A different view on current affairs & history
Novaxx successfully appealed his detention by the Australian immigration authorities on the grounds of a procedural technicality. His freedom was fleeting and his visa was revoked again. This time his appeal was unsuccessful and three judges double faulted him on the 16th, declaring him out of bounds.
In his typical Rough Rider approach, Juju opined on a radio program on the 12th January that vaccination should not be forced on anyone, just like the wearing of condoms is not compulsory. However, with his Featherlite IQ, he failed to realise the fatal flaw in his argument – other people do have the right to insist that you wear a condom when you ‘interact’ with them and, with Covid, that interaction is happening all the time whether you like it or not.
The ANC held a gala dinner in Polokwane on the 7th January in the runup to their annual mastubarory celebrations of their founding. With tables being sold for up to R1.2 million to pay outstanding salaries, Squirrel Ramaphosa, no great orator, was about to bore the audience with his keynote address when the power failed. This made lots of people happy. The RET faction quietly cheered along with the doomsayers outside of the ANC tent. The group that smiled the most were those there that could get on with their drinking and not having to be bored by Squirrel’s laborious speech as is his style.
For once, that poster child of ANC incompetence – Eskom – wasn’t to blame, but sabotage which made the reference to Götterdämmerung particualy apt.
After weeks of speculation as to whether he would play in the 2022 Australian Open given his refusal to get vaccinated, Novac Djokovic landed in Australia on the 5th of January. He was immediately detained for hours before authorities took him to a government detention hotel for failure to comply with Australian entry regulations with respect to Covid.
The good news is that 2022 seems to be the year that we finally get Covid under control and learn to live with what we can’t control. Although SA’s vaccination rates have been low – only 28% fully vaccinated and 0.8% boosted – we are probably approaching herd immunity. The SA Medical Research Council estimates Covid deaths at nearly 300,000 or more than 3x the official death figures which implies that most people have already been infected. This is borne out by random sampling for antibodies and that our recent fourth wave which hardly caused a ripple.
For all those who partied like it was 2019, I wish you a speedy recovery.
By any measure the first airplanes were light-weight midgets with the French Nieuport 17 weighing only 375 kgs. As such they did not require a hardened surface on which to land. Any reasonably level grass covered field or strip of dirt or sand could suffice as an airfield. In Port Elizabeth’s case, the area adjacent to First Avenue Newton Park was selected as the airfield. Not only that but a concreted apron was required otherwise standing aircraft were liable to sink into soggy and damp ground. Also required are various other structures such as hangars and a terminal building.
Main picture: Painting by Ron Belling of Harvards flying over the military section of the airport
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A frequently alluded to fallacy when discussing the state of the economy in this era is the primacy of physical items whether it is a precious metal such as gold or agricultural products such as cotton or wool. Logistics constraints are only considered when they are an extreme impediment to the smooth flow of these physical items. However, seldom mentioned is the centrality of banks and banking practices which oils that process. Without all of the components of the process operating like the proverbial well-oiled machine, economic progress is not possible.
As previous blogs have focussed upon the both the hazards, horrors and cost of wagon transport from the hinterland and the stupendous surge in wool production over two decades, neither will feature as the dramatis personae but rather they will be assigned a cameo role in this article.
Remarkably, the Eastern Cape and Port Elizabeth led the charge in establishing banks. By the 1870s, the Eastern Cape sported 24 banks whereas the rest of the Cape Colony had one; lIkewise Natal and the Orange Free State and the Transvaal none.
Main picture: 1866 painting of Port Elizabeth by Thomas Bowler
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In the 27 years of ANC misrule where they have comprehensively failed to achieve a meaningful improvement to the majority of Black people, the ANC resorts to victimhood and propagates tropes to justify themselves. The rapid development of vaccines for Covid and its unequal distribution was a ready-made crisis for the ANC to exploit in order to deflect attention from their appalling handling of it.
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The Weather Guru, Garth Sampson, has recently emailed me some interesting articles on this flood. Even though I have previously written a blog on it, it was based upon my personal experiences and as well as that of my family instead of being a generic article about rainfall and general human interest elements. Amongst these articles was one written by JP Viviers of the SA Weather Bureau on which this blog is largely based. Instead of a wholly human-interest story, it largely explains the meteorological aspects as well as some statistics combined with some unusual interesting consequences.
Main picture: Water flowing over Beach Road at Happy Valley
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