– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
quote by Drake
(Canadian rapper Drake? Old essayist Nathan Drake?).
I found this on empress2inspire ‘s blog here.
She also quotes Canadian singer Leonard Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
and she improves the old saying “practice makes perfect” to
“practice makes progress”. Much better.
Go and check her out.
I’m coming down to Durban to buy a parrot. Where’s Overport? asks the ole man. Parrots can live for eighty years, so what better to get as a pet when you’re ninety five in the shade yourself?
Then the ole lady phones, all worried – as ever. Can you tell us how to get to West Road in Overport, Koosie? I say I’ll try, I’ll look it up, I’ll phone you back. I need to hatch a plot. I phone back and say, Come to my place for lunch, I’ll leave work early and I’ll take you, it’s not easy to find. She sounds dubious but she’ll try that.
She phones back, amazed. He saw sense. We’re coming for lunch, she says, relieved. A rare visit to the son’s home! She can’t see, he can’t hear, so she was dreading looking for a small parrot in a strange haystack, driving by feel and touch, with a driver very disinclined to listen to anything she has to say, and quick to blame.
When I get home they’re on my stoep and Jess has given them tea and Tommy is busy cooking lunch for everybody – pasta carbonara. My children! Bless them! I had told them, I’d love it if you’d give them a polite hello, but you needn’t stay, just make your excuses and go. They decided to completely exceed all expectations and charm the old bullets, the granma that loves them and the old goat who denies them. Proud of ’em!
Off we go to meet Sumie who has three baby African Grey Parrots in a box. His grandfather breeds them in Utrecht. The old man had asked Sumie to choose his own from the three. He checks them out on the tailgate of my bakkie in West Road Overport, picks one and now I think, Here comes the bargaining.
R2500, says Sumie. No way, says the ole man and shuffles off to the front seat of my bakkie. He comes back slowly on the uneven pavement with the bird magazine in his hand, stabbing his finger at Sumie’s ad: R2300; He gives a pained moaning, Now I have wasted my time coming all the way from Pietermaritzburg. Sumie says to me, ‘I thought I wrote R2500!‘ To the customer he says, Fine, Uncle Pieter, R2300.
And the food for free, says the ole man. That cost me R100, Uncle Pieter, I’ve just fed them, so give me R80, says Sumie. It’s my birthday on Friday (true), counters the ole man, You should give it to me as a gift. How old you’ll be? asks Sumie. Ninety Five says the ole man. So they settle on R50.
Now they debate whose box is better. Sumie has a shoebox – it’s wider. Ole man has a box some electronics came in – it’s deeper. Ole man realises if he takes Sumie’s box he gets both, so he settles on Sumie’s shoebox.
We go back home to eat chef Tom’s delicious pasta lunch, followed by ice cream and coffee, and off they go back to Maritzburg. The ole man changes into second too soon up the steep hill, has to stop and start over. He would have hated it that I heard that.
~o0o~
And I didn’t take a single photo! The parrot pic is off the internet. Damn! Well, here they are with great-grandkids:
And I just thought: When last did I post a recent pic of my favourite children? Here they are willingly posing for me:
Pests!
~o0o~
How can ANC voters possibly vote for this man!? Or for this party!? Heard around many an SA braai fire.
Well, because of their emotions. The emotion that went with the memory of first voting ANC is very powerful and is very unlikely to change.
And our emotions – yours and mine – work in exactly the same way!
Yes, they do. We do the same.
There is a part of the brain called the amygdala which is, among other things, a kind of “emotional memory center”. That’s a bit oversimplified, but essentially true; when you recall a memory that has an emotional charge, the amygdala mediates your recall of the emotion that goes along with the memory; you feel that emotion again. When you rehearse the reasons you first subscribed to your belief, you re-experience the emotions again–reinforcing your belief and making it feel more compelling.
This isn’t just a liberal vs conservative thing, either. Nor a more-educated vs less-educated thing. Its just us humans.
