheerful time of the year.

So off we went on a Saturday morning bound for the deplorable Kokstad, the pretty Matatiele and the little town of Elliot, which appeared to be celebrating spring with the world’s most extravagant litter festival. Ah well…

Stocks and snares...

Driving along the roads of the South Coast is becoming a misery, writes CHRIS BENNETT.

YOU know, I am really sick and tired of it. I did not devise the speed limits on our roads, although I seem to have little trouble understanding the nature of the road surface, its route and width and why the speed limit imposed was chosen. It is not, to use that silly expression, rocket science.

But living near Munster and driving regularly to Margate, Port Edward or, God forbid, the depressing Port Shepstone, I am constantly obliged to break the law or drive dangerously.

Taxi drivers; what breed of vipers spawned these loathsome creatures beats me. I was overtaken a couple of days ago (I was traveling well above the 80km/h limit), by some crazed hooligan driving one of these new larger than life death traps which the government, in its exquisite insanity, seems to have thought might save lives. Well they won't. There will be just as many accidents, only with a much more efficient death rate. Lots of lovely mothers and pregnant schoolgirls.

This particular vehicle (with an Eastern Cape registration) overtook me, downhill, at the approach to the San Lameer Country Club. The irony may have escaped the driver's attention. Needless to say there was a sleek Mercedes (a bit like Chris Bangle's awful BMWs, but a little less crass) heading for an eternal meeting with this amazing, overladen (my impression) 'taxi'.

I slowed down and looked for an escape route. The 'taxi' missed the headlight-flashing Merc by about a metre.

What is it with all these stupifyingly mindless people who must travel as fast as the laws of physics will allow? So they get there 45 seconds earlier than expected. So?

The apologists tell me that it is all the fault of the taxi owners, who impose too heavy a demand on their drivers. Balls. (For tennis, of course. This is, after all a family newspaper).

Boris Johnson has the answer.

He, the Mayor of London, recently wrote in the Telegraph that the first thing the next British prime minister should do is to get rid of the fleet of ministerial cars. I hope you are reading this Mme Mayor. They serve, the cars that is, no recognisable purpose, beyond the bolstering of the occupant’s sense of self-importance.

Much the same can be said about those drivers who cannot contain themselves with in the speed limits set by our, presumably, well-informed legislators.

I am not very much in favour of the death penalty because it carries so little humiliation. Can't we bring back the stocks?

The very idea of the national education minister, one Blade Nzimanze, being provided with a R1,1 million car (another Bangle kitschstuk) is a neat comment on the political party of which he is not only a member but a leader, or Comrade in Chief. What is wrong with the bus?

Those who know about these things will no doubt explain that it is the poor man’s insecurity that causes this sort of thing.

Anyone for tennis?

PS: Chris Bangle is an Englishman who lives in California and designs motorcars for the Bavarian Motor Works.

Whistle stop…

A recent outing to the shops brought CHRIS BENNETT rich rewards.

A SENSE of humour is a precious thing; and, as the Germans tell me, no laughing matter.

I am a regular, if not all that frequent, visitor to and customer of that most excellent refuge for troubled souls, ranging from schoolchildren to the elderly, from the desperate to be informed to the desperately over-informed - the bookshop in the Hibiscus Mall, a certain Ramsgate Stationers.

Of course the obvious place to find some humour, the laughter in other men’s eyes, is a bookshop. Not only humour, but wit. A lovely word that. Wit, related quite closely to the Afrikaans word ‘weet’, is fast becoming rather archaic.

This is not altogether surprising, considering that the faculty of wit is diminishing about as quickly as the ability to marshal thoughts and then write them down.

Given that these days most of the big bookshops, Exclusive Books and others of that ilk, are sausage machine repositories, I would place the Potts’ family’s extraordinary business in Margate in the top five in this country, notwithstanding their lack of an antiquarian section, something I can well understand.

It was Shakespeare who admonished pretension with the phrase "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit".

Wit is usually quite poignant and almost always intellectually delightful. Books on wit abound in all good bookshops, but wit does not abound in all good meetings of men, and more’s the pity.

The thin yet permeable membrane that separates wit from humour, while allowing them to embrace, is an elusive thing. On my most recent call at RS I was waiting to pay at the counter, occupied by the enchantingly disparate group of intelligent women who serve there and who suffer fools with a compassionate sigh, when my eye was drawn to a small, undecorated cardboard box, a little box that had been cut out from a bigger.

