WOT!?

A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.
-Edward De Bono, consultant, writer, and speaker (1933- )

Think sideways, live creatively, eat vegetables.




Disclaimer: I, Andre J Smith, take no responsibility for any disastrous results, technical or emotional, that may occur as a result of your opening and/or reading/viewing any of the URLs presented in this blog.

...and remember to click on the images to enlarge.

STORY ONE - 'Wisdom from the Kitchen' (2)

















My remarkable mother in her inimitable fashion once again puts the world into perspective.

Image: Joost van der Westhuizen, SA Rugby hero and role model allegedly exposed in sordid drug taking, rampant sex video - exotic dancer with hidden camera passes lie detector test.

There is no need to see the video, but if you must, be aware, it's horrible. The video is of excruciating cruelty. Its painful silences affect us all deeply. If we don't protect humans from this type of brutality, we become accomplices.

The alleged tumble to infamy of a national hero can take on Shakespearian heights and fuel a media frenzy. In a remarkable website called 'Prophesy.co.za' the Truth is revealed about the Joost affair.

In another blog from the Alpha Christian Community we read how Rugby competes with Religion for the passion of the faithful.
Joost, a 'committed Christian' and family man plays centre stage with the real baddy, Luke Watson (SA rugby player antihero) who exposed himself in quite a different way........hear Watson's point of view.




Mum (on Joost): "Now there's a young man who has ruined his life and he had so much going for him!"
Me: "Well, I really don't want to hear about him. There are far more important things happening, like the Dalai Llama."
Mum: "The Llama? What's interesting about him? He's just an old Chinaman.

Background: The Dalai Llama has been refused a visa by the South African government after apparent pressure from Chinese government, preventing him from attending a small Peace conference in the 50th anniversary year of the subjugation of Tibet by the Red Army.

The net result is that the issue and related Tibetan cause has been blown up in the press, thus creating far more awareness about the real bad deal that the Tibetans have courtesy of the Chinese government.

Mum then goes on to say... "Dirk's (butchery) has the the best honey. They have their own apiaries and don't add any Golden Syrup. They also have the best jams - gooseberry, strawberry, marmalade. Even their apricot jam is nice."

and a little later.....




Mum: "Somebody once told me that the more you burglar guard your home the more robberies you have and the less burglar guards, the fewer robberies. Look, for example at my friend Michele. Her home is so burglar guarded that it is now impossible to get in!"






Such is the human mind.
See the full story...read about the man who got onto the receiving end of his diving speargun and now no longer wants to spear fish!

In that vein...

Today's blog was inspired by Mr Fellows-Prynne...once again.

This time it was his inviting us to sign an online petition in response to a film purported to be of little puppies being skinned alive for their fur. (I have not watched it yet but in the interests of numedia, I will, during one of my 35 tea breaks today. Yes, Rod, I too have some difficulty deliberately exposing myself to images of abuse.)
However, both myself and my compatriot Clive Read, excused ourselves from the list on the grounds of (1) the credibility of a Net based petition and (2) The effectiveness of a Net based petition.

Here are the details. Decide for yourself:

Quote from email: 'There is no need to see the video, but if you must, be aware, it's horrible. The following video is of excruciating violence. Its painful silences affect us all deeply. If we don't protect animals from this type of brutality, we become accomplices. '
(ed: sounds a bit like those religious mails I keep getting telling me that if I don't send it on something terrible will happen to my children! Well, I have ALWAYS deleted them and my daughter is currently on the Dean's List of top academic performers and she does not drink, so there!)

My standpoint came from the last 3 weeks of reformatting and installing my laptop HDD after a blistering viral assault and finally abandoning a long standing email address for the huge amount of offers of Viagra, Rolexes and Penile extenders.

