Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

To his amazement, Dad saw how his grandfather opened the documentary series on the geology of the planet Earth BBC Video: "Earth Story" The age of the earth 1. The age of the Earth 2. More information on Arthur Lewis Hall. In 1901 he was working at the age of 29 as a schoolmaster in Lambeth

"You 'af to cheer the people ap." Photo by Fred Dawson: New Malden Station at 6.30am [Note: This is made up. It didn't actually happen.] Sound of a loud wolf whistle... the rumble of a distant train. In the background: "Ciao bella. Ciao beautiful." Marco: - "Hello." Christian O'Connell: - You are listening to Absolute Radio with Christian O'Connell. It's 6:45 on this dark winter morning in London, but now let's go over to Marco in New Malden, who has some good advice for you. Hello Marco. You wanted to say something on our programme about having a positive attitude? " Marco: - "Yes, I am Marco. I am phoning to talk about life. It is beautiful. You sound so depressed sometimes on your show. You should cheer up, mate. Like me. In the background: - "That’s a two pounds please." Marco: - "Yes, you ‘af to cheer the people ap." Christian O'Co...

Devils Dancing around the City of God In reading science fiction there were always supercomputers. Sometimes intelligent. There was the idea of the Internet, but there was never the full visualisation of it. If there had been the World Wide Web would have been invented by nerds in DARPA and not a mensch in CERN. Never mind the flying cars, the idea of the Intenet is far, far more exciting. The tempting and exciting thought was this: If we had all the knowledge of the world: or at least a fair proportion of it, at our fingertips, couldn't we become wiser and better people. Wouldn't it be like the old bible story of Babylon. A perfect Science Fiction story, with Leviathan, the angry Old Testament space God hiding in the clouds on his column of flame, shouting in megaphones, burning people and offerings up with lasers, zooming about in jetpacks, dropping vitaminised mana onto the desert, conducting breeding programmes getting really pissed off that humanity was getting its act tog...

Photo from Bloomfield College "Look, an usher reading Doris Lessing.” said the man to his wife before he showed me his ticket and walked into the auditorium. It seemed that at 18 I didn't match the profile of a typical Doris Lessing reader: someone in her fifties or sixties, probably a female fellow-traveller who understood the political and emotional journey of the heroine in The Golden Notebook (1962). And yet Lessing was also a pioneering Science Fiction writer. As a young science fiction gourmand, naturally I would get round to taking Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) off my mother's shelf and reading it. But where my mother's expectaions may not have been completely met, mine were. In Briefing for a Descent into Hell and then later on in the Canopus in Argos series Doris writes from the perspective of a agent of an advanced civilisation, watching human beings and their civilisations evolve and develop, only to end up ruining the li...

I think Joseph Campbell had the most interesting things to say on what would replace religion. Individual patchwork quilts of significant moments and numinosity- art and great narratives. One thing which crude religion and crude scientism do not do is face us round and point us towards the mystery and wonder of what we do not know. Sophisticated religion and science is a-hum with curiosity and wonder. Ah, Om and Um. Blend together. Now prayer is a form of addressing what passes understanding, but science in schools is full of platitudes and certainties which latter unravel in the curriculum. Instead students of science from a young age should be asked to face up to what science does not really know. Holes should be poked in all the theories - open for the students to see them and marvel at. If you could give young people an idea of the mystery and depth of the phenomena they face from the start, instead of the teacher putting on an omniscient mask, then that would spark us all to won...

. . . . . Picasso: Don Quixote A car arrived at dad's funeral with one of our dearest friends, Aggie Msimang sent by the ANC with a message of condolence from Jacob Zuma, ANC President, Kgalema Motlanthe ANC Secretary General, Sankie Mahanyele, Deputy Secretary General, Mendi Msimang, Treasurer General. Aggie came to the three sons saying: "You can be assured that by tomorrow morning your father's 2020 vision will be on the desk of every single ANC leader." Daring to dream, preparing to act Now is the mandate, now is the opportunity, now is the time. A Quixotic mix of policy guidelines and practical measures to remind us that there are alternatives – there is a way. by Tony Hall It is the duty of the present generation of leadership, a very broad spectrum in itself – from exile, Robben Island, 1976, MK, COSATU, MDM, SACP and the Youth Leagues – to return to the transformation of society, to lay the base for completing th...

I've reposted some of the blogs I wrote last year and the year before, below, but without the comments I'm afraid. All the best, Phil

Mom and dad with Marcelino This was written a few months before granny Lisa, mom and dad all died, one after the other. She is ill at the moment with cancer in the bush in South Africa, taking morphine and strong, nauseating doses of chemotherapy. Mom was born in Paris just before the war. Her father Richard was Jewish, and her mother Lisa was German. When granny talked about Germany before the war she would talk about "the inflation, the inflation." And she said Paris before the war was like Paradise on Earth. They were all into the theatre and the men were into mountain climbing. My Uncle Heini, at the age of 85 was still going up the foothills of the Himalayas. He was a famous actor in the Munich theatre. My mom was precocious, perhaps because she got so much attention from her mother. The war broke out while my grandfather was on a visit to South Africa. My grandmother was left on her own in occupied Paris with her half Jewish daughter to fend...