It contained a fine example of a policeman’s whistle; it also contained a cautionary tale: Please do not blow!

My eyes watered with sheer delight! Not only was this humour and wit in love, it was pure, joyful stimulation for the tired and fragile mind that was mine at that moment. It was so funny, to me, that I could not possibly have said anything to anyone - until now.

It occurs to me that the younger among you, in fact most of you, will be singularly unacquainted with the policeman’s whistle, so here is Wiki on the subject:

In England since the Metropolitan Police inception in 1829, officers have been issued with the "Metropolitan" whistle. Prior to this, police used hand rattles, with whistles only being used as musical instruments or toys. Both rattles and whistles were used to call for back-up in areas where neighbourhood beats overlapped, and following their success in London, the whistle was adopted by most counties in England.

J Stevens and Son and J Dixon and Sons (Dock Green?) made police whistles from around the 1840s; T Yates made Beaufort whistles for the Liverpool Police in the 1870s. The 1880s and 1890s saw police whistles made by W Dowler and Son, Hudsons, Barralls, and several other worthies.

Today, of course, all over the world, policemen all have walkie/talkies. And I don’t mean chicken feet and heads.

For the rest of the day I whistled a happy tune.

Hard Times…

CHRIS BENNETT found quite a surprise in a recent edition of this newspaper.

AMONG the many excellent essays written for the South Coast Herald over recent years, the one on reflections of the Margate of the very early seventies was, for me, a particular gem.

I was about thirty in 1970 and at the height of what, essentially, has been a very enjoyable and rewarding career as a journalist, mostly in radio and newspapers, but with the occasional dip into the delightful shallows of the magazine world and even an adventurous jump into the deep end of the murky waters of television.

Lea Jacobs in her lovely piece captured the fragile atmosphere of the time. Both the politically curious nature of our world in those days and the more complex and disturbing indication of the relatively low cost of living, were most revealing.

I used to glibly dismiss such comparisons as rather silly, even childish. No more.

Jacobs’s article reflected some interesting prices, as they usually do, but only on examining her research did I realise the weightiness of the point she was making, albeit more in jest than anger. The car prices seemed like a joke.

Around 1974 I was living in what was then a charming suburb of Johannesburg called Troyville. What connection it had with the ancient Greeks or the lovely Helen, I never found out.

I often walked down to the bottom of the hill and Commissioner Street where the SABC studios were situated, as they had been since the heady days of the likes of René Caprara and Gladys Dixon; who, indeed?

On the way down to the studios I passed a large motor firm (Barlow Motors?), with spanking new showrooms with shining widows displaying, usually parked on carpeting with a sort of funereal reverence, new cars from BMC. Or it may even have metamorphosed by then into the disastrous British Leyland, arguably the biggest failure in industrial history, comparable only with the Comrade Petrushka Ivanova People’s Tractor Parts Factory in Irkutsk in the glorious USSR.

But I digress; one can in a column because it helps with centimetres.

One morning I pressed my youthful thirty-something nose into the plate glass and sighed, looking with ill-concealed longing at a bright red Mini. It was so, so beautiful; and so, so much money as to beyond my wildest moments of sobriety. It cost R1 900. New; out of the box, licensed and ready to go.

I fled, of course.

My salary in those days was about R234, from which there were things like rent, food, wine, laundry, wine, clothes and so on to provide, not to mention the pension (eventually screwed up) and medical aid (ditto); and don’t even think about the wine.

When I see the fiscal rape of my country today I harbour no anger, but rather a lot of sorrow and not a little shame.

Reading Lea’s column made me realise that things really were cheaper then. Nowadays we can afford little, and when I went into town the other day I noticed they had repossessed my bank.

Rumours that the new one will be in the shape of a pagoda are, I am told, completely unfounded and a scurrilous lie.

Well, they would be, wouldn’t they?

A fishy tail…

CHRIS BENNETT was, like many, saddened by the departure of the sardine shoals.

A RATHER stormy week, what with the August winds and one thing and another.

A walk on the beach does certainly clear the mind, especially when the mind has been a bit preoccupied with a poorly friend.

We had been discussing the recent ‘season’, and what a bit of a flop it had been. The visitors seemed to be fewer and the sardines yet fewer. There was once small flurry of activity in the beach opposite my house.

It lasted most of the morning and we, my visitors and I, watched the diving birds, failing like Kamikaze squadrons, and the shimmering of the barely concealed little fishes just beneath the waves.