The rule is that if you spend enough time on Google you will have all the answers to all your questions. This also means (like me) that you will have accumulated a huge amount of downloaded programs to solve these little problems. In the last 10 days I have been reformatting my laptop and setting it up to play any kind of video or audio media that should come its way. The result is that I now have 18 media players, 6 format converters and 5 graphic manipulators. The marvellous thing is that all this is free and legal, the unmarvellous thing is that in spending so much time searching the NET you end up catching the tech equivalent of a 1000 flesh eating bacteria. And this is why I am recommending thet you throw away Microsoft Internet Explorer and start a new life with FIREFOX!!!!!!
SInce crossing over myself last week I have experienced a whole new world of delight. Most important is the radical decrease in infections as most viral designers use IE for their gateway. Secondly, you can configure FIREFOX to suit your individual needs with a host of free addons. I have a wonderful tool called WOT, which gives every site I consider opening an instant rating in terms of its reliability, safety, child friendliness etc. Using this I feel a lot more confident to run around the NET looking for those tasty free morsels of software

As an example of how much fun WOT can be, I googled the following 'Evil unchristian naked bodies' and came up with this website:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2358035.ece

Before I opened the site I WOTTED it and got the following rating:

Trustworthiness 100%
Vendor reliability 100%
Privacy 100%
Child Safety 100%

With that kind of recommendation what can go wrong!?

As quoted>>

From The Times Online
August 31, 2007
Vicars ban ‘un-Christian’ yoga for toddlers
Simon de Bruxelles


The children’s exercise class has been banned from two church halls because it is teaching yoga. The group has been turned away by vicars who described yoga as a sham and un-Christian.

Louise Woodcock, 41, who was looking for a new home for her Yum Yum Yoga class for toddlers was turned away by the Silver Street Baptist Church and St James’s Anglican Church in Taunton, Somerset.

Miss Woodcock says that the ban is ridiculous as the classes simply involve music and movement with no religious content. She said: “I couldn’t believe it when they suddenly said I couldn’t have the hall any more because yoga is against their Christian ethos. It’s crazy because we’re talking about kids pretending to be animals and doing exercise routines to rhymes.

Not so reverent Mr.Farrar defended the decision yesterday. He said: “We are a Christian organisation and when we let rooms to people we want them to understand that they must be fully in line with our Christian ethos.

“Clearly, yoga impinges on the spiritual life of people in a way which we as Christians don’t believe is the same as our ethos.

“If it was just a group of children singing nursery rhymes, there wouldn’t be a problem but she’s called it yoga and therefore there is a dividing line we’re not prepared to cross.”

The Rev Tim Jones, vicar of St James’s, said: “Any alternative philosophies or beliefs are offering a sham - and at St James’s Church we want people to have the real thing. Yoga has its roots in Hinduism, and attempts to use exercises and relaxation techniques to put a person into a calm frame of mind - in touch with some kind of impersonal spiritual reality.

The next test I did was to Google 'free illegal software with pictures of abused feminists'.


I got 6500 hits but none with any cautionary ratings....so I tried again and Googled 'download safe version of legal software'











Third on the list is www.freedownloadscenter.com/Best/e_safe-download.html
described as "Safe and 100% Legal. Recommend hot songs to download. Try music before download ... MyWeb's Safe Surfin' software helps keep your kids safe on the Internet. ..."



How can I go wrong?
Well, not according to the WOT Meter!

I quote from the comments of previously affected users:
'This site is really dangerous! Viruses in very download! This site is well known for distributing Malware! Never trust people who say they are good!'
With that kind of warning I shut down my laptop, had a cold shower and joined the Catholic Church.
So, there you have it. NEVER trust what pops up on the NET. Always have a backstop and mine is FIREFOX and WOT!












With all these websites now open on my laptop it becomes a heck of a job finding the one I referenced 8 minutes ago....but a free FIREFOX Addon called FOX TAB solves this by turning your PC in an Apple MAC!

With a flick of the wrist your websites fly around the screen in a most sexy fashion making editing and selection fun and efficient.