Say, for example, we’re afraid of nuclear power. A lot of people, particularly self-identified greenies & liberals, are afraid of nuclear. We KNOW its dangerous. If we are presented with evidence that shows that nuclear power, in terms of human deaths per terawatt-hour of power produced, is by far the safest of all forms of power generation, it is unlikely to change our minds about the dangers of nuclear power one bit. We will read it and say “no way!” or “yes, but . . “. Please read it anyway.
The most dangerous form of power generation is actually coal. In addition to killing tens of thousands of people a year, mostly because of air pollution, coal also releases quite a lot of radiation into the environment. This radiation comes from two sources. First, some of the carbon that coal is made of is in the naturally occurring radioactive isotope carbon-14; when the coal is burned, this combines with oxygen to produce radioactive gas that goes out the smokestack. Second, coal beds contain trace amounts of radioactive uranium and thorium, which remain in the ash when it’s burned; coal plants consume so much coal–huge freight trains of it–that the resulting fly ash left over from burning those millions of tons of coal is more radioactive than nuclear waste. *
But no-one is agitating for coal waste to be buried deep underground in a desert far from any towns. So many people die directly or indirectly as a result of coal-fired power generation that if we had a Chernobyl-sized meltdown every four years, it would STILL kill fewer people than coal. Not convinced? Thought not.
If we’re afraid of nuclear power, that evidence won’t make a dent in our beliefs. We would mentally go back over the reasons we’re afraid of nuclear power, and our amygdala would reactivate our fear…which in turn will prevent us from seriously considering the idea that nuclear might not be as dangerous as we feel it is.
Now – in SA in 2017 – if our argument against nuclear is financial, we’re on better ground, but we need to then ask how we could get nuclear power at a less ruinous cost. Are we doing that? Or is our amygdala preventing it?
Here’s another hot button topic: If we’re suspicious of National Health Insurance (NHI) the arguments in favour of it, the financial sums, the logic of sharing, won’t make a dent in our feelings about it. Especially if someone plants the thought of having to queue at public hospitals in our mind. Even though that’s not what National Health INSURANCE is about. Nor is the truth of public hospitals as bad as we imagine: We took Aitch’s mom and Dad to public hospitals and got great service for her hip replacement and his broken hip. BETTER service than we got for Aitch at Parklands Highly Expensive Private Hospital With Thick-Pile Carpets and Artwork on the Walls! Where she picked up a raging infection due to nurses not washing their hands.
NHI is about a national health INSURANCE plan so that all start paying towards having equal access to better health care, with all hospitals being used equally for all. The NHI website’s first words are “The NHI is a financing system . .
We’re used to being ripped off by private care and we don’t mind, because we (16% of the population) are covered for private care – and we thus enjoy the services of 79% of SA’s doctors. Often with our employer paying half. So what the actual plans for NHI actually say is unlikely to change our mind.
Anyway, we don’t need to read those plans. Our amygdala just KNOWS.
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*We have had two major nuclear disasters in sixty years: Chernobyl and Fukushima. In that time we have polluted the world with thousands of dirty coal-powered plants for 21 915 days in a row.
Thank you Franklin Veaux. See his blog where he talks about Why We’re All Idiots: Credulity, Framing, and the Entrenchment Effect and learn a bit more about what makes you (us) tick!
The ability to be happy.
A sense of humour!
The ability to be happy while also being alone.
Resilience – the ability to bounce back, the courage to come back:
Life won’t always be fair to you. The ability to bounce back and the attitude of not giving up on life is a rare trait worth trying hard to cultivate.
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The ability to make people laugh!
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The ability to forgive and forget.
The ability to learn (also from your mistakes).
The ability to let go – Of Stuff and of Guilt and of Blame.
Getting out of your comfort zone:
Being completely honest with yourself, and both strict and patient with – even kind to – yourself.
Realising how fortunate you are. The knowledge that you have enough already.
The ability to love yourself – and then to radiate that love outwards.
The willingness to try new stuff with enthusiasm.
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These answers were given by various quora.com writers. I chose the ones I liked best and can learn from!