There seems to be some controversy around the story of these tiny creatures.

Firstly, though, it is useful to remember that they are called sardines and pilchards. Both names are in use on the labels of tins.

The preservation of sardines was long the domain of the Portuguese, and the theory has it that their’s were the best because of the salt used to keep them. The Portuguese were one of the early providers of bay salt (as opposed to sea-salt) to England, where the salt curing of fish, or smoke curing in the case of those delicious kippers (if ever you are in Scotland try Arbroath Smokeys), acquired great importance in the time before refrigeration.

Bay salt, of which Maldon in Essex produces surely the finest, is evaporated by the warmth of the sun in large pans on the shoreline. Sea salt is evaporated by artificial heat.

On my map of the England of 886, much of which would have been according to the Venerable Bede, our first historian, writer and cartographer, and the patron of all writers and historians, Maldon was on the map (literally) when the Danes arrived to knock a little sense into the heads of the locals. They, and maybe even the Romans, had used Maldon salt. You can get it at Pick ’n Pay.

Bede’s most important, and famous work, which this remarkable man finished in about 731, was “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People”, but I am sure you knew that.

Back to the sardines.

Although the Portuguese are the most closely associated with this delicious and healthy food, it does seem that the chaps on the Mediterranean Island of Sardinia may have a small stake in the claim for originality. And so do the French, of course. Well, they would, wouldn’t they now?

The French insist that the delicacy of their sardines comes from the exceptional beauty and fineness of the olive oil used in the cannin process. Before canning was invented the Atlantic Port of nantes became quite famous for its jars of preserved sardines.

My vote goes to the Sardinians because on their products, pressed and salted mullet roe, was at the feast celebrating the crowing of King James II. That was in 1685.

So, let’s hope that next years June yields a bit more than gannets for our entertainment.

Now I must go and feed the birds.

Keeping the balls in the air…

CHRIS BENNETT has spent a few weeks visiting the halt and the lame.

ABOUT a month ago I was a daily visitor to the Margate Netcare Hospital. On one occasion I needed the loo and found one opposite a certain Dr Swallow's rooms (the name is my invention, though crossword fanatics might crack the code).

A burly young man was in the process of locking the door to the lavatory for men, so I asked him for the key. He rather pompously in formed me that these facilities were for the use of Dr Swallow's patients only.

Now there are times when I am the very cream at the top of the milk of human kindness; and there are times when I curdle, and would cheerfully kick young men who show no respect to their elders in the tennis balls, my liege. This was what you might call a ‘Hank Cinq’ moment.

My gripe, for a gripe it is, notwithstanding my deep admiration for this admirable institution and its similarly admirable staff, is with the image projected. The image not so much as the surliness of youth, as of a hospital that does not care, its core function I would have thought.

I asked to see the manager/administrator/steeringperson to register my dismay. He was a young man, a patient man and a man of some common sense. He appreciated my point; I emphasised that I was more concerned with what the hospital was doing to its own image than anything else, hospitals being what they are these days; understaffed and over worked as few other institutions are.

In a month of visiting this hospital regularly I have encountered the most refreshing, and reassuring, courtesy from the women who man the registration desk, a task which would make Job weep, to the medics – noble to a man, the nursing staff, whose humour and wit, especially on the surgical ward, are hugely appreciated, and the friendly cleaners and sorters out of problems.

I cannot remember when I last encountered such a buoyant and pleasant team of people.

I do, however, and indeed I would, wouldn’t I, have a little footnote to add to this paean of praise, praise richly deserved.

I have reached the conclusion that there must be an angel in charge of the new building operation at the hospital, the busy construction of more suites. The angel is in all probability, I suspect, a saint in waiting: the Blessed Alphaeus Hinge. This young saint has been put to work as an apprentice, and at his canonisation will become St Alphaeus Hinge, Patron Saint of Door Slammers. He excels in his work, believe you me.

In case you were wondering, you may recall the scene with the French ambassador in Henry V. He conveys the Dauphin’s message and gift of treasure for the youthful Henry, both of which were insulting. The young king turns to his uncle, the Earl of Exeter and asks, “What treasure, uncle?”, to which Exeter replies, “Tennis balls, my liege”.

A bit obscure I admit, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway.

Clerks in unholy orders…

CHRIS BENNETT has been reflecting on the glittering displays of rubbish in our streets these days.

