Adam Salkeld

Festival of the senseless

2012-01-03T06:57:00.002Z

I spent some time here in Tanzania with a good and wise friend. She is an entrepreneur who runs a successful small business on the mainland. She is also one of the most beautiful people I know. Sometimes when I see her she looks every inch the part of a successful businesswoman anywhere, other times she wears black and covers her head - admittedly very chic black, more Chanel perhaps than Kabul. Sometimes we joke about her clothes, I say perhaps her husband likes her to cover up so no-one else can see her. No she insists that it is always her choice.

This time, like many others in Africa, she has been seeing images of binge- drinking young Britons on the streets at Christmas. Do the men force the women to drink so much so that they can rape them, she asks. Not generally, I reply. The women enjoy drinking. She is bemused and tells me about pictures she has seen of young women unconscious in the gutter. They choose to do that? She won't believe it. Then she laughs and tugs at her scarf. She asks, which is the more controlling of women, a piece of fabric or a drug consumed in such quantity that it renders them senseless on the streets?

OEB 2011 - the movie

2011-12-03T16:14:00.002Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szB-H51eOMg&feature=share

OEB 2011

2011-12-03T09:56:00.002Z

OEB 2011 ended last night. Agreed by all I think to have been a successful conference . My speech in the OEB Debate seemed to go down well and the motion was carried.

There was an excellent mix of delegates from 93 countries and enthusiasm everywhere. I met a huge range of very interesting people -- friends old and new. I particularly enjoyed sharing the debate platform with Tim Unwin, it was great to catch up with Mo Seck from Senegal and Charles Senkondo from Tanzania. Dinner last night was enormous fun sitting next to the legendary Jay Cross, he was after all the man who coined the term eLearning in the first place.

Peter John Salkeld 1938-2011

2011-11-23T12:44:00.004Z

Text of the short eulogy I gave at my father's funeral last week

I am sure that many of us have been thinking about Peter over these past few days. I have been puzzling over how to sum up a whole life into a few short words here today. Foolish as it may be to meddle with the words of John Donne, I find myself indulging nonetheless. He said, “No man is an island”. Quite true. Thinking about Peter’s life I see a wide archipelago – all the different interests, the connections, the friends and family, the many sides of his life. So it is a challenge now. What I thought I would do is highlight three things that Peter, during his life, has passed onto me, our family and friends. Three great gifts to us.

The first thing, which we may not fully appreciate standing here in the cold of mid November, was a love of the outdoors. But looking across this flat, windy, somewhat bleak Kent landscape, I can tell it is the sort of spot that Peter would have enjoyed. He loved the world’s wilder places – the mountains and hills, the coastlines, the moors and deep country. And he loved climbing, walking, canoeing and camping in them. It was in the hills that he got to know Audrey and they enjoyed exploring the outdoors together. It is hardly surprising that us three boys took on the same love – we grew up as much outside as in.

The second inheritance we have is that of hospitality. Many of our happiest memories have been after a great meal with family and friends, perhaps opening another bottle of wine, and putting the world to rights. Peter understood that hospitality is at the very heart of humanity. Over the years he welcomed guests to his table from France, Germany, Russia, America, Africa and Asia and many other places. He loved cooking feasts – sometimes with a theme, Roman or Medieval, others just a celebration of good food and company. Recently his roast dinners became a huge hit with the new generation of his grandchildren. The spirit of hospitality is one we are all determined to continue.

Lastly I want to pay tribute to Peter’s appetite for learning. He was not lucky enough to have enjoyed a long formal education. He had to leave school very young by today’s standards. But Peter cherished learning and understood that it is not limited to a certain stage of life. He read voraciously and continually. No subject seemed too dense or too intimidating. With only his own ambition for knowledge he was not constrained by subjects or disciplines. He was at home discussing politics with politicians, economics with economists, science with scientists and history with historians. In recent months he decided that he didn’t know enough about quantum physics and theories of time. With the help of his new friend Amazon, he was getting stuck into some formidable tomes. I hope we all remember and take on that energy for ideas, those explorations in knowledge.

I am sure we could easily come up with another three gifts from Peter, and probably more again. I hope later on we can all talk about them. Just now I want to say thank you to him for all that he passed on to us.

More from Stoneleigh

2011-10-25T11:30:00.001+01:00

Given the popularity of the photos posted yesterday here are some more...

A weekend at Stoneleigh Abbey

2011-10-24T10:10:00.000+01:00

A small selection of Terry Morris's wonderful photos from last weekend...

A weekend in the country

2011-10-11T20:26:00.001+01:00

To Parrox Hall for a fabulous weekend with Harold, Rebecca and a host of other interesting people. This bit of Lancashire has a windswept beauty of big skies, black soil and ancient villages. Parrox, Harold's ancestral home, is an unspoilt house complete with its Jacobean furniture, panelling and flags. Even the country house uber-snob Hugh Massingbeard praised its intactness. One or other of the four poster bed, damson gin or the Parrox ghosts delivered me to some of the best sleep I have had in ages. Much needed.

The weekend passed with roaring fires, a little roaring drunken-ness, good dinners, a bracing shoot and fine company. Apart from an unfortunate duck, the wildlife of North Lancashire remained relatively unscathed by my gun. Honour was served all round.

Economical with the Werrity?

2011-10-11T11:17:00.004+01:00

In many ways Liam Fox has played a blinder -- he is still there toughing it out and sounding both contrite and outraged at the same time. He was good in the House yesterday. At the weekend Tories I was speaking to gave him until Tuesday, today in other words. He hasn't gone yet (11.00am).

Do not let discussions of his -- up till now excellent -- performances, however, obscure some of the quite amazing revelations. The 40 meetings, including 18 overseas trips; the warnings; the business card; the sudden transformation of Mr Werrity's expertise from health policy to defence; the lack of business success in Mr Werrity's enterprises; the decision of a well-to-do politician to take in a lodger in his Parliamentary expenses-supported flat; the chance meeting in Dubai that needed such careful planning; and of course the twists and turns in explanations of all the above.

The ultimate question usually comes down to being one of judgement rather than misdeed. That is the one that really does make me wonder.

And finally, Mrs Liam Fox appears to have disappeared. Where is his loyal Tory wife when he needs her?

Steve Jobs RIP

2011-10-06T11:40:00.000+01:00

It seems to be rarer and rarer to find individuals who really make a difference -- here's one who did.

Truffles

2011-09-18T11:46:00.003+01:00

To Abergavenny food festival yesterday with Frances, Elisabeth and new friend Nancy Durham. Lovely day heavy rain and strong sunshine. Lots of old food festival friends like wine supremo Floyd Mills and some great new ones like the wonderful Gower brownie makers.

Best of all was finding a supply of fresh truffles straight from Italy. Drove home intoxicated with truffle aroma and, as Elisabeth says in her classic book on these black diamonds, blessed with a racing heartbeat and an enlivened libido.

A great night

2011-09-08T11:09:00.002+01:00

Tuesday evening to the Albert Hall for a truly memorable prom. Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony performing Mahler's 5th and a bit of Wagner and -- for the critics -- Anne Sophie Mutter playing Rimh's Gesungene Zeit.

The music was fantastic, as really I had expected, but somehow going to the Proms adds an extra whizz to the evening. We are so lucky that all these marvelous musicians come from all over the world to entertain us so royally.

Santa and his CRB

2011-09-06T10:48:00.001+01:00

Apologies for coming over all Daily Mail, but read this plea from a Museum Organiser...

"Santa is returning to our museum in December but we are unsure whether he needs a CRB check or not. We will have two freelance team members playing the role in a Santa’s Grotto based in a family-friendly museum. The children attending the grotto must be accompanied by an adult at all times and there will be other members of staff present throughout each session. Santa will only be in the museum at weekends and the week before Christmas.

We asked the CRB people and they said:

If an individual is working or volunteering as Father Christmas in a specified setting e.g. schools; childcare premises including nurseries; residential homes for children in care; children’s hospitals; children’s detention centres, and is undertaking that work frequently (once a week) or intensively (4 or more occasions in one month) then they will be eligible for an Enhanced CRB check.