The alcohol you people drink is called ethanol. C2H5OH. This is a molecule that, in highly technical chemistry terms, looks like a hound dog with its leg cocked. Two carbon atoms (black) are stuck together to support an oxygen head (red). Six hydrogen atoms (white) spread out over the molecule to give each of the carbon atoms two feet, the oxygen atom a nose, and the rear carbon atom a tail. Ethanol is small, mobile, water and lipid soluble, so like a dog it can get into all sorts of places that maybe it shouldn’t. Like a dog it can also (sort of) head butt you in the crotch while sniffing to find out, or let others know, where you’ve been.
And where do you people want your ethanol? Why, in your brains, of course. That’s the point, innit? You might bulldust that you drink for your nose, or your palate, or your stomach or your blood. Rubbish. You drink to get that stuff in your brain. Once in the brain, alcohol acts on the nucleus accumbens. This area is a midpoint between the reward centre of a brain and the parts that make associations and memories. Ah, those memories, right? The good ones that you remember. And then there are those that your “friends” always insist on reminding you about!
Now everyone knows that too much alcohol at once can kill you, but how? It depresses nerve function, makes you sleep and suppresses the gag reflex, so people who are passed out can choke on their own vomit, like rock stars. So if you’re a wannabe rock star but can’t sing, can’t play, can’t grow your hair – there’s always that.
The brain also controls things like breathing and heart rate, and enough alcohol can shut down those parts of the brain too. People pass out and their brains simply forget to breathe.
BUT: Alcohol also has its good side, don’t forget! Scientifically, its a solution, and according to Homer Simpson, the solution to all life problems.
It causes a bunch of dopamine to be released, hot-wiring your brain-ular system. It makes you feel confident and talkative, because it depresses some Shut Up! brain functions and deadens the Be Discreet centre. It also makes you feel good, dunnit? And invincible, right? Erudite, and a very good dancer and singer. Remember Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl?
So alcohol is brilliant and worth investing in. Also, depending on what research you choose to believe, a glass of wine per day can either not do any harm, prevent heart attacks, or make you functionally immortal. I believe the latter. Does that make me a Latter Day Saint? Long after you finally die, they’ll have to beat your liver to death with a stick. Or transplant it into some lucky recipient who can wake up in the operating theatre pre-pickled.
It’s kind of nice to know that – sometimes – relaxation, cheer, wittiness and immortality can literally be bottled. All that’s needed is to take care just how much alcohol you let into your brain at any one time.
Cheers!!
– – Paraphrased from a lovely article by Esther Inglis-Arkell. It’s worth a visit! It showcases Doug Adams’ cocktail, the ‘Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster’ from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and shows you how to set fire to grog in spectacular fashion. Marvelous stuff! Now THIS is education!
~~oo0oo~~
Tobias Gumede’s eldest child of his Inchanga family, Sepp (19), drowned in the Umgeni river this week. It was a hot day and he and some matric classmates went to the river to cool down. He couldn’t swim so sat on a rock watching the others till he couldn’t resist it, got in and disappeared. It took police dogs to find his body.
His wife Elizabeth is devastated. Her eldest son!
This last week has cost Tobias thousands. His travel and time – to Pietermaritzburg, to Pinetown – and then the funeral. Hiring a hall, providing food and drink to the crowds of people who attended. He couldn’t even guess how many. He just says VERY many.
But here’s the ugly bit: The traditional leader, the induna of the area, demanded of him two goats to ‘cleanse’ the area! Blatant exploitation and abuse. A decent government would insist leaders HELP their people, not exploit them! Luckily he contacted his induna from his birth home area of Jozini who said “Don’t give him anything, I’ll speak to him”.
It would be a simple matter to hold an indaba on what “Traditional Leaders” rights and limits are, and where they are trumped by our Constitution so there can be clear understanding that ALL citizens’ rights are protected.
But that would take courage and political will.
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(pic: Tobias with my kids Jess & Tom some years ago)
“Cyclists are people who are too old and cranky to run”
– biased quote by some pavement-pounder (by name Carien du Plessis, City Press journo, tweeter, ultra-runner).