I SAW a lumbering 4x4 in town the other day. It gleamed black and shiny, fat with dark windows and thumping great chrome roll bars, seemingly designed more to intimidate the onlooker than protect the occupants.

It sported, for want of a better word, the number plate NPS 1. This made me think that it was the runabout of the mayor of this pretty and popular coastline.

Now don't get me wrong(ly). I am against neither conspicuously bad taste nor conspicuous number plates; but "Times", to quote the other Dylan, "they are a-changin'". Fast.

Would you not think that during an increasingly vicious cycle of economic woes, and a spiralling food price index, not to mention an ever louder people’s cry against corruption, a less obvious form of self aggrandisement on the part of the clerks and their cronies would be a good thing?

The following gem by Peter van der Merwe was in the M&G last week:

“Then let’s talk about our esteemed minister of communications, Siphiwe Nyanda. The man clearly likes his bling. How much does Mr Nyanda like his bling? Oh, you have no idea. No sooner was the ink dry on his new employment contract than his mind turned to the biggest challenge he could find in his portfolio: how to pillage the electorate most effectively.

“His response was mundane only in its lack of imagination: he purchased not one, but TWO BMW 750i sedans for the trifling sum of R2.2 million. One for his office in Cape Town and one for his office in Pretoria.”

I later read that a minister in the cabinet (and we have more ministers than most of the population have had hot dinners) explained that no rules were broken in the purchase of these excesses. Really? That is what most members of parliament in London said. Then, surely, it is time to change the rules.

The cry by various bigwigs that the disturbances in Gauteng are the work of the “criminal element”, whatever that may be, was at best pathetic and at worst embarrassing. The delivery of services for the past decade has been little short of appalling. People, especially people who vote are not stupid; misguided, sometimes, but not stupid. There is no problem with service delivery; it is the management of that delivery that is the probem.

As regular readers of this column know, I am a frequent visitor to Nzimakwe, where I have quite a few more readers. My brother, who recently visited the area (he is a human rights specialist) was moved to observe of Thongasi and Nzimakwe, “There seems quite a lot still to be done”. I refrained from comment.

Our president, Mr Zuma (I presume he is still the president; he seems to have been seen and never heard of again), has commendably come down hard, verbally, on corruption.

Surely the clerks of menial and slightly more than menial status should operate with a car pool of Citi Golfs, Polos and Yarises, preferably white (the racially sensitive should note that the reason for this choice of colour is that it reflects the heat of the sun and avoids the need for expensive air-conditioning).

Wigs of the slightly larger variety might have a couple of Corollas or Elantras at their disposal; but no Mercs, no Beemers, no Audis, no Volvos or other types of material excess (echoes of the French revolution?) which might lead to the inflammation of the passions of the starving voters.

Just a thought in passing, you understand.

Blue in the tooth…

Recent surveys in Europe have shown that people with time to think and research, which usually means older, retired people, are likely to live longer and more happily, or so CHRIS BENNETT found out.

MY sister-in-law, a Dane, can claim descent from Harald Bluetooth, or Harald Blåtand, as she would spell it. My brother, rather shamelessly I thought, pointed out that it was this Harald who raped and pillaged our native village of Grimsby, at the mouth of the River Humber on the east coast of England (the land of the Angles) about 1100 years ago. My brother has a long memory.

Harald was actually a rather nice man, as men went in those days. He was baptised by the monk Popo in around 950 (that was the year, not the time of the morning), and proceeded to unite all Danes into one nation. That nation he converted to Christianity.

Until then there had been lots of little nations, each with its own king and each with its own axe to grind - usually a two-handed battle axe, which one did not question - and each with its own ideas about how things should be done and who should marry whom and so on and so forth. Not much has changed, has it?

Harald was effectively the first King (the Danish is Kong, I am told) of Denmark, hence King Harald I. Although the bond was brief, he united all the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes under one king, himself naturally, for a time.

I have to assume that he had a blue tooth, for his more formal name was Harald Gormson, his father being the great leader Gorm; a name to toy with if ever I saw one.

But of course to Danes today, or at least to many of them, he was a super-hero. And in case you are wondering why I should be telling you all this, read on, McDuff.

Harald’s name would have been written, though probably not by the lad himself, in what, as I am sure you know, are called ‘runes’, which were essentially letters which could be easily carved into trees, rocks and people you didn’t like much.

Harald’s initials, H and B, are drawn in the runes used in Old Norse. Bound, or written together, the two runes for H and B form the symbol at the top of this blog.

