The Casual Observer

Will I be Forced to Start Shaving?

By Dean McCleland in Other Personal, Personal 11 October 2015 0 Comment

In 31 years of knowing Janine, she has yet to see my face. In the past this bothered her, but I demurred. I refused to shave just so that she could view my face. Perhaps that is about to change.

Initially she believed that it was a fashion statement. Then as the relationship matured, she came to believe that of far greater significance was sheer indolence on my part. Suffice to state that I never enlightened her as to the fundamental reason as I wished to maintain some mystique in the marriage.

Main picture: As a callow youth with long beard and even longer hair
Continue reading

The Da Vinci Code: Fantasies and Conspiracy Theories

Before turning to writing, Dan Brown was an unsuccessful painter. His second novel was the sensational Da Vinci Code. Like a candle for a moth, Dan Brown lured the readers by implying that his book was based upon fact. Instead it comprised various implausible fantasies and conspiracy theories which were barely credible. Yet they had the effect of fixating the masses. Why are the theories propounded in the novel even more preposterous than believed with not a shred of evidence to substantiate any of them?

The Da Vinci Code is an amalgam of a raft of conspiracy theories in one novel. Apart from one, the cryptex, which is a pure figment of Dan Brown overactive imagination, the rest of the conspiracies have been peddled in various books and forums over the years. The only one of this genre which attained acceptable publication figures was one which is even in my personal library entitled Holy Blood Holy Grail on which Dan Brown’s book is based.

Main picture: The authors of the book Holy Blood Holy Grail claim that it must have been Mary Magdalene on Jesus’ right as their relative positions form an M for Mary.

More of “Only in Africa”

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 7 October 2015 0 Comment

Africa has so much to offer: stunning vistas, endless herds of game and hospitable people. What they also possess is a quality which is not internationally recognised – ingenuity and the ability to make a plan in spite of adversity and lack of resources. This collection again highlights this little known facet.

The Cancer Paradox Part 1: Sugar

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 6 October 2015 2 Comments

The Metabolic Model of Cancer has recently been resurrected after lying dormant for slightly less than a century. This 1924 model is predicated upon the work of a physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel Laureate by the name of Otto Warburg who espoused the eponymous Warburg Effect. What has re-ignited interest in this theory is that contemporaneously with the rise in sugar/carbohydrate consumption since the 1970s, the rate of cancers has increased in tandem. Unknown in traditional and primitive societies such as the Inuits some 100 years ago, with the change in their diet to a western style diet, cancer has become one of the leading causes of death in these societies. In the light of this correlation, does the Metabolic Model of Cancer deserve another investigation?

The rate at which the prevalence of cancer is affecting society – already one in every two men and one in every three women will suffer from it. With the current rate of increase being 3%, shortly almost everybody will be afflicted.

Main picture: Dr Otto Warburg, the Nobel Laureate who discovered aerobic glycolysis

Life is Not Fair

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 4 October 2015 3 Comments

This weekend Dianne Kohler Barnard must be rueing the fact that she retweeted a post by Paul Kirk. During the same week, Pravin Gordhan the ex-Finance Minister was accused of being aware that a rogue intelligence unit was operating within SARS during his tenure. This week also saw Riah Phiyega being lambasted after the release of the annual crime statistics. What about the Hitachi imbroglio? Of these which will generate the most controversy?

Today Pravin Gordhan is a senior figure within the ANC government serving as Minister of Cooperative Governance. His tenure as head of SARS can be characterised as highly successful. Unlike similar government departments after 1994, it flourished becoming more effective whereas the rest degenerated into incompetence as ANC cadres were deployed into them. The level of compliance steadily increased as their systems and procedures were streamlined and improved.

Main picture: Dianne Kohler Barnard

What was VW Thinking?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs 2 October 2015 2 Comments

In a democratic society, secrets and malfeasance are exposed at lightning speed. As such, the more influential and well-known an institution is in society today, the higher the standards bar is set. Any failure in this regard will have catastrophic world-wide implications. Think no further than the disaster at Bhophal of a subsidiary of Union Carbide. It would have been pointless for Union Carbide to insist that the safety standards at this plant complied with the local Indian Standards when the standards required in America would have prevented such a tragedy.

Notice what happened in South Africa when KFC was allegedly caught on video “recycling” burnt chicken. Would the same backlash have been experienced if the Take Away Joint had been McCleland’s Luscious Fried Chicken? I doubt it. Perhaps a few lines, if that, in a local newspaper but little else besides.

Was Sir Edmund Hillary the first person to summit Mount Everest?

By Dean McCleland in History, Other Miscellaneous Topics 1 October 2015 0 Comment

Arguably for the contrarians, Tenzing Norgay was the first. The facile explanation would be something along the lines of because he led the way or he only stepped aside at the last moment so that Edmund Hillary, the New Zealand beekeeper, could overtake him in order to summit first. What is not factored into this superficial comment is that without Hillary’s finance, determination & wherewithal Tenzing would never have set foot upon the summit. Aside from Tenzing could there indeed have been an earlier person?

Even though the Tibetans & Nepalese had occupied the area adjacent to Chomolungma or Sagarmāthā, as they respectively called Mount Everest for millennia, both are unlikely candidates for two very cogent reasons: technological and religious aside from the fact that Tenzing Norgay had already attempted the climb six times previously and failed. The technological reason is that the majority of climbers require bottled oxygen in order to climb the last 3000 feet. A number of people have attempted a natural climb but that is an extreme rarity even for Sherpas. Even with supplementary oxygen, the average climber is at the limit of their oxygen endurance.

Main picture: Conrad Anker climbing Everest

The Fate of Abandoned Artefacts of Civilisation

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 27 September 2015 0 Comment

For the most part, mankind’s artefacts are neither durable nor resilient. Left to the elements most man-made objects would have been reduced to their original elements within a century. Even such ancient memorials of a past civilisation such as pyramids and the Sphinx will be reduced to dust within 10 millennia.

Needless to say, it is not merely the dispassionate elements and nature which inexorably destroy man-made artefacts but there is also the intentional laying waste to artefacts of one’s rivals whether political, social or religious.

Main picture: A bridge made out of an abandoned train carriage
Continue reading

Children’s Antics which make their Parents Apoplectic

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 25 September 2015 0 Comment

Why is it that some kids just have the knack of doing the wrong thing whether it is regarding their room’s walls as a blackboard or attempting to climb into places which they shouldn’t like the toilet. Often it is the family’s animals that are the object of their naughtiness? Whatever it is, at least 10% of children will be egregious offenders whereas the other 90% will be model responsible children. As such they will never be a burden on their parents.

Dream on.

Main picture: Clearly this little boy knows that scibbling on the wall and “colouring-in” the dog were verboten, yet he did it. Why? Is this an indicator of a future delinquent or is it merely an example childhood naughtiness; a passing phase?

The Diet Paradox Part 1: Sugar

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 24 September 2015 0 Comment

For some apparently unfathomable reason, in the Western world since the 1970s the average BMI of the population has spiralled upwards while simultaneously the level of dieting, consumption of diet food and amount of exercise performed, whether in the form of gyming or running, has skyrocketed. How is this possible? Was this sheer co-incidence or happenstance or are there, within the current dieting regime, prospective candidates as the culprit.

The current suspect is sugar. Like a rabbit trapped in a car’s headlights its apologists and defenders such as the sugar water industry – read Coke – are supine but not immobile. With sugar taxes looming after New York City’s courageous imposition of this punitive measure recently, their muted rational response is quite credible.

Main picture: Will sugar take the mantle as the new tobacco over the next decade or is it being unfairly cast as the villain in the piece?
Continue reading