A different view on current affairs & history
Originally published in the Illustrated London News dated 9th July 1881, this article contrasts the original buildings in Main Street with that of the Standard Bank which they use as the marker for the latest buildings. This a verbatim copy of that article.
Continue readingPolitics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. – Groucho Marx.
Along with all his other factory defects, this saying describes Trump as a politician pretty well. What it does not say about him is the insulting and threatening way he applies his wayward policies via executive orders, ‘Truth’ Social posts or demands on the stump.
Then of course, there is the reversal of his position, sometimes multiple times. In a recent example, earlier in this term he stated that he would “aggressively revoke” Chinese student visas because they were stealing America’s technology. This Monday, he did a complete volte-face, or is it a volte-farce, when he welcomed Chinese students but was ambivalent about the French just because he dislikes President Micron. In fact, every time they meet, he gets into a pissing contest with an endless who-has-the-manliest handshake.
Throughout his life Trump has used his wealth and thick skin to exaggerate, lie and bully everyone he has had business dealings with. In 2016 he suddenly found himself CEO of the biggest corporation in the world, USA Inc. He created a shambles then but he still had his training wheels on. After he lost to Biden, he spent four years having a pity party while marinating in his grievances and applying Mac sauce on his bone spurs. All the while he was building up a head of steam and had the support of Project 2025 with their 1000-page manifesto of how to govern America outside of the legal system and every rule, regulation and norm that has restrained every President before him. Basically his approach is, “I don’t give a F%$K!” After all, his toadies in the Supreme Court had his back when they ruled that he had immunity as long as his actions had something vaguely to do with being President.
Having created a cabinet of unqualified dingleberries[1] prepared to do anything, he has attacked his political enemies, real or imaginary, bombed Iran’s nuclear program into oblivion, made enemies of America’s strongest ally, Canada, alienated most western democracies, ignited a tariff war, sometimes for non-technical reasons, which is not his right under American or international law, pardoned Jan 6 insurrectionists and election officials trying to carry out his illegal wishes, gutted just about every Federal agency responsible for keeping America sane and safe – medically, environmentally, educationally, flying safely, predicting the weather correctly – and has sicced the Justice Department on everyone and everything he does not like, particularly immigrants. All the while he dares all the courts up to the Supreme Court to rein him in. He has halted all programs to provide clean energy while China adds more solar annually than what exists in America. He has withheld grants from top universities which he dislikes and opines that he knows better than engineers that old-tech steam catapults are best.
He is a President without precedent. All around him is chaos, dysfunction and mayhem. Yet he continues to live his King Midas dream while everything he touches proves to be fool’s gold.
[1] Dingleberry – a small piece of dried faeces clinging to the hair around the anus of an animal or person.
Lewis Michell first came to prominence as the General Manager of Standard Bank in Port Elizabeth. His tenure at the bank would result in a friendship with Cecil John Rhodes, the arch imperialist. Before his death in 1928, Michell had completed his autobiography. Despite never being published, portions of it have been used by other authors, the latest being the book on Rhodes by Richard Steyn entitled Rhodes and his Banker.
I am indebted to Jon Inggs for introducing me to this manuscript. The chapter on Port Elizabeth was especially interesting as Michell eloquently portrays not only the Town itself but also provides insightful comments on some prominent residents of Port Elizabeth.
Jon Inggs has used the AI program NoteBookLM to generate this blog and I have not amended it in anyway at all, even insignificantly. At the end of the blog I have included a copy of Michell’s original chapter on his assessment of the residents and the town itself. Likewise I have not made any amendments to the original. The reason why I included both the original and the AI version in this blog was to provide a way to assess the accuracy, fluency and readability of the AI version. On all counts I am impressed with AI’s ability to summarise the data under appropriate headings. On the negative side I found the AI version to be slightly rigid, even sterile, with little emotion, more akin to a text book than story. Perhaps that is how it should produce a formal assessment but I am not necessarily convinced. Judge for yourself.