It is probably familiar to you. You will find it in glowing blue at the right bottom corner of your computer, laptop, smartphone or similar device.

It is, of course, the international logo for the data transfer system we call Bluetooth, which is used to unite, seamlessly and cordlessly, different devices such as smartphones, iPods, laptops and so on, as Harald did with those squabbling Vikings all those years ago.

Aren’t we nice?

I hope I haven’t runed your day.

Papering over the cracks…

After years of unmitigated rubbish on ‘talk radio’ CHRIS BENNETT finds there is hope in the on-line newspaper.

THERE is a flesh and blood aspect to reading papers online. Take this week's little exchange on the subject of Shakespeare’s plot lines in the Times, or it might have been the Spectator. The twinkle in the words of Matthew Parris and his challenger (and possibly champion) would not have had the same frisson in a newspaper, methinks. It was the speed of her reply to Parris’s comments that gave the tweak to the occasion.

Although there remains, in the minds of some newspaper proprietors, serious doubt that the internet is little more than a flash in the chip pan, reality, harsh as only reality can be in this age of virtual everything, is quietly pointing the way; leading the field, as it were.

Newspapers, the more pompous of which refer to their printed versions as “fibre editions”, as though they were some new fangled dietary supplement, are now assessing not so much the question of whether this would be a good time to panic, but more a question of how far up the panic scale should they aim.

The problem lies with the inability of so many to understand that the publication of one’s thoughts is no longer the secret domain of the newspapers. You can do it in the comfort of your own home. Just don’t be surprised a) if there is flak and b) how much time it takes to keep churning out a blog.

Floppy eared bunny hugging types will argue, with conviction if not much sincerity, that the newspaper and the printed book are here to stay. Well, yes. Maybe.

I would be the first to agree that the feel of a book, especially and old one, is something I should prefer not to do without. Similarly, newsprint, that smooth, husk-embedded delight to the touch on which most papers are printed, has something very special about it.

But all this is rather missing the point.

Now that we have all fallen into line with the almighty American way of doing things, our newsreaders, be they SABC, eNews, Sky or any of the others, have become unintelligible. They have been taught that a silence of more than one millisecond will cause the viewer (or even listener, as this blight is equally rotting the wireless) to lose interest.

Meaning, that kernel of garnered thought, in speech (what used to be called the spoken word in the time of professional broadcasting), is powerfully controlled by the use of the pause, and newsreading is the spoken word. Unlike the written word you cannot go back and read it again until you understand.

Consequently most television news has been reduced to slovenly, unintelligible drivel; drivel delivered at such a gabble that even were it intelligible it would remain drivel. To really find out what’s happening you need a newspaper.

This brings me to that gleaming edge of electronic news: its immediacy. The fact that the gifted writer and the eminent scholar had roseate words to exchange was nothing new. The fact that the exchange took place in what we now, rather clumsily, call real time was the diamond in the tiara.

News has become interactive; it is those with the skills needed to both marshal and succinctly to articulate their thoughts that will be the victors of the future. Reading, and writing, has never had such a weight of import, nor such a profundity of reward.

I wonder if any of our schools on the South Coast have noticed these things.

Taxing credulity

The increasingly bizarre behaviour of taxi drivers borders on a new art form, writes CHRIS BENNETT.

THE recent news of the deaths of ten people in a taxi crash near Lusikisiki has highlighted the increasingly scandalous disregard for the lives and safety of their passengers shown by South African taxi owners.

These shadowy men, the innocent among whom are tarred with the evil brush of the guilty, should be pursued, apprehended and charged. In the case of the man who owned the Toyota Quantum involved in the Lusikisiki enormity, he should be charged with ten counts of manslaughter and locked away for the rest of his life.

I remember well the days when the Toyota Hi-Ace became the taxi de rigueur. This was a long time ago and a lot (probably several thousands) of people are now dead as a result of bad driving, lack of maintenance and overloading. I would like to look at these three aspects of this appalling industry if you will bear with me.

I speak, it need hardly be said, not as an expert but as one whop has done a great deal of driving around South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, much of it in the pursuit of my line of work and some for the indescribable pleasure that Africa can offer the road traveller. I also speak with the often lopsided eye of the journalist, who speaks for those who cannot or will not.

