Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

Hi Tony, Your contact details were passed on to me by Dominic Tweedie whom I'm sure you are acquainted with. I am a Kenyan (almost sounds strange to my ears) who fled into SA in 1998 and have been living here ever since. Recently, I got to know Dominic through the weekly study group meetings at Cosatu house and during one of those street encounters in Braamfontein, we got talking about the Kenyan post-colonial regime including some of its leading players such as Kenyatta, Oginga Odinga, Mboya, Kaggia, Oneko and others. It was really refreshing for me to be talking to someone who witnessed some of the monumental events as they unfolded in the Kenya of the '60s and 70s. Dominic mentioned that I could possibly get to learn more from you about the Kenyan left of those years and the different political struggles that were taking place between the then burgeoning ruling class and those determined to chart a path for the poor working class and the peasantry. No doubt su

Dear Bar   We've just had two thirds of our kids here - the twins Andy and Chris, their wives, kids (7 intotal) and Andy's mum-in-law, for almost a month. The wonderful thing about this house is that it accommodates even that many people without bulging too much. And takes the inevitable litter quite gracefully. We spent a few days in Mozambique, at a very pleasant, simple beach place about 30 min boat ride from Maputo - lovely beach, sea, prawns and fish fresh every day..Maputo not looking too bad, considering. Then three days in the Kruger Park, saw enough beasts to keep the kids happy. It's such a lovely time in the bushveld at the moment, both here and in the Kruger. Here we have several lovely corral trees (known in the bad old days as Kaffirboem) flowering profusely - and the sausage tree, which has the most beautiful big velvety plum coloured flowers that shower down almost constantly; and the white wild pear trees dotted over the hillsides...I could go o

We knew Marius not only through joining COD, but also during his beatnik period. We met him in Cape Town in 1959. Paddy Roome, Tony Levy and  other ex-Jeppe School pupils who were at university with us put Marius in touch with us, when we went down to Cape Town for six months in April 1959. We went to Cape Town because Tony had been newly recruited by the Star and sent to CT to attend the Argus journalist's training course for six months.    We got pretty friendly with Marius while we were in CT, and with him (possibly through him) we met Breyten Breytenbach and Jan Rabie and Ken Parker. At the time, we thought Marius was a bit mad (in the nicest possible way!!) with a great sense of humour but somewhat inclined make up or embroider facts for effect - e.g. to make the story funnier, he didn't mind a joke against himself. We only half believed in his stutter...   He was very goodlooking in those days, and could be extremely charming -as he continued to be, when he fe

My dear granny and grandpa, I wish I could come earlier than in August, that is in 6 months, but I still remember that Christmas that I spent with you. How was the swimming pool, and is it hot out there?  The last day in SA I remember I was in a swimming pool and I remember that I saw a scorpion in the water but it did not bite me. I love so much and I miss you, but one day I will be there. Today I found a worm, a beetle and an ant and Tulula, asked me if I would dare to eat the worm but I didn’t, but I did hold it and I liked it. Katie Gorgon is coming to my house next week. I have been to her house twice and I felt very bad when I saw her garden because it was so big. I’ve got an invitation to go to Ellen’s party next Sunday. My party is going to be in Snakes and Ladders, I’ve been there and I loved it.  They have lots of games and I monster that scares you, I spent good fun there. Now it’s been hot here and I’m going to wear my summer dress for

Before I begin this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001 . I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in Afghanistan , Iraq , in the U.S. , and throughout the world. And if I could just add one more thing. A full day of silence. for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of silence. for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 12-year U.S. embargo against the country. .And now, the drums of war beat again. Before I begin this poem, two months of silence. for the Blacks under Apartheid in South A

 Old Bank  of England Pub, photo by Naviquan Met  my old  friend Gerry Mcgowan yesterday evening. Went to the Old Bank of England pub . I like it, and took Steph there when she came to London. The pub during the week is busy. The staff were very pleasant and sold me a nice pint of ESB and I sat waiting for Gerry. Be there in  two minutes. said  the message, and he arrived ten minutes later. Gerry  looked good. He was slim and wearing stylish glasses. But he spoke softly and the noise in the pub was loud. We spoke of Belfast and mothers and Lecce , where Gerry lives. When he first arrived there there were  no tourists, but it is now a tourist destination, its rocky shores populated periodically by these northern seagulls. Gerry has an olive grove, chickens and his wife is a town doctor. Lots of people know me, he says, but I don't always know them. Speaking of Italy, It's not about Berlusconi, said Gerry, it's more complicated than that. You have to study th