This scenario is not intended to cover a Father Christmas who might be employed in a department store or shopping centre as they are not listed in the SVGA 2006 as specified settings.

I called the helpline number to clarify whether a museum was a specified setting but was advised to google it and see what came up. That wasn’t that helpful so instead I am appealing to anyone out there who knows the answer."

So not only do we have hopeless laws but hopeless people paid to administer them...

Why does Sky keep beating the BBC to the story?

2011-08-22T14:28:00.002+01:00

When I blogged in March, in admiration of the Sky New's team's work in Zawiyah at the beginning of the Libyan revolution I could not have imagined the endgame I witnessed last night. Once again Sky News was well ahead of the BBC with Alex Crawford and the team at the heart of the rebel advance. As it happened. It was riveting stuff.

They didn't just get lucky on the night. The frontline access they had, was given to them because of contacts with and the trust of the Zawiyah rebels. This was built by built Sky people on the ground, getting stuck in. Not through endless meetings back in London. Concentrate on and spend the money where it shows. Pretty much journalism 101. Something the many layers of management in BBC News have either forgotten or never knew in the first place.

I am very confident the team's efforts will not go unrewarded. They have certainly been recognised.

Perfect Pembrokeshire

2011-08-22T08:22:00.000+01:00

Pounding the Pembrokeshire coast on a scorching Sunday has to be one of the great weekend activities. There was enough breeze to make it comfortable and to give a texture to the inky blue of the sea. The heat unlocked the evocative smells of the cliffs -- pineapple weed, chamomile daisies and dusty heather. I felt like I could have walked forever. Making my way back inland I lingered in St Davids. With its ancient stone roofs and pastel renders it was one of those days where you could have been in the south of France not the west of Wales.

A Level Results

2011-08-18T09:34:00.002+01:00

There is something so depressing about the annual news cycle. Same old same old. You imagine the drowsy hacks recycling last year's copy and going back to sleep. A Level results are perfect. For months ahead we could have predicted:

Record number of passes, A grades or whatever
Education ministers praise hardworking students (trying to take credit for themselves)
Standards fall allegations
UCAS swamped
Lots of bright state school kids don't get into Oxbridge
Pretty posh girls at independent schools leaping for joy pictured in Telegraph, Mail etc

This year though the refreshing news and revelation from Chris Cook in the FT that the posh schools pimp their tottie around the press months ahead of results day. I wonder if that is what parents pay all that cash for? I only hope that the photographers in attendance have all their CRB checks up to date. As for the editors, string 'em up, it's the only language they understand.

English riots

2011-08-18T09:21:00.001+01:00

I have almost resisted the temptation to blog about the riots and the collapse of civilisation as we know it. I surprised myself by agreeing with Boris Johnson who described them as a huge own goal -- that is true. I was not surprised talking to a friend at the BBC to hear about the enormous handicaps placed on their reporters by health and safety bureaucracy, over-staffing, daft correctness like the "protesters" gaffe and centralised diktat -- no wonder Sky News outperformed them at every stage.

The most memorable episode for me however was a call from my Maasai "brother". He got in touch from Tanzania to offer his sympathy and to ask why we were doing this to ourselves. He was genuinely shocked.

Bletchley Park

2011-08-16T21:34:00.006+01:00

To Bletchley Park for the Google summer party. Many years have passed since my last visit there.Then it was under threat of being bulldozed for a housing development. It is inconceivable now to think that the location for such a critical part of our national story was to be sacrificed to Messrs Wimpy or Barratt, but that is of course the British way. Just imagine a similar scenario in the USA or France.

Thankfully we came to our senses and the site was saved for the nation. A lot has changed since that previous visit but most importantly a lot has not. The Trustees have managed to retain the enthusiastic brown paper and string feel of the place. Not too many of the "interpretation centres", gift shops and heritagisation opportunities that plague so many historic locations.

Google has recognised the enormous contribution Alan Turing and many other at Bletchley Park made to the information revolutions that are shaping and reshaping our world today. The company has been sponsoring some of the activities at Bletchley hence the location for its summer party. Amid the great, the good, the geeks and the Googleistas at the party there were a few of the remaining BP crew. They are truly amazing people. Not just for what they did during the war --shortening it by two years seems to be the general consensus -- but what they didn't do after it. For decades the 10,000 Bletchley Park workers kept the secret of its operations. 10,000 to a man or woman. That level of loyalty and discipline is unbelievable in our leaky, twittery and self congratulatory world today.

Compare the "amateurs" of BP, the crossword compilers, the Cambridge mathematicians and Oxford linguists, the Welsh poets, Mayfair debs and Polish engineers with the "professionals" at the same time. In the Foreign Office think of Burgess and Maclean, in MI6 Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, from the Cabinet Office, John Cairncross. Think even of our Royal betters -- the Duke of Windsor -- quietly spirited out of Europe to stop him passing any more secrets to his Nazi heroes.

In the rain of an English summer afternoon, with the sound of the tombola and 40s swing behind me, I sip my weak tea in honour of them.

Robert Robinson RIP

2011-08-13T09:12:00.003+01:00

So farewell then Robert Robinson. You were a big part of our broadcasting lives in the 70s and 80s. Your wonderful comb-over hair was only marginally less ridiculous than the contestants' coiffures on Ask the Family. Radio 4's Stop the Week was possibly the most patronising programme ever offered by the BBC -- "dinner party conversation for people who don't go to dinner parties". And for me, the memory that lingers most is the scene where you have an injection in your ample arse before venturing, on the viewers' behalf, onto the dangerous streets of India.

The sadness is compounded by the fact that your passing was announced on Radio 4 by the strangled voice of the ghastly Carolyn Brown, arguably BBC radio's worst presenter. What a sad contrast with your honeyed tones.

Which president ran up the biggest US national debt?

2011-08-10T07:50:00.000+01:00

US Federal Debt 1980-Present -- Increase by President

Ronald Reagan increased US national debt by $1.9 trillion. That represented 11.3% of US GDP in his first term and 9.3% in his second.

George H.W. Bush, by $1.5 trillion, or 13% of US GDP

Bill Clinton, by $1.4 trillion or a decrease of 0.7% of GDP in his first term and a further decrease of 9% in his second.

George W. Bush increased debt by $6.4 trillion. That represents a rise of 7.1% against GDP in his first terms and 20.7% in his second.

Barack Obama is currently on a $2.4 trillion increase. That represent a rise of 9% as a proportion of GDP.

White Riot ... or perhaps white powder

2011-08-09T08:22:00.002+01:00

"Things got out of hand & we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets."

David Cameron recalls his time at Oxford, speaking in 1986

The truth about Osama...?

2011-08-08T20:08:00.000+01:00

Interesting post from Andrew Sullivan here -- let's face it $25 million has to be a killer temptation.

Fab Fi

2011-08-08T17:16:00.003+01:00

The fantastic Fi Glover returned to the airwaves this morning. I was lucky enough to be driving somewhere at 0900 so could listen. Her new series -- Generations Apart -- promises to become required listening. Much has been said of late about radio's renaissance and what I heard this morning supports that analysis. Glover interviewed a cohort of 1946-born baby boomers. The result was entrancing. It demonstrated what we have often so stupidly forgotten, that ordinary life stories are rich, engaging and illuminating. While television disappears up its own reality-celebrity backside or dishes-up freak shows of the awful, obese and shouty, radio is calmly doing what it's so good at -- weaving real narratives that reflect on all our lives.

Radio killed the video star perhaps.

big brother

2011-08-06T12:14:00.006+01:00

One theme that most dystopian visions have in common is the abuse of language. From Huxley, to Orwell, to Gilliam we find worlds in which words are created or distorted or finessed to wrench them from their real meanings and create sugar coated tyranny or propagate fear and respect.

Despite the ingenuity of these writers and visionaries they always seem to get roundly beaten by reality. The twisting of our language by governments, corporations and all manner of busybodies outranks anything from newspeak or Brazil.

Today I received a bullying letter from DVLA telling me to send it a new photograph for my licence and £20 and threatening me with massive fines and bans for non-compliance. The letter came from a bossy woman called Nadine Davies with the preposterous title "Head of Central Capture Unit". Even Big Brother would not have dared ....

