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.