I started late, which was foolish and it meant I had to get to Guildford from Farnham in under five hours, before the sun set. 'Remember, get on the back of the train, or you will end up to Basingstoke', says the man selling tickets. I sat waiting on platform three next to a disheveled young man eating a sandwich. I'm listening to Classic FM . How Bach , a jobbing musician, wrote a variation based on one of Vivaldi's 200 concertos. But the hiss increased on the train and so I switched it off and looked at the landscape. After a few stops two boys got on, 15 or 16, with vests on and I listened to their conversation. What language was it? East European perhaps. It never quite came into focus but it was clearly English. I have never heard such strange English in my life. The accent made it almost incomprehensible. It wasn't west country or east country. They came and sat behind me and when the ticket inspector came, I heard the whole argument. They

The Heseltines To most people in the establishment nepotism is a laughing matter. 'Oh come on.', you can hear them say. 'Everyone does it. The only reason they complain is that they are jealous. In any case if you can't cut the mustard you are soon found out. It's just the first step.' Of course nepotism is a very long snail trial indeed. By the time a young toffee nosed whippersnapper - thinly disguised behind street credentials - is offered a leg up - he has already travelled a thousand miles. He has been fed the best food as a child. He has been exposed to a richer cultural and intellectual environment - Handel is his, as well as the Beatles, Mahler, remixes and Drum and Bass. But Althusser explained it better than anybody with inelegant originality. Ironically Anglo-American universities still discuss Althusser. They neuter French theory, label it as a failed intellectual experiment, and then inject it like a vaccine into their future public

Idiapam served with steamed rice noodles in a bowl To make enough idiappam for 5 people In Sri Lanka some people eat Idiappam every morning. But I don’t because it is hard to make it. I really like to have it once a week. Idiappam makes you feel warm inside and strong. You can’t eat too much because it’s too heavy. It’s rice and curry. After you have eaten Idiappam you won’t feel hungry for at least 5 hours. The whole of Sri Lanka eats Idiappam. It doesn’t matter if you are Tamil or Sinhalese, rich or poor. The rich people are lazy. They tell poor people to make Idiappam for them. Let’s say you were a rich Sri Lankan, you would place an order with a poor Sri Lankan family to send you Idiappam in the morning. Ingredients For the curried egg • 5 peeled boiled eggs • 2 chopped onions • 3 long sliced green chillies • Chopped tomato • Two heaped tablespoons of hot chili powder • 1 heaped tablespoon of asafoetida • 1 teaspoon of salt • 2 level tablespoons o

Sugar crystal in polarised light, photo by the brillliant niknak3 From what vantage point can you see God if it isn't from a vantage point above God, surveying God, so to speak? There is an implied dualism in the demand to see empirical evidence for the existence of God; between the observer and the observed. How can you see your own head without a mirror? If you are God stuff and if everything is God stuff then you are looking right at God from God not from some vantage point. If I were a theologian I could pronounce that God and his creation are one. Except of course humans are not bright enough at this stage to encompass it and probably never will be. The atheists real argument is: 'Just enjoy all the stuff, learn how to use it and don't worry about where it comes from.' Ants in a sugar bowl. Curiosity about God is the original scientific impulse. The Ionian natural philosophers started off by asking the question. 'What i

To make four tortas This dish comes from Mexico from the state of Jalisco famous for its Mariachis and for Tequlla. It is a dish eaten on the street and the Jaliscences believe it is one of the hottest foods on the planet. In a notorious case, in order to make their tortas ahogadas the hottest in Jalisco, one restaurant added battery acid to the sauce. Tortas ahogadas are served many big events in Jalisco. Football matches, at the charros, at marches and demonstrations and you can usually buy them in family run cenadurias, or ‘dinner restaurants’. It is essential that you use a very hard and chewy type of baguette roll. If you don’t then the torta will fall apart after you add the hot chilli sauce and the result will be an unpleasant mush. Ingredients • 3 hard variety small baguettes (birote) • 500 grams of pork • 500 grams of ripe tomatoes • 60 grams of tree chillies • Two mugs full of Rose Cocoa beans • Two limes • 3 large onions (red or white) • Three laurel l

Technical university in Brandenburg £9000 a year on university fees is not a bagatelle. Of course the £9000 is a bagatelle to all those who send their children to public school. The worst possible public school would charge £9000 a year. To the elite riding on the establishment choo-choo into positions of influence, £9000 pounds is peanuts. Not to me. Pay £27,000 a year to go to Harrow or wherever, then pay less than that for three years at Oxford. That is the logic of these people. They have the mindset of public schoolboys and school girls and their parents. If you want higher education to work for society you have to pay for it through taxation and the tax burden should fall proportionately on the rich and tax loopholes should be closed. That's the long and the short of it. That is realism. Raising the fees the way the elite would like them raised for the top universities will just make them into an extension of the private school system. Almost anyone with a l