Trump relies on Fox News for all his security and foreign policy briefings and, since they are an integral part of his echosphere, he’s actually listening to his narcissistic self. It’s a symbiotic relationship – Trump wouldn’t survive without Fox News and vice versa. They are embedded deeper up Trump’s bum than a proctologist is prepared to venture. Their morning conservative news and talk program, Fox and Friends, serves up such a daily diet of sludge that it should be renamed Fox and Enemas.
In their latest sycophantic move, their streaming service, Fox Nation, has granted Melania Trump the laughable award of Patriot of the Year – 2025, this for a woman who, in Trump’s first term, wore a green jacket emblazoned with “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” during a visit to child detention camps. This was not a jacket by some avant-garde designer, but a $39 common or garden jacket on which she had daubed the letters using what looked like the white liquid that we applied with a sponge to our canvas Slazenger tennis shoes in the days before Nike.
(It was also written in all-caps, something which Donald has picked up on with his ‘Truth’ Social posts.)
She was MIA for most of Trump’s first term and just about completely absent during his campaign for re-election. In his second term so far, she attended his inauguration, the Pope’s funeral and a state visit to Britain and that’s about it. She has not made any stirring patriotic speeches, rallying Americans. On the contrary, every time she appears in public it’s under duress and she looks like she’s passing a large kidney stone or thinking about Donald trying to get his leg over the previous night.
On learning about this cringeworthy sycophantic award, SUMAC could not resist mocking the picture they posted by replacing an uncharacteristically smiling Melania with her image from Donald’s inauguration. Her choice of look for the occasion was unfathomable. She looked like she was auditioning for a female Darth Varder, the Grim Reaper or the Plague Doctor. Whatever! Her message to the American People (and Donald) is clear – don’t f%$k with me – a non-verbal version of her previous “I really don’t care” statement.
Whenever a ship can moor at a jetty or a quay using mooring lines, the process of replenishing a ship’s water is simplified. All that is required are for water pipes to be laid along the wharf. Difficulties abound whenever there is a lack of such facilities, but these hassles are always mitigated or overcome whenever entrepreneurs abound.
This blog deals with these entrepreneurs and their solutions.
Main picture: Port Elizabeth From South End, painted by Baines in 1853, [Transnet Heritage Library N58606]
The French sailing ship: Le Necessaire
Historically, French naval vessels, like other sailing ships, primarily carried water in wooden barrels (also called casks, butts, or hogsheads) stored in the ship’s hold.
During extended voyage’s especially when sailing in enemy controlled waters, the collection of water from the shore was frowned upon as being too dangerous. Instead the sailors would rely upon rain squalls for water collection. In this case sailors would spread out sails to funnel rainwater into buckets and then decant it into casks. Even though the water could pick up a “unique” flavour from the oiled canvas, beggars could not be choosers.
The saga of the Le Necessaire highlights the consequences of obtaining water ashore especially when in enemy territory. During February 1752 the French sloop, the Le Necessaire together with two other vessels departed from the French Island of Mauritius with the objective of examining the southeast coast of southern Africa. They would have been aware of a Dutch settlement at Cape Town but were unsure of whether the Dutch were claiming or operating from any other portion of this vacant land.
It is presumed that the French squadron sailed steadily southward checking for human activities. With none visible, and being short of water, the French concluded that it was safe to land small boats to collect water. The location selected was the feeble stream called Shark River, now Happy Valley. In the process, the boat overturned in the surf, disgorging its nine occupants. In the meanwhile, a storm had steadily arisen overturning the small boat in the surf and forcing the Le Necessaire to withdraw to deeper water in order to prevent it from being driven onto the rocks on the shore further south.
Fully expecting their mother ship to return once the storm had abated, these French seamen were probably initially unperturbed by the withdrawal of their “home”, the Le Necessaire. The first hints of probable abandonment were possibly raised sotto voce the following day. With the full retreat of the stormy weather, which was presumably replaced by a vivid blue sky, expectations of their imminent rescue ran high. No record of what actually happened has survived but one can presume that those less sanguine silently explored their surroundings for food. In all likelihood, fish trapped in the blind Shark River were all that could be found.