Judica's letter: Dear all, This is to inform you that I today set off for Nelspruit very early in the morning to take part in the 11am celebration at the chapel with family and a friends and thereafter at the Matumi home of the Halls from 3pm, with a wider circle of friends that joined the family. The celebrations were very special and very touching. At the chapel the chapel the sons took charge of the proceedings with each of them playing a role and saying how they remember their mum. They read poems and gave brief, but very meaningful and appropriate messages. The ten grandchildren all took turns to say something, recite poems, sing, play the guitar and just simply brought emotional sobs from all of us. The ceremony was just fantastic punctuated with music from all over the world. The ceremony was very appropriate for Eve. It was amazing to see a little of Eve in each one of her sons and in each of her grandchildren. They were all so very proud of their mother and grandmother...

On behalf of the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin, the colleagues of the Gender Coordination Unit warmly wish to pay a tribute to the memory of Eve hall. a friend and a colleague in our activities for many years. We feel we have lost a member, which stretches across the organisation and beyond, sharing the same goals and commitments and beliefs. The common cause of promoting equality and human rights for women and men in each and every place in the world was the occasion for meeting with Eve many years ago. It has sustained our personal and professional relationship with her since then. We have admired her strength and commitment and her nice personality and her powerful dedication to the principles she firmly believed in. We have immensely profited from her wisdom and her clear knowledge of the issues related to the conditions of African women in the Southern Hemisphere. She was able to assist us in many endeavours, in translating an international policy framework int...

     Mom with John and Carmen Employers' guide to trashing a community It doesn't take much to start trashing a community. For a start, bring in people from hundreds of kilometres away to replace permanent workers. Don't offer the incoming workers anything but piecemeal and temporary jobs for the barest minimum wage (if they are lucky). What happens to them when they aren't employed is none of your business. Advertise these wonderful opportunities on the local radio station to make sure you have got a surplus to choose from. Don't give them housing, let them squat, wherever, but let the proper houses that were occupied by the permanent workers, before they were retrenched, fall into the hands of thieves and squatters who take away the doors and the windows and finally, show incredulity when crime happens. Subcontracting and sub-contracting ... big fleas and little fleas... This process is in danger of gaining momentum. Like it says in the jing...

Republique Francaise Liberte - egalite -fraternite Departemant de la Seine Ville de Levallois Perret Livret de Famille Marriage 24th December 1935 Richard Steinhardt Born 18th May 1906 in Belgrade, Serbia Profession Sales representative Address 48 rue Chaptal Son of Isidore Steinhardt and Regina Neumann To: Elise Gobel Born 15th May in Fanckfurt-sur-Mein, Germany Address Levallous-Perret 48 rue Chaptal Daughter of Conrad Gobel and Caroline Mofor Enfants: Steinhardt, Eve Diane Elise Born on 20th March 1937 In Paris, 9th Arrondisement DECEASED Steinhardt, Richard On 28th April 1980 in Golfe Juan, Commune de Vallouris, Alpes Maritimes

I remember picking up Blake's Auguries of Innocence and reading it to her last year, both of us hoping for a bit of comfort and enlightenment. It started very well "To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour." But mom was an atheist and a feminist, and so when we hit these lines: "The Bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the Brain that won't believe. The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbeliever's fright." "He who mocks the Infant's Faith Shall be mock'd in Age & Death. He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall ne'er get out." He just sounds intolerant and aggressive. And then these lines: "The Harlot's cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old England's winding Sheet. The Winner's Shout, the Loser's Curse, Dance before dead England's Hearse." And by the end of the poem, we both end...

Photo from Treehugger In India, when my twin brothers were 13, my father decided to take them on one of his trips. This time it was to the foothills of the Himalayas to look at some development projects. There was a wonderful forestry project being run by a man. I wish I could recall his name. In the night the father of the project manager died and in the morning my brothers were woken up by the sound of mourning, wailing women. The son organised a funeral pyre - the rainy season had already come so it was very green. He asked my father to attend and he did with my brothers. The body of the old man was burned on a funeral pyre. But what most affected them was that after the orange flames had been burning the body for a while, the young man went up to the head of the body on the fire and after praying, struck the old man's head with a heavy stick, something like a lathi. The old man's dry skull cracked open and a shower of sparks leaped into the sky.