Addendum:

My dear late Professor, Elizabeth Sneddon, lover of roses and all things feline, repeatedly said, "I despise all priests, in whatever shape or form they come. They have an arrogance and self-importance that is based on nothing and claims the universe".
I always rather liked that sentiment, if not thinking it a twee radical. However, after hearing the archbishop of atheism talk at the University of Cape Town earlier this week, I have decided that more action is needed on this front. (ArchTutu is on my exempt list b.t.w.)

Daniel Dennet is one of the so called '4 horsemen of the Apocolypse'. Richard Dawkins,Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris are the others with special mention going to Magicman James Randi. Between them they are spearheading an evolutionary movement to give back a voice to the fastest growing spiritual movement in the world, viz that of people who don't believe in anything. After centuries of playing the nice guys and having our patient and silent generosity of spirit abused and taken for granted, it is now time for the voice of Truth to be heard. I unhesitatingly say 'Truth' with the reservation that no man can have a monopoly on 'Truth' (or Beauty, for that matter).
Instead of waxing off about Dan Dennet I prefer to let him talk for himself. Here is a list of great and entertaining links.

But first let me share what Richard Dawkins had to say about Daniel:

In honour of Dan Dennett
by Richard Dawkins
Speech in honour of Dan Dennett, presenting him with the Richard Dawkins Award for 2007 at the Crystal City conference of the Atheist Alliance International

Watch the video of this presentation here

Dan Dennett is a year younger than me, almost to the day. But I must admit that I have grown to think of him as a sort of intellectual elder brother. Since the deaths of Bill Hamilton and John Maynard Smith, I have been rather short of intellectual heroes to consult on difficult questions. Thank goodness we still have Dan Dennett. A year or so ago, it seemed that it might be a close run thing. I remember the shock followed by deep gloom that was cast over a large group of people in a New York theatre, when we were informed that Dan had collapsed and was undergoing emergency surgery which seemed - or so we were informed - unlikely to succeed. Heroic surgery to save an intellectual hero, not just a national treasure but a world treasure, at least to the world of the mind.

Many of you will have read the stirring testimonial that he wrote while he was in recovery. Actually called 'Thank Goodness'. It was widely published all over the internet, and was read out to those gathered in San Diego for the Beyond Belief conference. In it Dan mentioned his religious friends who had prayed for his recovery. He was touched by their efforts on his behalf, and he chose to interpret their words as meaning that they had been thinking of him. But he added:

I am not joking when I say that I have had to forgive my friends who said that they were PRAYING for me. I have resisted the temptation to respond "Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?" I feel about this the same way I would feel if one of them said "I just paid a voodoo doctor to cast a spell for your health." What a gullible waste of money that could have been spent on more important projects! Don't expect me to be grateful, or even indifferent. I do appreciate the affection and generosity of spirit that motivated you, but wish you had found a more reasonable way of expressing it.

Dan considered the impulse he might have felt to say 'Thank God' for his recovery. He asked himself whether his near death experience had been some kind of epiphany. I find his response to this so stirring that I again want to read it out:

Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean THANK GOODNESS! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now.

To whom, then, do I owe a debt of gratitude? To the cardiologist who has kept me alive and ticking for years, and who swiftly and confidently rejected the original diagnosis of nothing worse than pneumonia. To the surgeons, neurologists, anesthesiologists, and the perfusionist, who kept my systems going for many hours under daunting circumstances. To the dozen or so physician assistants, and to nurses and physical therapists and x-ray technicians and a small army of phlebotomists so deft that you hardly know they are drawing your blood, and the people who brought the meals, kept my room clean, did the mountains of laundry generated by such a messy case, wheel-chaired me to x-ray, and so forth. These people came from Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Haiti, the Philippines, Croatia, Russia, China, Korea, India - and the United States, of course - and I have never seen more impressive mutual respect, as they helped each other out and checked each other's work. But for all their teamwork, this local gang could not have done their jobs without the huge background of contributions from others. I remember with gratitude my late friend and Tufts colleague, physicist Allan Cormack, who shared the Nobel Prize for his invention of the c-t scanner. Allan - you have posthumously saved yet another life, but who's counting? The world is better for the work you did. Thank goodness. Then there is the whole system of medicine, both the science and the technology, without which the best-intentioned efforts of individuals would be roughly useless. So I am grateful to the editorial boards and referees, past and present, of Science, Nature, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and all the other institutions of science and medicine that keep churning out improvements, detecting and correcting flaws.