Initially the expectations of being rescued would have high but after several more days of clear weather, the mood of the men would have would switched from expectant becoming morose and demoralised as the full impact of their abandonment by the Le Necessaire became abundantly clear. Comprehending the gravity of their situation, they would have set off to the closest town, Cape Town, 800 kilometres away. In reality they only would have had to survive the 398kms to Mossel Bay as in 1792 this was the eastern border of the Cape colony. The only objects that they bore were a musket and two pistols and possibly some water caskets. Apart from their practical use to carry water, these casks could be used in a barter transaction with the indigenous Khoikhoi or Hottentots as they were locally known.
No record survives of these nine men’s travails, but it is safe to assume that they would have begged, borrowed and stolen supplies off the local khoikhoi en route to survive. In reality they would only have to survive the 368kms to Mossel Bay as in 1792 this was the eastern border of the Cape Colony. Nonetheless it was still a formidable target.
John Barrow’s observation
During 1797 John Barrow noted how ships in that era ships replenished their water supplies in the Bay. As there were no jetties at that stage, Barrow noted that “copious amounts of fresh water were to be obtained from a spring which lay close to the landing place just below a hill overlooking the mouth of a small river. Sailors floated the barrrels in and out of the surf.” This rivulet was presumably the Baakens River. Further Barrow noted that “This was a hazardous business even at the best of times.“
The first piped water supply
On page 98 of his thesis on the development of the harbour in Port Elizabeth, Jon Inggs includes this comment regarding Fortuin: “The only other improvement to port facilities during this period [1820s] was the provision of water to ships by a Malay, Fortuin Weys. He erected a pump and laid pipes from it to the landing beach.
Harradine describes the first enterprise of this kind by Fortuin Weys 1829 as “a pump to pipe water to the sea’s edge from a well in Market Square.”
By 1834 Weys was described by Thomas Pringle as “one of the wealthiest and most respectable inhabitants of the place’. He had originally been granted land at Algoa Bay in March 1820. By the time the settlers landed, his house, still under construction, was the second substantial one to be built at what was soon to become Port Elizabeth. He was listed as a blacksmith by Griffin Hawkins in 1822. In time he acquired a number of properties in the town and further afield”.
Later piped water scheme
In his thesis Jon Inggs notes that the next development in the water supply business, was the “formation of the Algoa Bay Mooring and Watering Company in September 1850.” According to Harradine it was only during April of the following year that the Company commenced operations. The reason for this delay was because it experienced “an impure water problem.” To rectify it, rights were secured to a supply of water from south of the Baakens River. A large tank was built over the springs on the south side of the Baakens River and piping carried the water beyond the surf to a water boat from which ships could be supplied.
Twelve tons of water could be loaded into their waterboat in 30 minutes. This in turn could be pumped into a ship in 40 minutes. The service “did away with necessity of loading casks.”. In October 1851, the Company was able to provide H..M.S. Rhadamanthus with 27 tons of water. Based upon this performance, local commentators reckoned that the provision of water would become the port’s first permanent facility.
The hulk of an old wrecked ship stripped of its fittings and permanently moored, was utilised as storage space for items to be used by ships in trouble. In this case, the hulk housed a supply of cables and anchors. In the case of the gale over the 15th and 16th October 1850, the hulk had the necessary equipment but no requests were made for its use resulting in the loss of three shipsviz the Doris, the John Witt and the Mary Ann.
Vandalisation
The successful inception of operations created a positive vibe throughout the town. Speculation abounded regarding what other services would shortly be offered. Instead of elation there was dejection. Malicious irresponsible actions by vandals had popped the bubble. During the night they had turned on the watercock and drained the whole tank . On the subsequent night they had “Besmeared the whole boat”
The company soon abandoned its mooring business. During November 1851 the hulk and its fittings was offered for sale. For these and other reasons, the company experienced a faltering start, finally being wound up in 1857
. In December 1857 a stone tank was built over the spring and the old wooden tank was removed.