News of the World

2011-07-11T07:57:00.000+01:00

So farewell then News of the Screws...

I am not joining the crocodile chorus and lamenting its passing. Yes it did break some valid stories but for every worthwhile revelation there were a hundred unnecessary, intrusive, prurient pieces of nonsense all washed down with a fairly loathsome slug of cod morality.

The two defining features of this last week's disclosures have been the arrogance of those in control who thought they could break the rules because they were above them and then the slavish fear with which the Murdoch empire is regarded by a range of institutions in our civil society.

I had some dealings with News of the World as a journalist. Back in 1994 I spent some months investigating connections between the paper, the Metropolitan Police and some of its dodgier informants. With colleagues Simon Ford and John Penycate enough evidence was uncovered to make a Panorama programme for BBC1.

The investigations turned up a basic story that repeated itself. The persuasive informant would pick a gullible victim. Over a period of time the victim would be befriended and then cajoled into entering into a highly unlikely criminal deal -- purchase of Uzi machine pistols was a favourite. As soon as the deal was close to closure out would spring a posse of armed police and a team from News of the World. The victim would then be convicted of a major crime. As he was led away to a long prison sentence there would be a lurid write up and photos of the arrest in the paper. The line of the story was that the News of the World had "alerted" police to this crime in time for them to pounce before a batch of Uzis or Semtex hit Britain's streets. It would be accompanied by a fulsome quote from the Met thanking the paper for its hard work and public spirit.

It was a great scam. Everyone a winner. The informant got a handsome cash reward. The paper got an "exclusive" and the Police were able to "clear up" a major crime with a decent conviction. Trebles all round. The fact that it was an entirely manufactured crime did not seem to matter. The victims were hardly attractive. They tended to be sad, lonely, petty criminals or losers who valued the attention of the silver tongued agent provocateur and were easily led into his trap.

Before and after the Panorama programme was eventually broadcast our BBC managers were sent threatening letters from Wapping and called to "high level" meetings at Scotland Yard. The programme itself was cut back and pulled many of its punches. My career at Panorama was over. For reasons of "career development" I was moved away from the programme.

Africa Again

2011-06-26T12:11:00.006+01:00

I am enjoying reading Richard Dowden's impressive, comprehensive and humane Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. It looks like becoming a long term companion.

One of his earliest observations chimed perfectly.

"Africans have in abundance what we call social skills. These are not skills that are formally taught or learned. There is no click-on-have-a-nice-day smile in Africa. Africans meet, greet, and talk, look you in the eye and empathise, hold hands and embrace, share and accept from others without twitchy self-consciousness. All these things are as natural as music in Africa."

How true and what we could learn....

And in an irony so sharp it's painful, contrast that with those we send to Africa to "help" the continent "develop". People I have met in the aid brigade are some of the most emotionally constipated and socially handicapped human specimens I have come across anywhere. Why do we think it's acceptable to send these dysfunctional individuals to Africa ... is it a way of getting rid of them from our societies I wonder? Or is it some form of self-selection, rooted in a deep disdain for humanity's home continent? I propose engaging a cadre of African consultants to run a people skills boot camp for the poverty industry. They would need long contracts.

Twelve Steps to Happiness

2011-06-26T11:20:00.009+01:00

The study of happiness -- or "wellbeing" as the politicians insist on calling it -- is one of the more surprising and welcome developments of recent years. Of course cynicism is an inevitable response when prime minsters preach about it. It is a long time since a government of any colour did anything to help the sum of national happiness. However the very act of considering wellbeing is a good move in itself. Taking stock, reflection, planning are all positive moves.

So here are my twelve steps to a happier life. They are deliberately simple and, surprise surprise, draw from what humans have been doing and known about for millenia, the things we forgot over the past generation or so.

1. Do something outdoors every day -- preferably working up a sweat.

2. Exercise your empathy. Empathy is one of our primal human characteristics, we damage ourselves if we deny it.

3. Regularly do things in big groups -- live music, football matches, pub quizzes, festivals or whatever.

4. Appreciate the seasons. Enjoy their natural rhythm through activities, foods, nature whatever takes your fancy.

5. Try to eat at a table with friends and family or even strangers as often as you can.

6. Only watch TV, do Facebook or other screen facing activities when you have nothing real to do.

7. Have a cause.

8. Get drunk occasionally, with others not on your own. But try to avoid drinking alcohol most days.

9. Try to undertake some tasks with a beginning, middle and end. Making things is especially good. So much of modern daily work ignores this basic progression. We all need a complete narrative arc from time to time.

10. Enjoy some fantasy every day. The imagination is one of humanity's finest tools. Don't let it go rusty.

11. Celebrate a mixed group of friends. A false notion of "preference" is in danger of putting us all into sterile silos. The wider your circle the more stimulation, empathy and surprise. Don't be scared of surprise.

12. Sit around a fire outside every so often with a group of friends old or new. Baden Powell may not be trendy but he was right about a couple of things. Guitars and campfire songs are optional.

Am I for real?

2011-06-14T13:43:00.003+01:00

In the interests of transparency I felt that I ought to let you, my loyal readers, know that I am in fact an Azerbaijani transvestite lesbian amputee. I have been posing as Adam for the past two years. I do apologise for misleading you all.

Brothers in Arms

2011-06-13T17:00:00.001+01:00

We all rather enjoy the Miliband saga. It has just that hint that it may run on in a Shakespearean tragedy sort of way.

Ed did the unthinkable standing and winning against David. Will David also do the unthinkable and try to topple Ed? Will it be sooner rather than later before Ed destroys the Milibrand?

Africa Calling

2011-05-24T18:44:00.000+01:00

I sit nursing a drink in Departures. I am off to Dar-es-Salaam for this year's ELA conference. I shall be chairing a session on how ICT based learning has been used in combating HIV/AIDS. Some big hitters on the panel and interesting stories to be told.

Following Dar with a trip to Zanzibar and then meetings in Nairobi on the way home.

Police and the truth

2011-04-12T11:10:00.003+01:00

"He was over six foot tall and threatened me with a sawn-off shotgun, Your Honour"

George Monbiot writes a good piece today about the reliance on lying under oath by our police. Anyone who has had dealings with police -- as a juror in court, a witness, a victim, a suspect, a journalist or just a concerned citizen -- soon has the terrible revelation that serious lying is tactic number one for the boys and girls in blue. It has been happening for years and, despite PACE way back in 1984, an avalanche of evidence as courts stop believing coppers, loads of home and justice secretaries and so called "new" policemen like Ian Blair, it's still happening now.

As Monbiot says you can't have justice until the police stop lying. Do read the piece.

Delivering Quality First

2011-04-11T10:12:00.006+01:00

The late Roy Jenkins pioneered a simple political bullshit test. Once you have learned to use it you find it is not only good for political claptrap but all manner of pronouncements, policies and PR guff. To apply the Jenkins Test, simply take a political -- or other -- statement and reverse it. That allows you to stand back and see if the original statement really meant anything at all. So if we suppose that Quisling Clegg says: "Here in the Coalition we are fundamentally opposed to murder." Apply the JT and voila: "Here in the Coalition we are fundamentally in favour of murder", suddenly the Westminster Wonder looks even more banal and stupid than usual. He is clearly saying nothing of any substance.

I am instantly minded of the Jenkins Test when I hear BBC executives chanting their new management mantra - "Delivering Quality First". It is everywhere. Does that mean they used to "deliver" quality second, third, or last? What have Thompson, Thomson, Bennett et al (each earning several times the Prime Minister's salary) been doing all these years -- running a public service broadcaster that doesn't "deliver" quality? Or is this just another piece of meaningless managementese as an attempt to justify said salaries. I think we should be told.

How many footballers are Gay?

2011-03-21T08:42:00.002Z

One. Anton Hysen is officially the only gay professional footballer currently playing in the world. The 20 year old Swede came out last week. He's a brave young man and I wish him the very best for his career on and off the pitch. Plus I am old enough to remember his father, Glenn, playing for Liverpool.