Mom in 1971 in Abingdon, Berkshire In 1991 Eve and Tony returned to South Africa after 30 years in exile – and in 1998 – as fate would have they came to live in our valley. In the 10 years since then Leigh and I have come to know them – not only as close neighbours , sharing a common interest in our bushveld home – but as dear and trusted friends. They would recount tales of past adventures – of their travels and travails in different parts of the world – in Africa, in India and in the U.K. - and Eve would bubble with laughter. Friends from the old days would come to visit – and they would add new colour and textures and shapes to the unfolding kaleidoscope of their lives. And then Eve’s we met mother – the delightful Lisa – who brought with her recollections of pre and postwar Europe and the changes of destiny and fortune that brought them to South Africa. And suddenly one became aware of the forces that had shaped Eve’s sensibility. – and in time I began to think I knew “all about Ev...

Dear Phil & Teresa, Andy & Kate, Chris & Anne and children. I cannot tell you how sad I am that Eve and Tony are gone. Because of apartheid, I only really knew Eve at the beginning of their marriage (I remember her beaming up at Tony with such joy when coming out of the church) and then again from when they returned to SA. We only visited them twice at Matumi - the first was for lunch - Andy, Kate and Kate's Mum (I think), and Anne and the grand-children (one little boy was running around with no clothes on - so cool) it was super to meet up with them again. In Dec 2006 we had tea with them under the big tree in their garden with Rosemary, Tom and their son Robbie. The last time we had seen Phil was when the 3 of you stayed a weekend with us about approx. 35 years ago! I think of all us cousins Tony was the nicest - such a gentle person with his big smile and his way with words. I remember him in the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas at Boys High - quite one of the prett...

The dhow tacks from side to side while its squatting boatmen take big unsuccessful swings at getting us to our destination. And the boatmen sit and chat as they miss the quay twice and chew quat. They manage to land us in the end, but unfortunately only while the tide is out. So we have to walk for another mile in shallow water and feel the shock and wriggle of rock pool life against our feet. But on this small island, far from the Kenyan coast the people aren't black, but yellow. The people are sallow-skinned with intermarriage and poor and benighted and they stare at us from behind dusty stone arches. The children show us the only ruin the place has. It is an ancient well down which their whole history seems to have disappeared like a sump. No one can tell us anything about it at all. What language do they speak, anyway? It's not Swaheli. But the history of Arabs and slaving and of boats lost and off course, perhaps on the way to the land of Punt, is here to read in thei...

Philip Owen rode up to the post funeral party on his trail bike to give us the copies of the HEAL newsletter that dad had edited and put together. Phillip said they would be sorely missed and that they had really helped HEAL a lot. Mom had even drafted HEAL's constitution. However, Philip said, Heal would now have to get on with things without them. I expressed our appreciation for his words on behalf of the family and then he gave me a big hug, which I think it was really meant for my father, and he drove away on his bike again. He handed me this kind letter from Oupa. "On behalf of my soccer team and the community of Sudwala and Monkele I would like to send my condolences to the Hall family. We have lost a father figure. When I was told, on the day he died, I couldn't believe it. I said to Phillip Owen, the Chairman of HEAL, is big Daddy back, I want to visit him, but he is gone just like that. Tony and Eve, they put South Africa and the Valley in the limelight. Every th...

For dad How do we divide memories? How do we partition those far countries? How can things slice up so well that our loss still leaves us whole, So that we don’t slip, cutting ourselves. How do we leave in our traces something more So that, at the end, we may still kiss the faces of our dearest Without feeling plastic, paper or glass against our lips? So that our exhalations of life Aren’t followed by inhalations of death? How should we honour the logos of our father And the sinewy grasp on essentials of our mother, Now both fallen from the circuiting of fortune? The product of the analytic Is the despotic And the product of the synthetic Is the flesh. No importunate scientist, Or philosopher, imposter Can explain this by thieving DNA Or calcifying the the black kettles and pots of our thoughts With "ought to this" and "ought to that." Our dearest breathed out life and breathed in death While we breath out death and breath in life So I think we will find our true in...

For mom In your last despatch to Tanzania you said, "Our son is going wild." I lead my brothers into an abandoned stockade And we steal cooking apples. Laughing, you said, "You know, Last night, I dreamed I really had the answer. I woke your father up and said. "It's a banana," Then we went back to sleep." Look. I hold this orange near to you now. Love is blind like this orange. And I wave its scent toward you, Hoping you will smell blossoms.

Mum is not at all well - it is not a gather round the bed scene, but she may not be well enough to travel on the 1st of November. If she is, then fine, and we go ahead with everything from fireworks to Christmas as planned. We won't go into the details of what may lie ahead, except to say that her two very caring nurses who have treated her now for years, say we should be sure to get together as a family soon. I think now is the time to think of planning a visit of each family to Matumi for say a week, in overlapping shifts or phases, say between the second and fourth weeks of November, obviously preparing to take the kids out of school if necessary for the strongest of reasons - it shouldn't be too much of an upheaval in school agendas in November - we hope. If there is something crucial for anybody, times can be adjusted accordingly. As and when you can come, if you need to, I will ask Wendy at Harvey Travel to get you each the best available deal, and we will pay the tickets...