By November the Company’s waterworks had been inspected and certified by the Government Engineer, George Pilkington, who was favourably impressed. An iron pipeline ran out beyond the surfline from the reservoir south of the Baakens.
Era of the jetties
The construction of the North Jetty did not relieve the situation as moorings were restricted to small vessels. Larger ships had to be serviced while at the roadstead with lighters ferrying goods between South Jetty and the vessel at anchor.
Water storage and quality
Onboard Storage: Large quantities of fresh water were loaded into wooden barrels before a voyage. These were often stored in the lower parts of the ship to serve as necessary ballast.
Water Quality: The water often became stagnant, foul-smelling, and a breeding ground for algae and microorganisms after a few weeks at sea, especially in warmer climates. To make it more palatable and to inhibit bacterial growth, it was often mixed with alcohol (wine in the French navy, or later rum, which created grog).
Replenishment: Ships relied heavily on stopping at ports or suitable landfalls such as islands with streams or springs in which to empty, clean and refill their barrels.
Early distillation
By the mid-18th century, some ships, including the HMS Victory had small sills attached to a galley stove that could distill small quantities of freshwater from sea water. However, this method only produced limited quantities e.g. 9 litres per day on a large vessel and was reserved for the sick bay. It was never a primary source of water for the entire crew due to the large quantities of wood fuel required
Later innovations
The widespread use of efficient distillation apparatus such as the French designed jet condensor only became practical with the advent of steamships in the 19th century, which had ample waste heat available from their boilers.
In essence, carrying sufficient fresh water was a constant struggle and a major limiting factor for long voyages during the age of sail.
Sources
Liverpool of the Cape: Port Elizabeth Harbour Development by E. Jon Inggs
Algoa Bay in the Age of Sail -1488-1917 – A Maritime Story by Colin Urquhart Bluecliff Publishing, Port Elizabeth
America rightfully protested in the No Kings rally that they did not wish their country to be governed by a kinglike leader. But maybe they should have protested as well about his King Midas touch. We know he likes to touch nice things and now nothing in the White House is safe from his cold gold touch. His décor sense along with the rest of his brain suffers from arrested development and can be summed up as Arab Chic. It’s a pity the rest of him wasn’t arrested at the same time.
The latest to feel King Midas’ unwelcome grope is the Lincoln bathroom in the White House. Maybe the green tiling isn’t to everyone’s taste, but he traded in old style warmth for a sterile marble wasteland with gold highlights. If it wasn’t for his fake face tan, he could play hide-and-seek with Melania and she would never find him in there. His pallid old man’s body and veinous legs would blend right in with the veined marble. Then again, she probably wouldn’t look very hard, if at all.
These biographies have been created by ChatGPT. I included photographs from my collection to provide some colour and interest. The reason why I selected this father and son combination as my first blog created by AI was to assist me in disentangling the lives of two men with the same name. Fortunately for biographers, even though William Junior’s son was also christened William, he was not prominent in Port Elizabeth affairs and exited the scene by relocating to Cape Town. Secondly, William Junior married my second great aunt, Adelaide, who was Rev Francis McCleland’s daughter.
Continue readingWho knows how Trump’s worm’s eye view of the world perceives the Russian invasion (oops, Special Operation) of Ukraine? His stance has undergone more changes than a chameleon wading through Smarties, but in Trump’s case, not so smarties. He has flipped flopped from threats against Russia only to change a week or two later. In this opinion piece SMAC has undertaken to lay bare Trump’s motivations and for that SMAC deserves a Nobel Prize of some sorts.
To start off, one must understand the basic inner workings of Trump. He’s not clever, but he’s smart in a reptilian brain sort of way. And just like his primordial ancestors, he has an incredibly thick skin and an inability to be embarrassed. In fact, he has nil self-awareness.
First point to consider is whether Putin has anything compromising on the fat frat boy. Undoubtedly he has. Putin is an old-school apparatchik and ex-KGB officer. This is spycraft 101 for the Russians – get or engineer kompromat (compromising material) through a honeytrap or bribe. One must factor in that Moscow hosted his Miss Universe pageant in 2013. The Steele dossier is a 35-page report that contains hectic, but unsubstantiated allegations. Nevertheless, one of the most salacious ones was that, while he was in Moscow, he hired prostitutes to perform a ‘golden shower’ on a bed that Obama had used on a state visit as president in order to defile it. Sounds just like the petty Don.