It is not as though nothing can be done about the awful bad habits of the taxi industry, many of which are perpetrated in order to load more people, ergo more profit, into the taxis. The taxi industry is a service industry and therefore, properly, should not be making a profit. Unfortunately our government has shown itself to be incapable of managing the dustbin trucks, so managing something as complex and critical as the taxi industry ain’t gonna happen.

The bad driving of the childishly minded drivers of our taxis is attributable to several things, I do not doubt. However foremost among them has to be a sense of invincibility, a ‘lord of the roads’ mentality, and a complete lack of comprehension of the rules of the road. Were it not such a preposterous idea I would be tempted to say that taxi drivers see the rules of the road as something for aging whites, and nothing to do with the highly polished pieces of black glass that constitute our yoof.

Then we come to the matter of maintenance. This is a tricky one. To understand why maintenance is so very important you first have to grasp its central principle. The maintaining of a thing, be it the fabric of a building, the health of a man or the roadworthiness of a vehicle, is undertaken to ensure its full, and thereby profitable, usability for the duration of its expected life. Waiting until the tyres are bald and then buying “reconstructed” tyres, that is tyres that have been cut with a razorblade to look as though they have tread, is not advisable.

But the real spanner in the works is overloading. This is chumpmanship taken to the point of no return.

The designers of the taxi knew what they were doing. The physical laws that govern the stability of the taxi are altered if the passenger complement is overreached. That is common sense. But, of course, there is the profit to consider, and the driver may have little choice in the matter. Again the onus is on the owner.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the government, national and local, could sort out this problem before next year? After all we do want to impress our visitors: don’t we?

At a time like this…

Is it me or are the wheels coming off? asks Chris Bennett

WE HAVE strikes threatening to completely ruin next year’s football fiesta, the KZN government displaying a novel new style of insanity by firing close on 300 doctors (M&G 3/7/09), aeroplanes falling out of the sky and my grocer running out of poppadums.

As if that were not enough we have the spectacle of the bread making industry colluding to cheat the public; and the supermarkets (of which four biggies are involved) caught up in the same disgraceful shenanigans. And this, nogal, at a time when people are losing their jobs and food is almost beyond the reach of the increasingly sidelined poor.

Actually I shouldn’t really include Daryl in all this. He is the grocer of whom I speak, and highly at that.

The shopping centre at Munster serves a wide variety of customers and provides them with most of the essentials of life, and a lot of the not so essentials as well. There is a garage and a service centre, a good bottle store, a post office of note, and a number of hardware, gardening, swimming pool and other services at our service. The supermarket, Daryl’s home from home, is very good, sometimes excellent. At the moment the essential out of stock is poppadums. Many Herald readers will, rightly, take me to task on that one.

I know it is not the fault of the managers of supermarkets should events that are beyond their ken occur, such as head office stuffing up delivery or the auto teller breaking down, but life being what it is, customers blame those hard working managers for everything. Unfortunately that is part of the joy of being the manager of a supermarket. It is called flak. It is not difficult to sympathise with these good people; as I have said before in this column, people, by and large, are dreadful.

But there is an underlying theme to all these trying and painful episodes.

The football crisis seems to be upon us because someone somewhere has not done his homework properly and the unions are upset. The firing of the doctors, when there is an acute shortage of those excellent souls, shows little but contempt for the government's employers: that would be you and me. The aeroplanes fell out of the sky because someone somewhere had not done his homework properly. The passengers are the ones who paid the appalling price and are, sadly, in no position to be upset.

The sufferers in the pricing fiasco are the customers of all the supermarkets. Daryl is at least aware of this and doubtless he is also appalled.

In Munster we enjoy one of the most stable and peaceful lifestyles in this country, and we would like to keep it that way. I asked some of the residents of Thongasi and Nzimakwe what they thought; given that a lot of them, quite reasonably, do not think, the results were quite revealing. The Munster Centre and its Spar supermarket were the heartbeat of the area.

A few days ago I read the front page story of this most excellent newspaper and learnt of the amount of money involved in paying a bunch of junior clerks to do what are, at best simple, and at worst menial, tasks.

Minds like mine are not easily given to boggling. I have seen a few things in my trips around the block over the past half century, but for municipal workers, some of whom appear to do nothing, which is perhaps a good thing, to receive salaries and bonuses (bonuses?) of the order mentioned in this story is farcical.

It will, of course, end in tears. When the money runs out.

United Nations

During a visit to the village of Nzimakwe on the southern KwaZulu-Natal coast of South Africa, UN workers Marianne Olesen and Richard Bennett were the guests of Michael Nkosinathi Diya.