How to waste public money on public transport

2011-03-18T13:49:00.002Z

Today the papers report that the BBC has been organising public transport training days for staff who are moving to the new Salford production centre. Apparently the hapless Corporation minions need to know how to use a bus or tram, particularly in the northern wastes of their new homeland. Initially I wondered why the papers hadn't saved this story for April 1st. Then I checked the excellent Tabloid Watch site in case it was a Daily Mail special. But no it hasn't been reported as a fake, yet.

But a moment's more thought and it does sound credible. Firstly there will be a huge "relocation communications" budget within the BBC one billion pound moving costs that has to be spent. Bugger the World Service or local radio, this is the bureaucrats' money so is bound to be safe. Secondly BBC staff above a certain grade believe themselves to be too important to travel on the bus (oh the stories I could tell), so some persuasion and basic training may well be in order. It's grim up north.

romantic hero

2011-03-11T21:13:00.001Z

This is the intriguing portrait I bought last week. It's a small, unsigned work on a piece of hardwood. To my untrained eye it looks genuine. I am now looking for a frame. I can't help wondering who he is. I fancy some romantic hero or artist -- Blake, Beethoven, Byron, that sort of hero. Who knows, I never will.

Marrakech and Essaouira

2011-03-11T12:43:00.001Z

...here we come.

All booked. Now I just have to think about what I can possibly say at the conference. Anyway have nearly a fortnight to think about it.

Why we need Sky News

2011-03-10T14:58:00.012Z

Yesterday morning I watched a remarkable TV report from Libya. At peak time Sky News broadcast a 10 minute package from its team in Zawiyah. It was great journalism, great storytelling, great television. The film simply showed what it was like on the ground in rebel held Libya under attack from Gaddafi forces. The team allowed the story to unfold, allowed us to see and hear from ordinary Libyans and allowed the time on screen to create a memorable piece of reportage. Some of it was shocking and graphic, but then so is war.There was no grandstanding ego stuff from reporter Alex Crawford, just enough commentary to keep us on top of fast moving events. After ten minutes I felt that I understood what it was really like in Libya at the moment. It deserves to be nominated for a BAFTA and if it is, it will get my vote.

The future of Sky News has of course been an issue of late and journalism like this demonstrates just why we need it. The sad fact is that the BBC would never have broadcast something like this, at this length, at prime time and in the raw and powerful way that the Sky team put it together. And this gets us to the very heart of the debate about plurality of provision in TV news.

OK first things first -- why wouldn't the BBC have broadcast it? After all there are a huge number of BBC staff in and around Libya serving a huge number of BBC outlets. Surely someone could have filed something equivalent? There are several reasons. Firstly BBC News wouldn't want a report as long as ten minutes, especially one as graphic, in a prime slot. There is no particular logic behind this, just that BBC News has always done 3 minute reports. To get the necessary swathe of permissions from the BBC hierarchy to upset the guidelines and traditions and banish the running order templates would take until Christmas. But the second reason is more profound in explaining the BBC way of doing things. The BBC could not countenance broadcasting a report that simply showed a slice of what was happening. The news the Corporation produces has to be mediated in many ways before it reaches the consumer. This piece would fail straight away. Where is the correspondent giving context? Where are the experts? Where is the analysis? Viewers need to have everything pre-digested by that vast BBC news machine.

I happen to like the Sky "raw" approach. So often the experts know, or can say, little more than the blandly obvious, the analysis is banal or pointless and correspondents are stuck regurgitating agency copy from London. Why not, I say, allow us to see the data, watch the footage, feel the atmosphere and make up our minds.

The debate about plurality in news often diverts straight to an amorphous discussion of political bias, more often perceived than real. But plurality means much more than that. As I hope I have shown, it is also about the type of stories that are covered and the way in which they are told. The Zawiyah report is just one example. Another is apocryphal but worth telling. It's an old hack's tale of terrible floods somewhere in middle England. The news teams turn up and set to work. The newspaper boys and ITV and other TV crews start filming and photographing the floodwaters, interviewing the victims, looking for the drowned teddy bear or the sodden kitten or the tearful householder. The BBC team however makes its way straight to the Town Hall to get official confirmation that there has been a flood.

Not true I know. Nor do I want to denigrate the great and brave work of many BBC journalists. After all I have been one myself. However, unlike any other news organisation, the BBC is saddled with a massive unwieldy bureaucracy and like all bureaucracies it has to exert control. Good journalism involves a high degree of entrepreneurship and that sits ill with multiple layers of management. The results of this seep through to very fundamentals of BBC reporting, everything has to be controlled, filtered, explained, processed by the those who know best. What the work of Alex Crawford and the Sky team shows is how powerful television reportage can be when journalistic enterprise is given its head, the controlling bureaucrats keep out of the way and the audience credited with some intelligence of its own. That's why we need more than the BBC providing our news and why Sky is doing a great job.

How to bake bread

2011-03-06T11:28:00.001Z

... Sourdough Saga...Part 94

After a careful upbringing Dough Bro, my sourdough starter, is ready to unleash himself on the wider world of bakery products. I have been feeding, nurturing, sniffing and, yes dear reader, talking to my little creation for what seems like weeks. Now like a proud but bereft parent at the school gate on the first day of term I have to leave little Dough Bro to make his own way in the world of kneading, rising and ovens.

He made an enthusiastic start, nearly taking over the kitchen when I left him to form a sponge last night -- maybe doing that critical stage of breadmaking after coming home from the pub was a mistake.

Now floured and kneaded to perfection he is out to prove himself by the wood stove. I will have to go for a walk or something as the suspense is killing me...I can only hope that he develops a thick crust to defend himself from a cruel world.

Yes

2011-03-04T20:53:00.002Z

The people of Wales have voted yes. Decisively, thank God. I had been worried the Tea Party style non-politics campaign of "True Wales" -- the no supporters -- might have led to a disastrously low turnout, or less than decisive result. It didn't on either count.

Pleasure somewhat diminished by some very poor reporting in the media, particularly the BBC. One that sticks out was from a BBC reporter speculating that the (relatively) low turnout was down to the fact that ordinary Welsh people didn't really understand complex constitutional matters. Frightfully complex things like whether their decisions should be made in Westminster or Wales. Whoever gave them the vote...?

Perhaps a first move for the newly empowered Welsh government could be to restrict the franchise to those who do understand complex constitutional matters, perhaps confine the vote just to the clever souls who work in the BBC Wales political unit. Hey ho democracy.

Foreign Office

2011-02-24T08:11:00.001Z

150 people arrive back in UK on rescue flight from Libya...hurrah...but was that plane organised by the government? No by BP. Already perilously late Government charter stuck on tarmac at Gatwick for 10 hours.

Polish President's plane managed to take Brits.

Turkey, well known for efficient logistics, has got all its people out.

Libyan airport security firing automatic rounds to "calm" chaos -- does the FCO advice for British nationals to go to airport with lots of money still hold?

HMS Cumberland "waiting for permission" to dock at Bengazi. MMmm.

Cameron still poncing around the the Middle East as chaos reigns. Surely he can ring up the FCO and give them a rocket, after all he must have been at Eton with a fair number of the chinless wonders.

Foreign Office Advice ...continued...

2011-02-23T13:16:00.001Z

Very interesting interview on WATO just now with woman who went to Tripoli Airport and was helped out of Libya by Portuguese Embassy staff on a Portuguese plane -- no sign of HMG's representatives at airport or before.

FCO clearly too busy supporting Cameron's ludicrous grandstanding tour of the Middle East.

Nul points to the chinless wonders.

Foreign Office advice on how to escape from a danger zone

2011-02-22T15:07:00.003Z

You have to ask on which planet the chinless wonders of the Foreign Office reside. "Planet Common Sense" it ain't.

I see that they are sending out advice, from the safety of King Charles Street, to British citizens caught up in the crisis in Libya. You must leave, they say, without checking how that is to be achieved. If they had, they would have found that British Airways and British Midland have cancelled their flights from Tripoli. The airlines that are left flying out are all, surprise surprise, full. Just go to the airport with lots of cash is the next nugget of wisdom, at the same time as reports of chaos at same airport. Well at least they alerted all the thieves and muggers in North Africa to look out for escaping Brits. We have no plans to organise special flights they conclude. No that would be useful.

I imagine this supremely incompetent or at best unthinking advice is a great comfort to our countrymen and women out there.

