Richard French's ipad

ALL THE NEWS THAT IS NOT FIT TO PRINT.

A pretty quick window into local, life happenings and culture is to grab the daily morning paper on the way in from the airport. So it is in Cape Town where this morning's Cape Times reports a galaxy of wondrous happenings, news that is hard to come by in other climes. Sadly the Cape Times, that one-time bastion of apartheid resistance, the then newsrooms staffed by Verwoerd, Vorster and Botha's jailed editors, many of whom opted for running blank spaces where the censors scissors had been busy, has been dumbed down more than most. It is, of course, hard to blame the management in these times where, globally, electronic media is calling all the shots. In South Africa, this situation is exacerbated as editors try and try to attract the huge new and expanding, if still less educated, black readership. However this should not spoil our fun.

Here's a choice selection of stories and headlines that add a frisson of excitement to the reading of this morning's paper.

- South Africa's lone Winter Olympic skier and his coach travelled economy to wherever it was whilst five Olympic Committee officials travelled up front. The competitor came last. The officials did not ski.

- Mountain rescue vehicles turned back on the famous Chapman's Peak toll road because the driver had no coin for the toll.

- A Table Mountain bird man base-jumper to be charged because he had no licence to fly - in spite of the fact that he nearly killed himself on the way down.

- Australia approves the launch of a new confectionery bar romantically named Nucking Futs - on the grounds that the word Fucking is a part of modern Australian language. Mind you, the bar is not to be marketed to kids. As if.

- Dung Beatles Dirty Dancing helps them to Have a Ball. Apparently said beetles roll elephant wet dung into a ball before proceeding to their nest with the booty.

Can't wait for tomorrow's paper.

RICHARD FRENCH

Art

Spend a few January hours in a Perigueux Gallery, L’App Art, 10 rue Arago.  Easy to find and easy to find a park, Xavier Boisserie is exhibiting his delicate photos of water, leaves, sand flowers – all making their intricate individual patterns.

The exhibition is open until 28 January (ed).

Technology

I find myself at the mercy of technology and big brother today.

Zak loves watching Ethiopian music videos which I look at on youtube. I listened to one I really liked once and then was never able to find it again. Sooo, today when I heard one I really liked I tried to set up my own play list to save it to. It asked me for a new username, so I thought I would put it in Zak's name. It then asked for a date of birth, so I put in Zak's date of birth. Suddenly it said I wasn't old enough and that my gmail account has been locked and will be wiped permanently in 28 days if I don't prove my age is over 13 years old.

Ok. So I go to the ‘fix this’ sort of page and it gives me choices and one of them is to do a credit card transaction of thirty U|S cents and then all will be ok.

NOT. Tried that and when getting to the check out page it sends me to the sign in to google page and then I try and sign in and then it tells me my account is blocked - square one! Tried this many times. So finally gave in to the next option, scan in a government issued id, driving licence, then send that on.

Scanned ok. Saved the scan to my computer. Try to send it and ‘Sorry, an error occurred while uploading the web form.’

Tried a few times. Same.

What the hell. First of all, I had no idea that watching youtube somehow connected me with google or gmail.

Secondly, couldn't it have warned me that the birth date was too young.

Thirdly, couldn't it have calculated that the birthdate I put in puts this person at one year of age! Hello.

Fourthly - biggest web organisation in the world, can't they make it easy to follow their own protocol?

I hate technology.

Next day: I still haven't managed to get my gmail account back but have 27 days left before it is wiped. They do have one other suggestion how to fix the problem....open a new account with different user name. Derrrrr!!! That is my work email address and I want and need the same email address, thanks. Tried to phone them, if.... push one, if .... push two etc etc, get through a couple of menus and then "We are sorry that we do not have "human beings" sic, to answer the telephone, please refer to our website.... Well, HELLO, I think I tried that, which didn't work, hence why I am trying to phone you….

Oh well.

Daren Blake

Poetry

                                      

Dinna Greet, emigrate

At St Monans in Fife

where the gossip is rife

Euphemia falls hard

for a Catholic Irishman

sister Kitty runs off

becomes a Gaiety Girl

marries Wally Levine,

buys a Park Lane hotel

bitter news for the boat

building brothers back home

Bob and the young Andy;

Local friends give advice

“dinna greet, emigrate”.

They sail to New Zealand

reasoning that far-flung

Dunedin needs strong boats.

Settled, the brothers built

a yard at Careys Bay

near the harbour entrance

where Chinese prospectors

in gold rush days strapped

stone slabs to their bodies

to line the deep channel.

If unlucky, they died.

If lucky they untied

the slab, swam back before

their lungs ran out of air.

The Miller brothers built

tugs, boats for the South Pole

fitted out Shackleton

 “Dinna greet” wailed the waves

as homesick Scots sought sleep

twelve thousand miles away

yearning life left behind

seeking fame, escaping

shame or trying to make

a hame for bonnie bairns.

“Dinna greet little sweet

let’s find a mermaid to

kiss your feet, stroke your hand,

warm the curves of your heart.”

Only Scottish blood fills

my veins except Grandad

Duffy from County Clare

who Euphemia Miller

fell for - brother Andy

(disgusted,  adventurous

or disappointed, I’ll

never know –kids didn’t

talk much with Great Uncles)

persuaded us to come

to the sea, wind, waves

of St Leonards, gave us

the strange sensation of

never

no longer

belonging

to anywhere …

At dawn on the Captain

Cook between deep ocean,

wide sky I danced mad

wild innocence twirling,

whirling Highland fling, big

ship slow moving to the

plaintive sound of bagpipes.

We shifted to Roslyn

(unlike the chapel with

stone corn cobs carved before

America was known.)

What were those Kiwis like?

I couldn’t get a part

in the school production

of Macbeth they said my

accent was so strong no

one would understand me.

So with teenage mates I

lay on white sand beaches,

drank Lebanese coffee

ate mutton birds at our

student flat behind Knox

Church, Moray Place Library

my surrogate parent;

struggled with a howling

gale on my wedding night,

sailed to the Kaik, the

night before our son was

born, later, in the dark

we heard the dawn chorus.

The first Englishman I

met was in Dunedin,

selling encyclopaedias,

wearing a suit, the same

white shirt for three months then

he left to try Central.

First day at St Leonards

a boy asked me for a shag

I went to a new school

where the train kids teased me

until I threw a flask

of hot Scotch broth at them.

Every day the teacher

biffed me out to stand bored,

baffled in the corridor

(Stirling High teacher

laughed at my jokes because

I got top in maths. Always.)

I am still friends with a

boy from St Leonards (and a girl) and if I could

have a boat now I would.

Joselyn Duffy Morton©

(In celebration of Robert Burns’day, 25 January)