In the picture are Michael Diya, his sister Lindiwe, Marianne Olesen from Denmark, Richard Bennett, from New Zealand (Marianne's husband) and Miriam Diya, Michael's elder sister with her baby. Marianne and Richard live and work in Kathmandu. Their home is in Denmark. They paid an all-too-short visit to South Africa in June 2009.

The southern coast of KwaZulu-Natal is known for its spectacular beaches and beautiful climate. The main activities are sugar cane and banana growing, game fishing and tourism.

Ice of the tipberg…

CHRIS BENNETT recounts a delightful and hectic few days with his family.

REDISCOVERING that my brother and I are as different as two peas in a pod, has been a persistent theme during the past few days. He and my sister-in-law, Marianne, arrived in Durban after a long haul flight from their home in Kathmandu.

At the airport we had a coffee, and when paying for it Bro (Richard) asked “Do you tip in this country?” Laugh? It all ended in tears; the laughter, that is.

You see my brother Richard is a New Zealander, a country in which offering anybody a tip is not only scowled at, it is seen as an insult, largely because it carries an implication of superiority. And, when you think about it, it is a b it of an insult. Rather like giving a man a job that is beyond his capabilities, or including him in a sports team when he is second rate, because he has a black skin.

I found it interesting that New Zealand is at the top of the last Time magazine poll of the hundred best countries in which to live, with Denmark in second place. My sister-in-law is a bit miffed because in 2007 Denmark was number one and NZ number two. Marianne is Danish.

Seeing the beautiful coast through their eyes was enlightening. A daily walk on the beach was a treat; the visiting couple are great mountain walkers in their base country, Nepal.

The tipping thing recurred and recurred. It is a deplorable practise; the worst offenders being those establishments which arbitrarily add 10 percent to the bill. This is little short of fraud.

Why cannot restaurateurs employ their waiters honestly, on a salary? Why can’t shopping malls, whose profits scarcely bear thinking about, pay the car guards? I shouldn’t have to pay to take my business to your shop; any more than I should pay for service in a restaurant, be it good, bad or, worst of all, indifferent.

It is no good saying that I should tip for service. I am entitled to believe that any restaurant worth its salt would make sure that the service is of the highest standard. And as we ate at several places I needn’t tell you about that.

It seems to me to be a great pity that there is no training available for the people in this part of the world; training in hospitality that is. And if there is then it seems to be either ineffectual or a well-kept secret.

My brother and his wife work (in separate agencies) for the UN; in Richard’s case with the HRC, a body that deals with human rights. Marianne has been working with women and children in India for more than 20 years, and is fluent in Hindi. Their work is stressful, but a visit to this sublime part of the world left both of them refreshed and yearning for more – and raring to get back to work.

Which was a good thing; my brother was recalled to his post about half way through their visit to help sort out a looming problem.

Before they left, a tour of Thongasi and Nzimakwe was arranged by my friend Michael Nkosinathi Diya. It revealed a lot about the way in which our diverse nation lives and works, and brother commented on the parallels between SA and India. We were offered warm hospitality at Michael’s home; I don’t know who was the more delighted, the Diyas or the visitors.

And no, I didn’t tip Cedric, the nephew who served (with suitable deference) the refreshments.

Roads memorial…

The recent frisson of interest in the bedevilled new road project for the South Coast had Chris Bennett hunting around a bit.

PORT Edward is one of a string of little towns and villages along the east and south coast of Africa that have seen an interesting three hundred years or so. Some, like Port Elizabeth, have grown to huge conurbations, while others, like Port Shepstone, have grown to be of local, rather than national importance.

Then there is Port Grosvenor, between Port Edward and Port St Johns, now little more than a building or two and some poignant memories.

Port Edward came into being as Kennington, the same name as the south London suburb in which the great Oval cricket ground is to be found. In the case of Port Edward, the name Kennington was used because the founder’s name was Ken (TK Pringle).

Pringle, according to TV Bulpin, bought the area from Edward Stafford, after who Stafford’s Post is likely named. In 1924, in this case according to Eric Rosenthal, Pringle gave the village which had grown near his homestead, Banner Rest*, the name Port Edward, in honour of the visiting Prince of Wales, later to be the less than salubrious Duke of Windsor.

This sleepy little town has developed in a rather higgledy piggledy way; that is until now.