How to write well

2011-02-21T14:57:00.005Z

A very well-written piece about writing well from Robert McCrum. I share his agnosticism about the teaching of creative writing.

Not a day goes by without my inbox filling with junkmail about screenwriting courses. If they were all so brilliant imagine what Hollywood or even TV would be like? Of course -- with some honourable exceptions -- they are not good. These courses tend to perpetuate the hackneyed old formulae which blight 99% of film and TV. Particularly TV. Recently a well-know someone was unfortunate enough to have to work on a series with a TV commissioning editor "graduate" of this type of course . After a barrage of inane edicts from TV exec, my man remarked : "If he mentions F***ing "jeopardy" or C***ing "discovery" one more time, he is going to discover his jeopardy rammed up his S***ing arse."

McCrum's list of examples may challenge my library but I think they are well worth seeking out. Tonight's task.

Cold Pastoral

2011-02-19T11:11:00.004Z

I have always found the last two weeks of February the most challenging of the British winter. Even though we have the snowdrops and (so I noticed in Dorset this week) the odd daffodil, it is still chilly and bleak and drab with all the excitements of the cold season long past. My Swahili friends in Zanzibar, Dar and Mombasa are all complaining about the heat. The irony.

This year things seem particularly bad. We have the depressing, overwhelming blanket of austerity, real or imagined, cut thorough with the clear reality that the burden is not being shared fairly despite the bleating of Coalition ministers I have been re-reading David Kynaston's magisterial Austerity Britain and Family Britain about the immediate and not so immediate post war years (I have probably mentioned this before but they are long books). Kynaston curates a wonderful selection of first hand descriptions of the time. There is a sense of nostalgic virtue in the process of austerity that was a part of building a new Jerusalem. Some of that Jerusalem we now know failed to deliver but it is difficult to summon the same "dig for Britain" enthusiasm to restoring bankers' bonuses.

Of course the best things in life are free. Perhaps. So this weekend I will be enjoying some walks in the countryside, daydreams, conversation and (not free) beer.

what a performance

2011-02-17T20:34:00.000Z

I caught "the" Archers episode in the car today. Oh dear. Oh dear dear dear. I don't think they will be having her back in Ambridge.

A million words

2011-02-11T15:44:00.001Z

A fantastic collection of pictures from the Egyptian Revolution on the Atlantic site here -- if a picture is worth a thousand words then these must add up to well over a million!

Lizard brains

2011-02-09T11:02:00.002Z

To the LSE for Paul Dolan's inaugural lecture. Ambitiously he aims to bring behavioural economics together with human happiness. It's a bravura performance to a house packed with people from across the political spectrum. This thinking is, after all, supposed to be one of the engines of the Big Society.

I rather like the fact that Dolan frames his lecture around a song from The Jam -- how young professors are getting, or am I simply getting old? But content wise I am most interested by the insights into how our ancient, instinctive limbic system, lizard brain to me, can be manipulated to any number of ends. He cites a study where a group of human guinea pigs were sent loan offers with randomised interest rates, additionally some of these offers were presented with the picture of an attractive woman. The results showed that people would give up a 1% interest rate advantage to sign up for the loan with the attractive woman. No they weren't all male respondents, nor lesbians, they were a properly balanced sample. The explanation? The lizard brains had taken over matching attractive human with attractive financial deal. So much for the rational decision making of Homo Economicus, much more Homer Economicus. I think this is all fascinating in its implications for economics, for the spurious sciences of consumer research and for the way (as Professor Dolan is working on just now) in which governments influence the public.

Spotted by the road in Kenya

2011-02-07T17:17:00.000Z

I want to know what "crocodiles educational" are. Can we have them on the National Curriculum?

Meanwhile in Ambridge...

2011-02-02T20:25:00.003Z

"Ohhh it's windy up on Lakey Hill, or has Joe Grundy been at the Bridge Farm organic pickled turnips again?"

Do I detect a weeny little bit of limelight envy ...? Is Camilla's forthcoming appearance on the Archers -- eating Ian's shortbread at Grey Gables -- a naughty shot across her stepson's bows before The Wedding??

Anyway full marks to her press team -- Ambridge is the classiest of media ops and the Duchess has a great face for radio.

The straw that breaks the camel's back...

2011-01-30T09:29:00.003Z

Poor old President Mubarak. His people are revolting, his army is mutineering, his coppers hiding, scoundrels are even attacking mummies in the Cairo Museum. Now we learn he has had to endure a stern telling-off in a phone call from David Cameron.....

30 minutes later

2011-01-29T13:08:00.000Z

Pigeon now a handful of feathers.

Nature red in tooth and claw

2011-01-29T11:27:00.001Z

Just watching a buzzard devour pigeon outside my French doors. Not sure whether pigeon pre-deceased its encounter with buzzard -- perhaps it froze to death last night. Anyway not much of it left. Buzzard seems to be supremely uninterested in my presence.

Mr Gove has been reading Dickens' Hard Times...

2011-01-20T16:45:00.003Z

...which is strange because it's usually the novel Tories like to ignore. Anyway even if he hasn't, his speechwriters clearly have. This is the much admired opening, written in 1854:

“NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

Hard Times, Charles Dickens

BBC Cult of Youth

2011-01-12T11:36:00.002Z

Alan Yentob (63) has announced that, following a David and Goliath style humiliation over the Miriam O'Reilly case, the BBC will be ultra ultra careful about ageism in the future. There will be lots of special training for executives and monitoring and policies and probably a few layers of compliance management as well. Of course that's how the BBC always responds when it get gets caught out.

The real problem is that the BBC just doesn't get it. The Corporation already has a vast apparatus of "diversity" with tsars and enforcers and committees and monitoring groups; equality policies by the ton; a groaningly large Human Resources Empire -- headed by executives whose pay is in multiples of the Prime Minister's; and a Director General who leads the TV Industry's Cultural Diversity Network. If it still screws up after all this what good are a few more Diversity Awaydays going to do...?

Circa 1971

2011-01-03T18:25:00.002Z

In the garden in Dartmouth Row, Blackheath. Just to prove I got there with the haircut over three decades before Justin Bieber.

Talent Show

2011-01-02T17:25:00.000Z

Freya Salkeld on drums...

Chips II

2011-01-02T13:36:00.003Z

I came across chips nearly as fine as those from the Hind in Bray at a roadside caff on the South Coast near Mombasa, Kenya. 30p a plate. Can't go wrong but quite a trek to satisfy the craving so Heston's number one slot is safe.

This Sporting Life

2011-01-02T13:33:00.002Z

I am pleased to find that the Kenyans’ favourite cigarette is still called “Sportsman”. Recently in neighbouring Tanzania the name of that same smoke was changed to “Portsman”. The cigarettes remained unchanged as did the rest of the natty orange packaging with its equine branding. The fags are still universally known as “Sports” in both countries.

So what about a rather bizarre new name? Well of course it didn’t just happen. It was a victory for Western health busybodies. No doubt the name change will have been the “output” of some bossy master plan. Goals will have been achieved, targets surpassed, KPIs will be buzzing, a thousand dreary powerpoints will be launched across the development world. And the game won’t be over there, a year on business class to Africa will packed as more “consultants” jet in to justify their existence with evaluations and data gathering. Reports that no-one will ever read will be tapped out on expensive laptops. That’s where your aid money goes, banishing an “s”.

Meanwhile a weary Tanzanian will seek a moment’s solace after a day’s labour cleaning the consultant’s offices or wiping the consultant’s children’s arses or other such services to development, and reach for a “Sports”. What a difference an “s” makes.

Africa at last

2011-01-02T13:28:00.000Z

It is very difficult to avoid the Chinese in Africa. They have been there a long while. Graham Greene mentioned the British Intelligence Service’s neuroses over Chinese activity in Zanzibar in The Human Factor. I passed the faded TAZARA railhead in Dar this morning, a 1970s Chinese gift to the peoples of Zambia and Tanzania, or more strategically a route for copper exports out of landlocked Zambia that bypassed apartheid South Africa.