But ultimately Trump is amoral. First and foremost, the world revolves around himself and as a businessman, he does not let any morals cloud the deal. While he was in Russia back then, he was feeling out real estate opportunities, but all that took a backseat after Russia annexed Crimea and provided paramilitary support to rebels in Donbas and Luhansk on Ukraine’s eastern border in 2014.
But that desire has never left Trump and he knows that if he can force an advantageous peace deal on Ukraine, Russia will richly reward him with great opportunities and he might wangle a Peace Prize. Just contrast his approaches to dealing with Putin and Zelensky. Immediately after Putin’s 2022 invasion he praised Putin as being brilliant while his European and Nato allies were aghast. Since then, he has never had a constant position regarding Russia. One day he takes a hard line and then after a meeting with Putin or a phone call, Trump does a 180 degree turn and insists Ukraine accept a ceasefire on Putin’s terms.
Who will ever forget that reality TV farce that Trump and his cabinet engineered with Zelensky in the White House on 28 February. With the cameras rolling, Zelensky was humiliated by a Trump tag team who created an embarrassing spat by insisting that his trademark attire (no tie) was disrespectful to Trump. Trump wrapped up the distasteful display by saying to Zelensky that “(y)ou don’t have the cards (to play)” so you had better give up right now. Putin must have been so chuffed that he probably ordered himself another Dacha on the Crimean coast. Contrast that with Trump’s obsequious behaviour when he met with Putin in Alaska in mid-August.
Also just a week or two ago, Trump started publicly threatening to give long range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine because of Putin’s unrelenting missile/drone reign of terror on civilian targets. A 20th October meeting was arranged between Trump and Zelensky at the White House ostensibly to finalise the deal. Two days before it, Putin phoned Trump and whispered endearments in his ear. Zelensky’s trip was rendered meaningless as Trump refused the Tomahawks and apparently a very heated meeting ensued. Then a few days later Trump u-turned again and announced crushing oil sanctions against Russia.
I wonder what Putin will have to do now to bring his pet to heel?
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Trump’s décor sense is a reflection of himself: gross, cheap, tacky – choose your personal descriptor. The overblown gold embellishments in the Oval Orifice, and any of his developments for that matter, make it look like an Arab souk.
In 2016, he surprised even himself by winning the elections, but he was like the dog that chased the car and caught it. Now what! He did minor redecorating to his taste as all presidents have done, but nothing overly dramatic. However, in between playing golf, getting briefed by his cabinet at Fox News, and stumbling and bumbling through his presidency, he did unleash Melania on the historic Rose Garden. She acquitted herself well and reduced the slightly wild but colourful space to one that was a reflection of herself – “sterile, bland and devoid of any joy”. Still, it could have been verse (her guttural Slavic pronunciation). In fact, worse was to befall when Trump conquered the White House during his second coming. This time he was prepared.
In his second term he started off by paving over Melania’s carefully coiffed lawn with limestone slabs to create an even more sterile place reflective of their marriage and then boastfully erected two over-hyped flagpoles. (Note, the minor provincial town of Port Elizabeth has a flagpole twice their height). On a roll he tackled the Oval Office. He has gone over the top on the signature Trump-style décor, probably salvaged from his bankrupted Taj Mahal casino. After turning it into a gold leaf tinsel town, his childish petulance could not resist his next move. He created a walk of fame on a wall of the West Wing colonnade by hanging baroque gilded framed photos of all the past presidents in order. Bracketed by snarling portraits of himself was Biden – a photograph only of his signature and the Autopen used to create it – phew, way to go big boy.
But all the gold touches and photos glorifying himself didn’t satisfy his itch. There was something missing. Deep down amidst all the froth of his reality shows, his transactional marriages and transactional affairs, his various presidencies, and his serial bankruptcies (6), he was a property developer at heart. It wasn’t good enough being a temporary tenant, he wanted to play God and remake the White House in his own image, his personal shrine.