She might have a point. This oke doesn’t look like he’d be able to run easily. He wouldn’t know whether to stay behind that thing or pass it:
Aitch did.
She introduced me to Douglas Adams’ five Hitchhikers Guide books. For years I just looked at them on our library shelf, stuck in my natural history and science rut. Of course we’ve all read about them and seen many quotes from them, like these:
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
“There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
“Don’t Panic.”
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”
“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”
“Why, what did she tell you?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
“Space, is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
After Aitch died I finally read them. All. Voraciously. How could I not get hooked with those lines and others like this:
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t”
I also read Adams’ real-life travel book on vanishing species where he says something about how the rhinos “trotted like boulders”.
I can clearly hear Aitch saying, “See?! I TOLD you! Hmph!” – triumphant grin, nose in the air.
=========ooo000ooo=========
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Adams’ artistic sensibility is both specific and elusive. He can go from distraught to delighted in the space of a modifier. He combines Gary Larson’s irony, Bill Watterson’s wistful idealism, Oscar Wilde’s keen social observation, and Dorothy Parker’s mischievousness. But set in space. In short, he is a genre all to himself.
=========ooo000ooo=========
It bugs me that our “Restaurant” and “Mostly Harmless:” books are missing from Adams’ “trilogy in four parts”, so here’s an internet pic of all five, just because.
I have thrice been ‘best man’ at a wedding. I took my duties seriously. Much rehearsal took place. At first it would look quite good:
Then someone would invariably ply me with grog . .
. . and then things would go pear-shaped. Like in this case when the canoe club heavies attacked me:
Why don’t they do this to the actual victim? I’m not the groom!
I suddenly thought of old Freddie and wondered where his books were. He came to me for his eyes and sold me a book he’d written: From Hell to the Himalayas. Later he added to it and published a second, thicker edition. Made me buy one of the new ones too! A charming and persuasive rogue was old Freddie, Colonel CF Hodgson.
He must have been about ninety in the shade in 1980 which means born ca 1890. Got pushed around in a wheelchair by his young girlfriend – probly a mere seventy year old. She was very good to him. He ordered her (and everyone else) about with supreme confidence, pointing his walking stick at things and directions to go. Yes, he was in a wheelchair but he still carried a walking stick. He was an officer in the British army after all, and was stuck in the days when that meant you were king of the world.
Having thought of him, I went looking for him. On the ‘net of course. Eventually found something on germanmilitaria.com. It seems he must have shuffled off this mortal coil, gone to the big officers mess in the sky, as his medals and his book are for sale as a bundle.
The writing on the card the medals are pinned to reads: “Bombardier to Colonel; C.F. Hodgson, Royal Field Artillery; Commissioned 8:8:17; Wounded; Wrote a book ‘From Hell To The Himalayas’; Book comes with medals and medal entitlement card”;
The seven medals (three WW1 and four WW2) and the book can all be yours for $875. The sales pitch:
An interesting grouping of seven medals ranging from WWI to WWII and a career that is documented in his written autobiography of “From Hell to the Himalayas” (King & Wilks Publishers). The medals are affixed to a section of heavy white coverstock with a handwritten notation. The medals are in order: 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal 1914-1920 (engraved “2 Lt. C.F. Hodgson”), Victory Medal (engraved “2nd Lt. C.F. Hodgson”), 1939-1945 Star, British Commonwealth Africa Star, Burma Star and the 1939-1945 War Medal. The hardcover book is a first edition, printed in 1983 with a colour dust jacket. The book measures approximately 15cm x 21cm and consists of 206 pages with a section of 12 pages with black and white photographs to the center. Also included is a black and white glossy photograph with “Col. C.F. Hodgson (France)” to the reverse, as well as photocopied pages showing his career in WWI as a Bombardier in the RFA, through to WWII.
I can’t find his books on my shelves at the moment. They’ll be here somewhere. When I find them I’ll quote some or other bombastic comment by the bombardier. I’m sure there’ll be one!