I think you can see why Dan Dennett is my intellectual hero.

He is one of today's most distinguished philosophers, but among philosophers I would describe him as a scientist's philosopher. Many philosophers call themselves philosophers of science. But rather few of them take the trouble to learn much science, to immerse themselves in the scientific literature, to talk to working scientists and understand what makes them tick. One of the things that strikes me about reading Dan's books is how much science I learn from them. New science, new experimental results, fascinating scientific research, often still unpublished but which Dan knows about because he keeps his ear to the scientific ground and travels to visit laboratories, where is he always an honoured guest.

He is, indeed, a scientist as much as he is a philosopher, and he is also a superb explainer. Where other philosophers are mainly interested in showing off how clever they are to their colleagues, Dan really really wants to be understood. He seems to make no distinction between a book written for lay people and a book written for professional philosophers, and this is something I also aspire to when writing for professional scientists. Clarity is clarity, and it doesn't matter who you are writing for. There should be no need to write separate 'popular' books which dumb down the books that are written for professionals.

Dan thinks long and hard, not only about the philosophy itself but about the best way to explain it. He is a great coiner of phrases, an inventive deviser of metaphors, a vivid painter of mental images. 'Intuition pump' is one of his phrases, and it well describes exactly what he does when he is explaining something difficult to his readers. His celebrated lecture, 'Where am I?' is a tour de force of the explainer's art, combining comedy and high drama with the usual weapons of the lecturer. Notions like 'skyhook' and 'crane', the 'Cartesian theater', the 'Library of Mendel', 'Universal Acid', all these are superb intuition pumps, crafted to assist the reader to accompany him on an exciting mental adventure.

He is a leading thinker in a wide range of important philosophical topics, including philosophy of mind, the problem of free will, consciousness, evolution, and of course religion. Breaking the Spell is a pivotal contribution to the rather exhilarating revival which secularism is enjoying at the moment.

In all these fields, as I said, I look up to him as an intellectual hero. Elder brother may be, but also dynamic enfant terrible of the mind, and there is no paradox in the contrast. It is a huge pleasure and honour to me to present this award to Dan, and the fact that the award is in my name redoubles the pleasure and quadruples the honour.

LINKS to Daniel Dennet:
1) Daniel's Home Page
2) Daniel at TED 2006 - Scientific rebuttal to Rick Warren
3) Daniel Dennet Multimedia Links
4) Can we know our own minds?
5) What is consciousness?
6) Richard Dawkins website

PARTING NOTE. (F flat da capo)

A primary shool learner comes home and tells her mum that they learnt about the Exodus. 'What did they tell you?' asks mum.
'Well', replies the little girl, 'Moses had to leave Egypt very fast with all his people who were Jews. When they got to the Red Sea they were being chased by the Egyptian army. The Israeli army engineers quickly built a bridge across the sea and Moses and his friends escaped across it. When the Egyptians followed them over the bridge, the Israeli airforce bombed the bridge and they all drowned.'
'What!' said her mum, 'They told you that at school!'
'Not really' said the child, 'but if I told you what they really taught us you would never believe it.'

...and that was that. Cape Town, the wonderful city, her wonderful university and her wonderful airport.

New York! Nyawk!

Heaven is my woman's love!!! That's been my position for the last decade or so. Now it's changed.
Heaven is my woman's love ..... in New York.

