Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
It's not about soccer
There is quite a hullabaloo going on at the moment, regarding this game thingie that is going on in South Africa. I don’t get it. As far as I can tell, the aim is to run backwards and forwards a bit, then somebody falls over. Whoever falls over best gets a chance to score a goal. Whichever team falls over best most often wins.
I get drunk and fall over quite effectively, and do it with some regularity, but unlike Brazilians with bad teeth or Englishmen with penchants for withered hookers nobody gives me millions for it. Nor would I ever deem falling over a sport, but some people insist that soccer is one.
I’m aware that billions of people like the game, but Nickelback sells millions, George W Bush got a second term and creationalists control some school boards, so clearly majorities are not to be trusted. The only advantage to the popularity of soccer is how many people it will draw to South Africa. So many things could go wrong with this sort of influx to a country whose government seems woefully inadequate to handle such an event, but Africa and Africans have a knack for pulling things off. I for one hope that mainly positive stories come from the world cup. If just some of the crowd decide to visit Africa’s most famous other attraction, the wilderness, and some fall in love with it, then maybe, just maybe I can become a fan too.
I get drunk and fall over quite effectively, and do it with some regularity, but unlike Brazilians with bad teeth or Englishmen with penchants for withered hookers nobody gives me millions for it. Nor would I ever deem falling over a sport, but some people insist that soccer is one.
I’m aware that billions of people like the game, but Nickelback sells millions, George W Bush got a second term and creationalists control some school boards, so clearly majorities are not to be trusted. The only advantage to the popularity of soccer is how many people it will draw to South Africa. So many things could go wrong with this sort of influx to a country whose government seems woefully inadequate to handle such an event, but Africa and Africans have a knack for pulling things off. I for one hope that mainly positive stories come from the world cup. If just some of the crowd decide to visit Africa’s most famous other attraction, the wilderness, and some fall in love with it, then maybe, just maybe I can become a fan too.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Five animals...
...that I most want to see (and haven't yet)
1. Mountain gorilla. I know, shame on me, so many years in Africa and I never got up to see them. Gorillas in the Mist was the last movie to make me cry (though it shames me to admit it but Monsters Inc was close - I love that film), and I feel a strange link to Diane Fossey merely because she died on my birthday.
2. Javan Rhinoceros. I have tried to find this once before, in one of only two sites it is known to still exist (two individuals were found not so long ago in Vietnam, a small miracle as they were presumed extinct in that country fifty years ago). Perhaps only thirty individuals of this entire species remain, and there are none in captivity.
3. Snow Leopard. If you need to know why, look one up in a book. Just beautiful.
4. Water Mongoose. This one is out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In all my years in the Okavango and Linyanti I never saw this relatively common species (the bird equivalent is the Quail Finch) and it bugs me.
5. Orca. Probably the easiest of this list to get to, and I have glimpsed them in the distance from Kaikoura in New Zealand, but would very much like to go kayaking with them now that they have changed their name from Killer Whales. I'm sure that has made them much more pleasant.
1. Mountain gorilla. I know, shame on me, so many years in Africa and I never got up to see them. Gorillas in the Mist was the last movie to make me cry (though it shames me to admit it but Monsters Inc was close - I love that film), and I feel a strange link to Diane Fossey merely because she died on my birthday.
2. Javan Rhinoceros. I have tried to find this once before, in one of only two sites it is known to still exist (two individuals were found not so long ago in Vietnam, a small miracle as they were presumed extinct in that country fifty years ago). Perhaps only thirty individuals of this entire species remain, and there are none in captivity.
3. Snow Leopard. If you need to know why, look one up in a book. Just beautiful.
4. Water Mongoose. This one is out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In all my years in the Okavango and Linyanti I never saw this relatively common species (the bird equivalent is the Quail Finch) and it bugs me.
5. Orca. Probably the easiest of this list to get to, and I have glimpsed them in the distance from Kaikoura in New Zealand, but would very much like to go kayaking with them now that they have changed their name from Killer Whales. I'm sure that has made them much more pleasant.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Five favourite
Cities or towns...
1. Akaroa, New Zealand - I wanted to move here when I visited in 2009. Founded by the French who didn't realise the English had already colonised the nation this small town on a cute peninsula with an exquisite, snaking bay, inspires bad writing like this sentence. Great food, places to stay, and one of the world's smallest species of dolphins make Akaroa a winner.
2. Colonia, Uruguay - Europeans say it is too European to impress them, but this little town with its old Spanish forts and cobbled streets has more charm than Jack Nicholson when you are drunk. Its quaint charm is balanced by ease of access to the insanity that is Buenos Aires, a mere hour's ferry ride across the staggeringly wide (50km) Rio Plata.
3. Sydney, Australia - this is not just because I am from there. Go to Balmoral beach on a sunny day, and you will understand why Stephen Fry once asked "Why would a sensible person want to live anywhere else?"
4. Damascus, Syria - The most welcoming people in the world. If you have been to Cairo with its ceaseless and offputting harassment, it is easy at first to mistake Damascans politeness as a sales pitch. But they genuinely just want you to like their city, their country, and the most amazing culture that has developed in the world's most continuously occupied city.
5. San Francisco, U.S.A. - another place I have lived, and it gets the nod for it - great food, possibly (and this is controversial) better than New York. You can walk San Fran and each block reveals something new, something so dramatically different it is as if you stepped through a portal.
Other notables ; Kyoto, Japan; Boston, U.S.A.; Capetown, South Africa; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; New York, U.S.A; and many more than pisco sours allow me to remember...
1. Akaroa, New Zealand - I wanted to move here when I visited in 2009. Founded by the French who didn't realise the English had already colonised the nation this small town on a cute peninsula with an exquisite, snaking bay, inspires bad writing like this sentence. Great food, places to stay, and one of the world's smallest species of dolphins make Akaroa a winner.
2. Colonia, Uruguay - Europeans say it is too European to impress them, but this little town with its old Spanish forts and cobbled streets has more charm than Jack Nicholson when you are drunk. Its quaint charm is balanced by ease of access to the insanity that is Buenos Aires, a mere hour's ferry ride across the staggeringly wide (50km) Rio Plata.
3. Sydney, Australia - this is not just because I am from there. Go to Balmoral beach on a sunny day, and you will understand why Stephen Fry once asked "Why would a sensible person want to live anywhere else?"
4. Damascus, Syria - The most welcoming people in the world. If you have been to Cairo with its ceaseless and offputting harassment, it is easy at first to mistake Damascans politeness as a sales pitch. But they genuinely just want you to like their city, their country, and the most amazing culture that has developed in the world's most continuously occupied city.
5. San Francisco, U.S.A. - another place I have lived, and it gets the nod for it - great food, possibly (and this is controversial) better than New York. You can walk San Fran and each block reveals something new, something so dramatically different it is as if you stepped through a portal.
Other notables ; Kyoto, Japan; Boston, U.S.A.; Capetown, South Africa; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; New York, U.S.A; and many more than pisco sours allow me to remember...
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