~~~oo0oo~~~
The de Havilland Tiger Moth is a tailwheel biplane first built in the 1930s. It was used by the RAF and remained in service until the early 1950s. Many of the military surplus aircraft remain in widespread use as recreational aircraft.
The de Hairless Soutar is a tale-spinning Jaguar driver first built in the early 1950s. He was used by the SAAF and remained sort-of in service until the early 1980s. Surplus to military requirements, he nevertheless is still widely seen recreationally.
He recently went for a spin in a moth-eaten jacket and sent me some pics:
Astonishingly, this plane is older than, yet in better condition than, this pilot!
~~oo0oo~~
So I’m heading into public view again after a long while ‘under the radar’. The Contact Lens Congress in Jo’burg. My shirts are looking tatty. Frayed around the collars so I need a makeover. I’ll get some new shirts. Long-sleeved. Blue-ish. And a new pair of work trousers. Dark.
Little did I know what trauma awaited me . . .
Before any doc gives you a pill he should have tested that pill to make sure A) That it’s not harmful and B) That it actually has benefit.
Right?
Randomised control trials (RCT’s) are done using the poison they want to sell vs a placebo pill to see if the shit they want to sell you actually works and doesn’t kill you. *
SO:
What about surgery?
If a surgeon says “Let me cut you, it will help you. Trust me, I’m a surgeon,” how do you know he’s right? In fact, how does HE know he’s right?
Answer: He doesn’t. At first. Established procedures may have accepted success rates, but new procedures don’t. So traditionally most surgery is done by trial and error. Cut, Oops, Bury. (Note the toe tag on the poor victim in the picture! And you noticed the see no, speak no, hear no masks, right?)
So why don’t surgeons use placebos when testing new procedures?
Cos they can’t? No, they can. Especially nowadays with minimal invasive surgery (aka “keyhole surgery”).
* Just know that they cheat on these trials. If the pill DOES work the trial gets published 100% of the time. But only 14% of all trials get published. Where the pill DOESN’T work hardly ANY trials get published.
~~oo0oo~~
Left home at 9am and got back at 2pm. Never did get to work.
Sat the whole time in this storm. Thought it was bad till I saw the videos of the worst places! This was mild!
Meanwhile at the practice, the ladies were having their own good time:
Bloody Tropical Storm Koos!
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Cleanup day today. Jessie and Tobias came in to help Raksha, Prenisha and Yandisa.
![SS_Storm_Cleanup[1].jpg](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ss_storm_cleanup1.jpg?resize=620%2C465&ssl=1)
After we’d mopped we got the pros in – R5000 for the wet vacuum cleaner hire!
I lost a bet to Tom with the Springboks’ loss to the All Blacks this weekend.
Paying up was painless compared to sitting with him watching the match!
Then Sunday I went to Pietermaritzburg where I got a blow-by-blow “Hoor Weer” of the match from the Ole Man.
Both my deskundiges cannot BELIEVE how the Boks just don’t LISTEN to their simple, foolproof advice! One says they should just play like he played for Westville Boys last year and the other says they should just play like he played for Maritzburg College in 1937.
Fuckit I’m going to heaven I swear. Or at the very least I’ll get a diplomatic posting.
=======ooo000ooo=======
Hoor Weer – Kyk Weer, but aural – a verbal re-run and re-hash
Deskundiges – experts, but more than that
The ole man is thinking burial sites. He has found out it costs around R11 000 to be cremated and he thinks that’s an awful waste of money. Someone also told him you can bury yourself anywhere. Especially in your own backyard, “There’s nothing to stop you”. As a mad-keen DIY guy, he thinks that’s a helluva good idea.
I said “Maybe, but the hard bit will be reaching up and shovelling the soil on top of yourself”.
“YOU can do that” he says.
I said “I don’t think I’d be allowed to. Maybe your friends meant literally YOU can bury yourself in your backyard, but maybe it would be illegal for ME to do it?”
“Oh” – That’s got his active 94yr-old brain thinking. He’s plotting something, you can be sure.
~~~oo0oo~~~~