Now it’s business. Scarcely a development goes up without a Chinese name on the construction boards. Take an African flight and the chances are you will be sharing it with a posse of immaculately dressed Chinese businessmen or officials. They drive a bargain as sharp as their suits. The Chinese are here for very self-interested purposes, recognising the long term economic potential of “undiscovered” Africa. They have of course drawn ire from the Western poverty lobby for their rampant commercialism. I wonder how things will look in fifty years’ time? The selfish Chinese would have to have done remarkably badly to match the disasters of half a century’s Western attempts at development in Africa. We may find that the inscrutable men in suits deliver a lot more to the average African than all the pampered, Land Cruisered poverty parasites we send.

Alice Beatrice West 1913 - 2010

2010-11-29T13:26:00.003Z

My grandmother Alice died on Saturday at the grand age of 97. She woke up as normal but faded and passed away in the arms of a carer mid morning.

She really was a link with a different era or indeed eras. Born before the Great War or the Russian Revloution, her parents were Victorians. She came of age during the Great Depression and joined the many setting up home in London's new metroland suburbs.

She saw the abdication crisis, the rule of the dictators and brought her own children up in the Blitz.

She lived through an incredible century. There were properous as well as impoverished times -- she never had it so good with Macmillan and enjoyed a Saga brochure retirement. She enthusiastically took to the new Jerusalem with its foreign holidays, night schools and patio doors but never lost her sense of thrift and self reliance -- she had witnessed the impermanence of civilisations and systems, she had seen them come and go.

I do wonder if we will expereince lifetimes like hers again.

Love at first bite

2010-11-16T21:31:00.000Z

I fell in love last night...with a chip, or in fact a whole portion. The cause of this potato epiphany, Mr Heston Blumentahl's celebrated thrice cooked version. Sublime. Not that the rest of the meal wasn't up to his "perfection" standards but the chips were something else. I have tried chips on five continents and to eat possibly the most familiar dish in the world and still be rewarded with such a sensation is a real achievement.

A blog for our times

2010-11-11T16:03:00.001Z

I have been enjoying Redundant Public Servant's blog if enjoying is quite the right word. He desribes it as "News from the front line of deficit reduction" and like all great blogs it merges the personal with the timely and the profound. He writes so well I cannot picture him as the author of anonymous government memos and disseminator of ghastly offcial gobbledegook. I feel we have a future Orwell prize winner.

New Internationalism

2010-11-09T21:06:00.005Z

I was in the USA on Sunday. I recieved a text message from a friend in Zanzibar. He told me that a Spanish footballer in Liverpool had played a blinder, scoring twice and bringing his team, owned by an American, a much needed victory over another English team, owned by a Russian, and populated mainly by Africans...

The Zanzibari friend -- who goes by the name Gerrardi after his favourite English player -- partied all night.

The Best Weather Service

2010-11-02T09:26:00.002Z

We have launched the new weather service for S4C. It works. It is the UK's first service which uses 1km forecasting data -- that means the information you get is directly relevant to your actual location, not somewhere down the road or over the hill or in the next county.

This is most useful on the website -- here for the English language version, here for the Welsh. When you enter your postcode you get the forecasst for that exact postcode, so it gives a street or close neighbourhood picture. It works all over the UK. This is a huge improvement over the rather dishonest BBC weather website which asks you to enter the postcode and then gives you the forecast for somewhere miles away. Very little use in our highly localised climate.

Elections

2010-11-01T10:38:00.000Z

With the world's eyes turned on the US Mid-terms it is hardly surpirsing that yesterday's election in Zanzibar has gone unnoticed.

We are still waiting for the result and the EU monitors report no violence or intimidation. Not quite what I am hearing. My contacts on the ground say this morning there is a very heavy troop build-up in the centre of the capital and the usual heavy handedness in terms of beatings and intimidation. People are very scared just now.

Future Weather

2010-10-29T17:38:00.002+01:00

The new S4C weather service I have been working on goes live on Monday. We are just beginning to get some publicity. I hope it gets noticed becasue the web service really is something special. This is how Broadcast covered it today:

S4C brings Weather Central to UK

29 October, 2010

By Catherine Neilan

Welsh language channel S4C has signed a deal to become the first UK broadcaster to provide a weather service based on the technology of global forecasting group Weather Central.

Delivered through independent producer Tinopolis, S4C will provide the service both through the TV channel and a purpose-built website from 1 November, claiming it will be the UK’s “most sophisticated public weather information resource”.

Although the service will predominantly focus on the weather in Wales, the rest of the UK and Europe will also be covered. The website will be dual language, while the channel bulletins will continue to be in Welsh.

S4C’s established weather presenters – Chris Jones, Erin Roberts and Mari Grug – will continue to front bulletins, using Weather Central’s technology to zoom in to give a more precisely local picture of conditions.

Adam Salkeld, head of programmes at Tinopolis, said: “With the new S4C weather website you can enter any postcode in Wales and you will get a forecast for that exact street, neighbourhood, town or village… We believe this is the future of weather information services.”

The new service will be produced from Tinopolis’ Llanelli headquarters.

We have all the time in the world...

2010-10-12T14:28:00.003+01:00

The web is a fantastic place to root out those who clearly have too much time on their hands. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for spotting this site - Hot Guys on Judge Judy. Publicly admitting to watching daytime TV is bad enough but setting up a site devoted to its unwitting stars...?

Even more kudos to Mr Sullivan for admitting to the guilty pleasure of drooling over these specimens of American manhood.

A short tribute

2010-10-08T16:39:00.004+01:00

Very sad news this week that Derry Wilkinson has died in a motorcycle accident. Whilst I can't claim to have known Derry very well we'd had a fair amount of contact over the past few years. He was one of those -- sadly uncommon -- altogether decent people you meet in the world of work sometimes. Honourable, generous, clever, funny and quietly very successful, Derry had it all in front of him. We shared a great interest in Africa as well as a "hood" in South London. I had always intended to get to know him better, sadly now that won't be possible.

The Pope's Little Helper

2010-09-20T13:41:00.011+01:00

The British warmed a little to Pope Benedict last week, but by contrast they fell madly in love with his private secretary, Georg Ganswein. Even the Daily Telegraph has been drooling, offering pictures of gorgeous Georg where one would normally expect to see buxom sixth formers from a posh Catholic girls' school.

To lighten the load for all those who find Benedict a reactionary old hypocrite, or as Christopher Hitchens said in New York last week "an overdressed little ponce", an acquaintance tells me that Msg Ganswein's forename has been remodelled by friends as "gay.org"...

Mobile Maasai

2010-09-18T21:41:00.004+01:00

After a long gap I get a call from Juma. He has been back on the mainland for a while. His father, an important Maasai elder, has been very sick but thankfully seems to be on the mend. Adding to the stresses of being a 21st century warrior and herdsman, the rains have failed this year. This means Juma has to take his and his father's cows further and further from the village to graze.

As Juma explains there is an upside. He gets to go far enough to find a patch of ultra rural Tanzania that gets a mobile signal. His village has none. Now I wonder - is there a project for a terribly clever eco-geographer mapping Maasai grazing patterns against the footprints of East Africa's mobile networks? Is the place he is calling me from today over-grazed because of its Vodacom signal? As I have blogged before the Maasai hold most of the modern world in complete disdain but mobile phones...that's another matter.

Tea Party Victory

2010-09-15T10:15:00.003+01:00

After Christine O'Donnell's shock win in the Delaware primary last night Republicans move to an anti-masturbation stance ...they should be careful, there are a lot of wankers out there.

Inconvenience

2010-08-06T10:32:00.003+01:00

We are all so sorry to hear that supermodel Naomi Campbell was "inconvenienced" by having to attend the war crimes tribunal in the Hague yesterday. After all she must have so many better and more important things to be doing than helping fight for justice for the hundreds of thousands of victims of her generous friend Mr Taylor.

Another Coalition

2010-08-02T13:38:00.001+01:00

Zanzibar had a referendum this weekend to vote on whether there should be a power sharing arrangement between the ruling party and the opposition.

Omari -- a strong oppostion supporter, as most actual Zanzibaris seem to be -- says he's in favour. He wants to "live in piss". I think he means "peace" but the text message does say "piss".