In a flash of inspiration after inhaling a Big Mac, he knew what he didn’t like about the White House. It reminded him of skinny jeans which he hates (because amongst other things, he could never wear them and Obama could) – NO BALLROOM. Now this was a development project he could get his veneered teeth into to take his mind off his unrequited dream of a Nobel Prize now in peaces and his tariff war blowing up in his face.
At the end of July he announced the project to build a 90,000ft2 (8370m2 or 2.1 acres) ballroom with a capacity of 650 people to replace the current ballroom of 200 people capacity in the East Wing. He stated that it “won’t interfere with the current building. … It will be near it but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.” It should be noted that the two floors and basement of the central core of the White House have an area of 45000ft. The model showed a rectangular structure of about 88x48m (a rugby field is 100x50m) dwarfing the seat of America power. He is determined to finish it before the end of his term and, as usual, has bulldozed or ignored just about every authority mandated to deal with a program such as this. As always, Trump cannot be taken at his word. The capacity is now 990 and when the demolition started it looks as though the whole corridor up to the core will also be demolished, so who knows how the plans have changed.
Republicans have cravenly defended Trump by saying that even Obama made drastic changes – yes, he changed a tennis court into a basketball court!
God help the White House if he wangles a turd term.
For people who don’t follow US politics, antifa merely means anti-fascist to describe people who reject fascism – an honourable standard to uphold. It is not an organization in any shape or form, but is used as a slur much like branding a person a communist during the McCarthy era. Why it is so gleefully used by Republicans against people who refuse to go along with their diktats is that, I believe, it conjures up the word Intifada in people’s minds. This resonates with MAGA because Intifada is an Arabic word for a rebellion or uprising and was specifically used to describe Palestinian resistance to Israel in the First Intifada (1987–1993) and the Second Intifada (2000–2005).
The rash of popular ‘No Kings’ protests against the indiscriminate use of presumptive Presidential executive orders, that have little or no legal basis, harkens back 250 years to the American war of Independence against a distant monarchy that existed in a gilded bubble. (Alright, Britain was a sort of democracy but there was no universal franchise and the King held enormous sway.) Trump’s unique approach to the Presidency along with a compliant Supreme court threatens to hollow out all the underpinnings of America’s democracy and turn it into a horrible tribute show for the Orange Jesus.
Contrary to Trump’s vain boasts which, as usual, are light on facts, he is proving to be an unpopular President. He and all his toadies and the ‘Voice of America’, Fox News, repeatedly state that his resounding victory gave him a mandate. Really? A mandate to do what – to upend the whole well balanced American democracy with a machine gun blast of vile executive orders like a demented rapper high on his tanning spray?
It is true that the Republicans also won both houses and control the Supreme court 6 – 3, but let’s look at his personal mandate. Yes, he did beat Harris by 2.28m votes but this was after she replaced the doddery Biden on the slate with only 107 days to go. It should be noted that he did not actually receive more than 50% of all the votes cast. Also, “Slo Joe, I call him Slo Joe, you know” had actually beaten Trump by 7m votes previously. So much for his popularity.
As the 47th President, he is the most unpopular President ever at this stage of his incumbency with a 37% approval rating. To achieve this high honour, he had to beat that other most unpoular President, Donald J Trump Jr, in his previous incarnation as the 45th President which he has done handsomely.
Back to the No Kings rallies. While the tacky King Midas with his golden décor touch skulked and sulked in his personal shrine at Mar-a-Lago complete with fake Times magazine covers about himself, 7 million Americans turned out in all 50 states in 2700 protests to express their displeasure. With crowds seething with cartoon figures, narco blow up frog costumes, out of control horny unicorns, protesting grannies and sarcastic posters, not one shot was fired, no tear gas or smoke had to be deployed and everyone was happy without having to get high first. It was remarkably unifying.
As the US motto fittingly states, “E pluribus unum” (out of many, one).