The Casual Observer

USA: One year on from 6 Jan 2021

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 8 January 2022 0 Comment

Just over a year ago, Trump, the sentient nartjie, tried to steal the election from Biden, the sentient Zimmer frame. He extensively pushed out lies and fake news using Twitter and the good old boys from Fox News. His enablers from Fox, Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham, were only too happy to peddle his lies, boasts and misdirections and even repackage them and weaponise them for him. Trump is barely articulate and seldom completes a whole sentence. But Fox had his back – he could rely on them to speak in whole sentences and eloquently propagate his half-baked views. Twitter, however, did react adversely and eventually banned him for consistently peddling falsehoods on their platform. Trump then threatened to start his own social media brand which he did twice in 2021, so far without success. The other things happening in the Trumpiverse were that, apart from holing up at Mar-a-Laager (another tax write off, the resort itself as well as his staying there), it is obvious that he is positioning himself for another run at the presidency. This was my view of the World According to Trump in January last year.

Todays cartoon: Djokovic deported from Australia

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 8 January 2022 1 Comment

Many of the anti-vaxxers, especially the gliteratti and elites, are under the misapprehension that rules do not apply to them. They are especially verbose about their right to refuse to be vaccinated. It is their right to do so, but then they have to pay the penalties for their behaviour such as being refused access to certain venues, modes of transport and even countries. Why should Djokovic be able to flout the rules of any country at will? The Australian government rightly did not ignore the middle finger that this foreigner waved into the Ozzies’ faces and promptly deported him.

The drawing and idea was developed by Blaine McCleland whereas the commentary is by Dean McCleland

Looking Back: Hougham Hudson-PE’s First Magistrate

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 29 December 2021 0 Comment

This blog was originally published in LOOKING BACK – The Journal of the Historical Society of Port Elizabeth, Volume 55, 2016 as “Hougham Hudson and his Family.” Apart from minor punctuation and grammatical changes, this blog is the same as the original article.

Main picture: Hougham Hudson’s house opposite the Town Hall which later was used as the Post Office under Mrs. Biggar. Market Square and Castle Hill circa 1860 painted by Mrs J Clark

Melania Trump® to Launch Her Range of NFTs

By Blaine McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 20 December 2021 0 Comment

By way of introduction, I will have to give some background for those humans who are well-grounded (not that those two concepts normally belong in the same sentence, let alone reside in the same post code) and struggle to get their heads around recent illogical phenomena like how did Trump manage to become the President.

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Disappearance of Seven-year-old on Christmas Day 1859

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 13 December 2021 4 Comments

Instead of Christmas Day 1859 being a day of wonder and joy, presents and over-stuffed bellies, in the Haywood household, it would be a day of tragedy, heart break, sorrow and despair, a day that would be indelibly etched in their minds. They would forever recount every minute of their movements that day for that was the day when the innocent seven-year-old Augusta Ann Hayward would inexplicably disappear.

Most of the records have vanished along with Augusta. What has survived, highlights both grief-stricken parents contrasted with an indifferent uncaring officialdom. This blog has been based upon the excellent blog of Mansell George Upham entitled, “Whatever happened to Augusta Anne…?

Main picture: Watercolour entitled ‘View of Port Elizabeth from upper Russell Road’ by Lester Oliver in 1854 [NMM AM]

Port Elizabeth of Yore: George Pemba and his Art

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 9 December 2021 0 Comment

George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba [1912-2001] is amongst the best-known artists produced by Port Elizabeth. Born at Hill’s Kraal in Korsten in 1912, like aspirant artists of his era, his hobby could not be converted into a full-time occupation especially due to his race as his target market was indigent at best. His style is referred to Urban or Social Realism of which he was a pioneer as he specialised in painting gatherings of people in everyday settings. In the 1940s after encouragement by fellow black painter Sekoto, Pemba took the courageous and plucky step of resigning from his day job to concentrate on painting.

Main picture: The achievement of Pemba is celebrated by a series of ten stamps posthumously produce by the Post Office on 2^nd April 2012. Mother’s child, 1972, Oil; Township granny, 1950, Watercolour; The Minister’s new convert, 1945, Watercolour; Portrait of Mr Gluck, 1947, Oil; Xhosa woman, 1947, Watercolour; Portrait, 1948, Oil; Ting-Ting, 1945, Watercolour; Mr Pemba’s mother, 1993, Watercolour; Family life, 1977, Oil; Portrait of Xolile Ndongeni, 1987, Oil

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Jack the Baboon

By Blaine McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 8 December 2021 0 Comment

First and foremost I have an admission to make. The content of this blog is totally plagiarised. Not one word is mine. When I read the original in my brother’s excellent book on Port Elizabeth entitled: Port Elizabeth: Days of Yours and Mine Part 2, I stole it. Pure and simple. That was recompense for stealing all my photos to use in his book and for the fact that many of the facts and ideas were purlioned off my blogs on PE. So fair’s fair.

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Fire of 1903 which Almost Immolated Pyott’s Ambitions

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 15 November 2021 0 Comment

To a younger generation of Port Elizabethans, the name Pyotts Biscuits is largely unknown but to a century of residents it resonated as the biscuit of choice. Personally, for me, the Pyotts business has a stronger connection. As an articled clerk with Price Waterhouse in the 1970s, I was allocated to the Pyott’s audit. By then the business had been sold to an American company and later on the name of the business severed its link with the Pyott’s name.

The details of this fire are wholly derived from a report in the subsequent edition of the Eastern Province Herald.

Main picture: Pyott’s original factory in Port Elizabeth

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Leper Institute in the Baakens Valley

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 14 October 2021 0 Comment

Prior to 1839 there was no proper accommodation in the Eastern Cape for lepers or destitute persons. Lepers were confined, often in jails in appalling conditions, pending their transfer by ox wagon to the leper institution at “Hemel en Aarde” which was some distance away in the Caledon district.

This blog covers the creation, operation and closure of the Leper Institute over the period 1839 to 1846.

Main picture: Map of the Leper Institute, Gubb’s farm and the Baakens River

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The First Toll in Queen Street

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 12 October 2021 0 Comment

By its very nature, charging toll fees for the use of a facility, or in fact the “user pays principle” is an elegant method for authorities to recover the cost of maintaining roads and bridges yet worldwide it sometimes invokes the worst of human nature. In Port Elizabeth’s case, it was just over four years after its founding in 1820, that the first toll was installed.

To ensure that only out-of-town traffic would be tolled, the toll was setup outside the limits of the town which in 1824 was Donkin Street. The position selected was about 500 metres from Russell Road as it was in the country.

Main picture: The Baptist Church in Queen Street