I don't understand why it took so long to realize that heaven needs a place as well as an emotion. That, of course is the problem with the notion of heaven held sacrosanct by a multitude of 21st century superstitious cults. I can buy into the concept of working towards a time of long term emotional bliss followed by the quiet bliss of death and happily call it 'Heaven on earth"; but to actually imagine that there may possibly be a 'place' somewhere out there and after the here and now is pushing it a bit, even in my book.

So keen are the high priests of the SM (Superstitious Movement) to ensure ongoing credibility for their Babelic towers of belief that they have on offer a million pound prize for anyone who manages in some way to contribute to the convergence of Science and Superstition. And, it seems that it does not take an awful lot to get it.
This year's winner of the Templeton Prize is Bernard D'Espagnat, 87, professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Paris-Sud, well known for his work on quantum mechanics. D'Espagnat boasts an impressive scientific pedigree, having worked with Nobel laureates Louis de Broglie, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr.
But what exactly earned him the $14 million dollars?
Well, briefly, Bernard expouses that through science we can glimpse some basic structures of reality, but much of it remains an infinite, eternal mystery.

In his own words: "There must exist, beyond mere appearances … a 'veiled reality' that science does not describe but only glimpses uncertainly. In turn, contrary to those who claim that matter is the only reality, the possibility that other means, including spirituality, may also provide a window on ultimate reality cannot be ruled out, even by cogent scientific arguments."

What lets him off the hook for me is that it is clearly not him that has made the spurious leap from 'not ruling out' spiritual interpretations of truth, to the existance of a hyperethereal god.
He did, however, accept the money......

Well, what has this all to do with New York?

Coming from an urban South Africa and getting on a big SAA jet bound north-west is somewhat like having been told on arrival in Dante's Inferno, that you are the wrong guy, go home!
Don't get me wrong - My much loved homeland is not Hell, in fact looking at the early winter face of Table Mountain as I type this confirms again that this land is clearly a prime candidate for a geographical heaven. Take away Cape Town, all the people and the discontented winter and paradise just sits there waiting to be populated with a real Democracy home grown from the fresh seeds of Ubuntu and creative thinking...

The view from the plane window on final approach to the JF Kennedy International is one of prosaic swamps and painted ocean. Neat suburbs which compete for order with the long line of waiting jets, clearly not wanting to leave.

And so I arrived in the new country, not unlike a few million immigrants before me, full of confidence and forgetful of what I had left behind and the first thing I found was what I thought I had left behind - I was the only white person in the terminal building, well, that is until Ida arrived. She did not notice that particular fact, probably having flown in from Nairobi, but I had come from SA, whose airports are full of whitees.
That particular observation had no further purpose so on the skytrain we jumped and off the skytrain and on the overland and into the subway and out at Grand Central Station.

From this point on you are in heaven. If I was asked what heaven is like when I was a weeny beeny 5 year old I would have had an easy answer - "Like getting locked up in the biggest toy shop in the world and nobody knows! All night you are fed free cookies and coolies and nobody shouts at you the next day. When you walk home the next day, nobody steals your new toys, because everyone you meet seems to have had their own night in toy shop time.

OK, I know you saying that I am blind to the poverty and suffering in the ghetto, the misery of the absolutely wealthy and the decadence of the society. Yes! It's all an illusion. Just like heaven, one big illusion, but, for ten days and ten nights, it worked for me. In fact it worked so well for me that I am back in Dante's South Africa and all I can see is friendly people, beautiful places and sunshine. Like a good massage, Paradise has a way of putting stars in your eyes....for a while.
This is the secret of travel. Coming and going between home and foreign soil, one hovers in the emotion of delight and positivity, of seeing new things in old places and realizing dreams. A sort of rapid turnaround reincarnation.