I am sceptical, allowing a few non-ruling-party bigwigs into the kleptocratic inner circle is unlikely to make a great difference.

A Grand Night Out

2010-08-02T13:31:00.003+01:00

Saturday. To a packed Albert Hall for the Sondheim 80th Birthday spectacular. It was certainly the Prom to get to this year. We were lavishly hosted by Vaughan and Tony from a great box with supper in the Prince of Wales Room. The evening slid past on a wave of champagne.

But what music. The cast was, of course, starry but in the nicest possible way. Everyone was there to pay homage to the great man so silly performers' egos didn't get in the way. What we got instead were memorable performances of a range of SS's work, delivered with real panache and humour. Dame Judi got the 4995 non-straight members of the audience into all of a flutter. She was, naturally, fabulous, managing to balance the singing-speaking mix of Send on the Clowns perfectly.

Then there was the man himself. You have to admire someone who at age 80 sports a 23 year old boyfriend on his arm. He got a rare Albert Hall standing ovation and looked genuinely overwhelmed. Vaughan, who had to officially welcome him to the Hall, reported that this modesty continued behind the scenes. This was while, mind you, Dame Judi was declaring him to be a genius equal to Mozart. With a luvvy chorus like that maintaining a bashful air of surprise really is something.

Vaughan and Tony had arranged an interesting party including a former lover of Ivor Novello's which somehow made the evening even more poignant. We got back to Brighton around 2. Vaughan decalred it one of the most memorable Proms of his tenure at the Hall.

Exam Success

2010-07-19T08:40:00.005+01:00

Little Mussa has done well in his exams in Paje. When I first met him a couple of years ago he was chain smoking. Being an old fart I scolded him and said I would tell his father. He replied that he didn't have a father.

From then on he became known by the nickname "Sigara Mtoto" (cigarette boy) and has shown himself to be a hard worker -- in school and out. Like all of life's survivors he knows how to tag onto groups and make himself useful. He helps out in the kitchen when I am in Zanzibar. At the bottom of the pecking order with all the maestro chefs, he's the one that gets sent into the village on errands or up the palm tree for coconuts. Where he really comes into his own is in eating. He appears to eat his bodyweight in rice at each sitting and always manages more meat and vegetables than grown men several times his size. Because he's still quite small for his age I give him extra protein on top, so he'll often polish off his feast with eggs and peanut butter. Now at the age of eighteen he is beginning his growth spurt and going up, as they say locally, "like a coconut palm ".

He tells me that he wants to go to catering college next. Cheffing is a good transferable skill which will give him a better chance of an income than many other things. I still harbour a hope that he does a bit more at school, maybe even giving secondary a try.

In the meantime he loves dancing to Zanzbar's very own Freddy Mercury and watching Little Britain and Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor on DVDs.

Mandy reveals all...

2010-07-18T09:34:00.006+01:00

I am enjoying the Mandy Memoirs, perhaps not for the right reasons. It reads rather camply as Uncle Pierre clutches us to his bosom and opens his carefullty airbrushed heart. As you progress the whiff of North Korea becomes stronger. Dear Peter's controlling hand is as omnipresent as any Pyonyang Kim -- from running his Hampstead Garden Suburb primary school to the Labour Party. He hasn't written any operas, performed open heart surgery or designed a hydro-electric dam yet but these are early days. I am only a third through.

World Cup Finale

2010-07-12T13:59:00.001+01:00

My friend Massimo sends me a dispatch from Barcelona (where he is one of the city's finest cocktail mixers). The world cup celebrations have been going on all night and still they party. The Spanish -- and Catalans in particular -- do undertand the science of joy. Massimo and colleagues (any excuse) have created and mixed the “Iniesta Surprise” and “Fabregas Fireball” as tribute.

Half a year ago

2010-07-07T14:56:00.001+01:00

Six months ago tomorrow -- early in the morning -- I was wheezing my way up the final 1000 metres of Kilimanjaro. It seems like yesterday. Watching dawn rise from the rim of the volcanic crater wth just an hour or two to go to the summit was a fantastic experience. It was cold but the exercise and layers of clothes meant it didn't feel it, unless you kept your hands out too long or tried to touch your frozen water bottle.

The great thing about that last 24 hours of ascent was the focus. All consciousness was honed to a) worrying about own body b) worrying about companions c) thinking about mountain. Nothing else mattered. Even meeting some bundesgloaters coming down from the summit as we were on the final approach washed over me.

Schadenfreud II

2010-07-07T13:46:00.000+01:00

I should really shut up about this -- it's certainly not a feeling with much currency in England just now. But my friend Paul came up with a new word, its exact opposite, to describe how the Germans are at the moment. Bundesgloating. I love it.

African heads

2010-06-29T20:50:00.000+01:00

The most estimable Neil MacGregor will be discussing an Ife head in his History of the World in 100 Objects on Radio 4 tomorrow. I have looked at it and it is a very fine piece. Not, though, as starkly beautiful as mine.

Call of the Wild

2010-06-29T19:38:00.002+01:00

It is amazing how the hot weather affects us. Pete became all nordic and bold on Saturday's walk in the hills around Llantony and the Golden Valley. Just as amazingly there seemed to be only slow worms and skylarks to witness his exposure. Where were the Offa's Dyke hikers and the Beacons Way wanderers? He was naked long enough to be at serious risk from sunburn.

Popobawa's work done?

2010-06-29T19:33:00.001+01:00

Well we hope so. We will have to see in club football next season whether the popobawa stayed in South Africa, slunk back to Zanzibar or became so addicted to the rear ends of the hapless England team that he followed them home. He certainly had a good run.

Schadenfreud

2010-06-24T16:58:00.000+01:00

Or the Italian?

My pre-match thoughts

2010-06-23T14:56:00.003+01:00

World Cup

2010-06-22T18:30:00.004+01:00

What's the French for schadenfreud ?

An explanation for England

2010-06-19T08:44:00.006+01:00

The boys in Zanzibar -- whose football expertise was celebrated in the Zanzibar Beach Boys film premiered at Lusaka -- have come up with an explanation for England's dimsal World Cup performances so far.

They are convinced that a popobawa has somehow made its way from Zanzibar down to South Africa and has taken up residence in the England team hotel.

A popobawa for the uninitiated is a particularly rapacious Swahili vampire. Assuming the form of a bat it enters houses at night and then transforms into a devilish humanoid form and proceeds to sodomise its victim -nearly always male. The victim is badly affected -- experiencing a trance like state, lethargy and often appearing mentally unbalanced. Popobawas like to perform repeat attacks condemning their victims to a fate of nightly rapes.

In Zanzibar and other Swahili areas the appearance of a popobawa can lead to mass hysteria. The only protection against the night-time attacks is to sleep in groups out of doors hoping that the shy popobawa will stay away. The nights usually pass sleepless in an orgy of speculation about the various traits and behaviours of the popobawa. The peculiar forms of his genitalia are one of the hottest, and most exaggerated, subjects for debate.

If we hear of the England team being ordered out of their five star suites and onto chilly camp beds in the hotel grounds we will know that Fabio has taken action. It may of course be too late. By the standards of last night's performance the squad appears well under the popobawa's spell.

The Call of the Hills

2010-06-12T08:40:00.001+01:00

A lovely day in the Towy Valley. We are off to the Carmarthen Vans for a hike. Last time the intrepid trio attempted these forgotten mountains of Wales we got horrendously lost. As a chill October night fell we were still stumbling around on the hills. Eventually we spotted distant lights and made our way to a village. Our incompetent navigational efforts had deposited us over ten miles from our cars. A taxi was called.

Better luck today.

African Head

2010-06-10T17:45:00.002+01:00

I have finally got my West African sculpture home. I love it.

Sadly it is not an original Benin bronze -- were it so I would not be writing this but sipping vintage Krug on my yacht moored off Cap d'Antibes. However it is a very good replica. It was reportedly made for the British Museum in the 1930s and as such has been done to the highest archival standard. The bust shows a young Oba (king) from Ife, an ancient Yaruba city. There is currently an exhibition of the genuine articles at the British Museum, which I must get to before it finishes. However I can't believe there is anything more beautiful than mine.