Rumours of roads, at least a road, have abounded in this area for a long time now. The recent announcement in the Herald of the implementation of plans to build the new N2 has woken things up a bit. Many local business people have worked hard, and successfully, to improve the lot of the little town, which now boasts an excellent shopping centre at the robot (there is only one).

Visits to the website for the new road have produced very little. I eventually gave up my attempts to find a proposed route for the road. The main topic of conversation and stoep talk around here these days is ‘where will it go?’

Where indeed? Given that the road, serious and plentiful objections notwithstanding, will be built, it would be nice to know where.

A friend not entirely unconnected with all these rather grandiose plans has suggested that it might be more practical and cheaper to build a new road across the lands from Southbroom to the low-level bridge on the old Ezinqolwezi-Bizana road and take it from there.

Should the road sail through the middle of Port Edward, which would bring, to my mind, little advantage to the town, what happens when it meets the rickety bridge at the crossing to the casino? I say rickety because it should be remembered that hooligans blew the thing up late in 2002. I gather it has never been the same since, and who can blame it? On top of that it is scarcely more than one lane wide.

I can’t help wondering, taking into account about a hundred years of administrative neglect in this part of the world, what would have happened if some bright spark had built a railway line from Port Shepstone down to Mthatha. But then, seeing that we have thrown most of the train sets away, maybe that wouldn’t have helped much.

As somebody said, we live in interesting times.

*By the way, does anyone know how Banner Rest became Banner’s Rest. There never was a Mr Banner, after all.

Tweaking the tweet…

CHRIS BENNETT has been poking his nose into other peoples business.

 

CURIOSITY has driven me to investigate Twitter, and find out if it is as mindless as it sounds.

 

It is and it isn’t. My research over a few days last week coincided with the bizarre events in Teheran which were then dominating the news. I had read in last week’s Time magazine an article by one Steven Johnson, an

American technophile and writer. The article is worth reading, and you should find it if you search Twitter (try googling search-twitter) for #timetwitter.

 

For some time now a number of friends and others who should know better, have been asking if I am on Facebook. Well, no, not as such.

 

I have visited Facebook and found out for myself what was meant by the discomfiting phrase ‘social networking’. I was immediately reminded of a time many years ago, when we had a half-decent radio service, of the tendency towards what I call the static cling and creep of talk shows.

 

Talk shows, in which the anchorman of the station uses a phone line to give listeners (screened) access to the airwaves, emerged in South Africa in the later 1980s. The first thing that the powers that be in broadcasting discovered was that talk shows were a lot cheaper than using clever people to make programmes, which meant the expenditure of a lot of money on things like royalties for music, staff to write and devise, and produce programmes.

 

Most people listen to radio because of the companionship it offers, especially to those on their own. They are aware of another presence who is, if he knows his job, addressing them as an individual, and an intelligent one at that. For older people, of whom there is no shortage on the South Coast, radio is a godsend.

 

You can listen to the radio and do just about anything. Radio is interactive; it requires the listener to excercise his imagination, whereas television simply numbs that marvellous human faculty.

 

Radio educates; television entertains. Radio also reassures, and stills the fretting mind.

 

 

 

Kate Chisholm, the radio critic of the Spectator, recently wrote about the release of statistics showing that more people in Britain listen to the radio now than ever before since its inception.

 

But money is money, and the programming bathwater of yesterday was thrown out along with the baby of  inventiveness and stimulation.

 

Social networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, seems to have attracted incalculable numbers of followers, and probably for the same reason in the rapid rise of talk radio some years ago. Which is in some ways not surprising, but in others is.

 

It is not surprising because there is a distinct similarity between Twitter and the text message, or SMS as we clumsily call it. On Twitter, which can be transmitted via the net or from your smartphone, your message is limited to 140 characters, which includes punctuation (few people use it), mood indicators (? and !) and spaces between words. These messages are called ‘tweets’. And so they should be.

 

But it is also surprising that so many people have been swept up in the wave of enthusiasm which is currently engulfing the airwaves of the chatterati. The reason I say this, and remember I have spent several hours on line looking at this lot, is that it is all so meaningless and toe-curlingly shallow. 

 

A point I should make, though, is that having followed the ructions in the aftermath of the Iranian election on Twitter (#iranelection) is that the network outstripped all other media forms for the simple reason that the messages were coming in real time; and that at about 20 a second.

 

So, although, as some boffins think, tweeting may be here to stay, I shall not succumb to being a twit.