Behind the Scenes

2010-06-08T13:13:00.001+01:00

There's a good behind the scenes account of production of the Zanzibar Beach Boys film on the Zanzibits blog here.

More publicity for African Digital Diaries

2010-06-08T10:13:00.002+01:00

A nice piece from the United Nations Media Global news service on African Digital Diaries and focusing on Bishop Tilewa's keynote speech.

Football

2010-06-06T13:08:00.004+01:00

The day after the launch of African Digital Diaries I presented at the football and learning session and showed the Zanzibar Beach Boys film again. It went down very well. Expertly chaired by Harold Elletson from the UK and Mor Seck from Senegal it was a lively, varied and interesting forum. I was very impressed with the work of the Zambian EduSport Foundation described by its marketing officer Patrick Mweshi. And the session also gave me the chance to learn about iSchools Africa from the irrepressible Michelle Lissoos. I hope we will be able to collaborate in the future it was a serendipitous meeting.

Lusaka Conference

2010-06-06T12:40:00.001+01:00

I think the trip to Lusaka can be counted a success. First the conference itself. Rebecca and the team from ICWE did a great job getting nearly 2000 delegates to Zambia from all over Africa. The conference had a really African feel and I was most refreshed that the usual poverty industry crowd had stayed away leaving the stage clear for constructive ideas and hope for the future. That is after all what the digital universe can offer.

The launch of African Digital Diaries went very well. There was definitely a buzz around the project. Particularly after Bishop Tilewa Johnson gave us a cracking plug in his opening plenary address. His speech about the need for an African approach to social networking was the most memorable and reported of the conference. He is a class act.

We had been worried about filling our 90 minute slot but in the end we ran out of time. Our co-presenters -- Themba from Zimbabwe, Billy from Zambia and the Bishop from Gambia -- gave a really textured mix of viewpoints, styles and stories. The proof of it all came from the lively discussion that followed each presentation. We connected with other enthusiasts and that is what really matters.

Now the challenge is for African Digital Diaries to build on this momentum and enthusiasm.

Paje Boys on Film

2010-06-06T11:59:00.001+01:00

Gerrardi, Ahmedi, Zaharani and Maasai Juma worked wth Zanzibits and Stone Town director Ibrahim Matukuta to make "Zanzibar Beach Boys" which you can now see here along with all the other African Digital Diaries we launched with in Lusaka.

The little film shows how a passion for football can be a real driver to informal learning. The boys have taught themselves how to use computers, find a wifi signal and connect with other football fans worldwide. It's a great African Digital Diaries story and the team made a really special film. We presented it at two ELA 2010 sessions and it went down a storm both times.

I am very proud of them all.

Chelsea

2010-06-03T15:20:00.000+01:00

Kassim proudly wore the new Chelsea away shirt that Alison gave him and was very reluctant to take it off...

Rodent Cuisine

2010-06-03T15:14:00.002+01:00

With the Lebanese restaurant, conference lunches and even the mini safari park we visited on Saturday for lunch I didn't manage a particular Zambian speciality that has been causing hilarity in Zanzibar. I speak of rats -- either skewered and barbecued or served in a stew with the local maize porridge, nshima. I think they are a regional, and a rural regional at that, speciality. Unlikely then that we found them in the smarter distructs of Lusaka. This hasn't stopped a stream of text messages from Zanzibar asking about my rat dinners.

Poor old Kassim was convinced nefarious Zambians would try to secretly feed him "panya" (Swahili for rat). On his Zambezi Airlines flight from Dar he was offered a beef dinner. He questioned the cabin crew member closely on what type of beef it was. When she was unable to be specific enough Kassim was convinced it was in-flight rodent and refused the meal. By the time he reacehd Lusaka and had come through his altercation with Zambian Immigration he was starving.

Ministerial Transport

2010-05-28T09:16:00.001+01:00

Only in Africa. I was waiting for my taxi to take me to the conference centre this morning when a big pick-up appeared. "Come-on let's go!" said the guy driving. "I'll take you to eLearning Africa". I was confused until he explained that he had spotted my pass and that's where he was headed. He was the Zambian Deputy Minister for Education and had given his driver the day off. We have a good chat. He told me all about a legal dispute he was in with Caterpillar Zambia and I told him about African Digital Diaries.

Marekani

2010-05-28T09:07:00.001+01:00

Kassim summed it up with a muttered "Marekani" and a sigh. We had enocuntered a bunch of Americans -- staff at the Embassy. Its Central Tossers Department I would guess.

Let me explain.

One of Lusaka's more surprising facilities is a very good Lebanese restaurant -- The Cedars-- which is very close to our hotel. The food is deliciously authentic, plentiful and the place has a great atmosphere overseen by its vernerable Lebanese patron. We all ate there on Wednesday night and liked it so much I took K back there last night. Mistake. Thursday night is the Central Tossers Department weekly quiz night. We were overwhelmed by Embassy Nerds of the the worst kind.

I will try not to go on but here's top list of annoyances:
1. Massive amplificiation of inane quiz master ("Hey I'm a really crazy guy!") and dreadful MOR US rock music that appeared requirement for nerds to have a good time. No consideration for others trying to enjoy a Lusaka evening, but hey they were the Embassy Nerds.
2. 99% white (only one mildly hispanic staff member). Is that reflecting today's USA? Where are they based again?
3. Complete lack of interest in their surroundings -- US music, US quiz questions, pathetic US attempts at humour. Travel broadens the mind unless you are an Embassy Nerd.
4. Personnel quality. Perhaps it's a feature of the homogenous crowd with all its inbreeding, but they seemed a dull lot. I thought getting a job at an embassy was a glittering prize reserved for the very finest.

Secretary of State Clinton you must be really proud.

Return to Lusaka

2010-05-25T14:11:00.002+01:00

It must be 15 years since I was last here. Lusakans seem to have taken to fast food and shopping malls big time. These and a few other trappings of prosperity are the most obvious changes. The people look wealthier which in African terms means bigger and healthier as well as better mobiles, more cars and smarter clothes.

Most of all I am struck again how pleasant and courteous everyone is -- even offcialdom. In my own typically vacant way I have had two brushes with the powers of law and order. Firstly whilst out on a walk to stretch my legs after the 10 hour flight I inadvertently strayed into the barracks of the Presidential Guard, directly opposite His Excellency's palace. I was looking for a quiet spot away from the main road to make a call. A very smart Military Policement found me and asked if he coudl help me. He was so polite and offered to find me a quiet spot out of the restricted zone for me to make my call. Helpfully he explained that I might be suspected of being a terrorist giving instructions to my associates so it was better that I moved. Given the MP's AK47 and a large number of others in the immediate vicinity who was I to argue. He took me to the other quiet place and asked it there was anything else he coudl do to help.

Later on back at the airport to meet Kassim I was alarmed because the Dar flight had emptied and still no sign of him. Eventually an immigration offcial approached me and asked if I would come back airside. There I found K amid a gaggle of officers. He had been detained because he had no money, they felt (quite justifiably) that he had a rather sketchy story about being there and for reasons entirely of his own he was pretending not to speak very much English. The chief officer allowed me to explain, asked a couple of questions, said he believed me and stamped K's single A4 sheet temporary passport. He then said that it was not a good idea to overstay, because in that type of circumstance the Immigration Service might not be so willing to compromise. All in about 5 minutes with smiles, goodbyes and many welcomes to Zambia.

With both incidents I imagine what would happen if a Zambian had make equivalent errors on a visit to the UK.

It is a clear, sunny autumn here. Too cold at night for K but rather balmy by my standards. Lusaka remains the LA of Africa in terms of its sprawl and reliance on the motor car but the air is fresh and there are enough places within walking distance to keep us amused.

Flying Tonight

2010-05-23T18:01:00.000+01:00

Just sitting at Heathrow looking out at an absolutely scorching runway -- maybe it's hotter now than it will be in Africa tomorrow morning.

Have reacehd the point where all the preparations for the launch of African Digital Diaries have been taken as far as they can, we just have to do it now.

Lusaka Football

2010-05-21T12:00:00.001+01:00

The football session is getting some publicity.The ELA News Service has issued this. A bit worrying as I don't remember doing an interview. Even more worrying they think I am an expert!