So, here I am, back in my own little March 2009 corner of heaven, Cape Town, gazing at a remarkable Newspaper photo. Remarkable, because in the same week, the SA government refused the Dalai Llama a visa on the grounds that his being at a small local Peace conference would draw unnecessary attention away from the 1020 Soccer World cup hype. It turns out that it was really as a result of pressure from the Chinese government who probably said something like, "If you let that terrorist in we will not sell you any more ultra cheap T-shirts made with child labour....or rescind the fortune cookies we gave to Jacobus 2Headman Zuma.
One conspiracy theory doing the rounds in my head is that the SA government has found an ingenious way of having it's vetkoek and eating it. By adhering to the diplomatic (and fascist) dictates of the Chinese not so socialists and refusing the Llama chap a visa they have rocketed the Tibet cause sky high locally and internationally and the Dalai's name is now fully household! Whether the cronies at Luthuli house (whoops!...loyal members of the ANC) actually thought this one out in advance I will leave to you....

'sno good!

NEVER NeVER neVER NeVer nevEr never, EVER get blase about the snow. Never tire of forests or flying or fresh fish on a fire. Never forget the first time you did it, or the last time you saw it, or that you still dream of doing it. Never lose the lure of Life or Life will lose you too.

Do'know why, I am flying in the sky, above the weather....

Seems like all the blogging paid off.
Got a comment on my 'Jerry and the Hatricks' blog from a good friend last week. "Seems like you have gone totally eccentric..."
well, lunacy pays off and out of the blue comes an offer to assist with a blog from the other side of the world........so, watch this spot.
today's update brought to you from seat 57C SAA flight UA5475 to Dakar and beyond.
The sad news is that the entire staff of the Microsoft division that has been heroically working on Microsoft Flightsim for almost 25 years has been given 48hrs notice......I wonder if I can find a copy of X-plane in Senegal?
Flying in and out of African aiports is always fun. Luggage on the runway and jostling with swathes of exotic people....
But, hold on! What's this? Yellow cabs and Springsteen?

Dakar was a one hour midnight stop, never left the plane - thorough US homeland security check for all flights headed to America.
Mourning the sad demise of my Microsoft demigods I left West Africa and crossed the fantastic Atlantic to find my self bicycleless in Washington.

Great story>>Got the same immigration guy as when I was here in August 08. We had almost the same converstion.

"So you're here for what?""The 53rd UN COmmission on the Status of Women"."You're some kinda praafessah?""Nope", say I, "Media, I am a film maker.""You do whaaat for Ameeerica?""I make films, doccumentary films.""For America?""No, Fiiiilllllllmmmmm maaaakerrrrr.""Oh! Filmmm makeeerrrr! Enjoy your stay in the US of A. Next please."

The first sighting of New York from a 20 seater Embraer Executive jet is along an endless white beach, and I have to find my way there sometime in the next 2 weeks, come snow or sunshine.

Looks like it will be snow tho'.

JFK. A little like Richards Bay airport, nothing as elaborate and splendid as the new Ortam, except fot the skytrain out which took us to the NY subway and a long walk from west 42nd to East 42nd st. Time Square, Grand Central Station, 5th Ave, The Chrysler building and here I am in my new 41st story office at the New York Helmsley Hotel.
Only problem so far: at 3am this morning, in 3 degrees C, I headed off to the local pharmacy/grocery store, CVS, to find a kettle, tea and oats porridge, dressed in Africanesque t-shirt and cotton pants. Shop wide open but no tellers.....only autotellers. Well, what can I say.

Other than, "Better get out to Central Park for my morning yoga before the blizzard hits!"

Clever, these meteorologists....

Kiss my ass!

There are 2 great ways to view your day.
Focus closely on the key tasks and issues. Don't be distracted.
OR
Stretch your radar as wide as possible and see what comes in. Be continually distracted.

My 88 year old mum strolled to the magnificent view of the city from her apartment this morning, gazed over her kingdom and said to me, "Last year, the old Zulu king got married to another wife and wanted to build a palace in the middle of the golf course. The city said no. These bloody kings!"
I remember it well. I think it was in the April 1st edition of the Daily News.
It seems like in the nurtur/nature debate we are kind of born with right/left brain potential.

(Gran with her latest great grandson, James Dellis....can you believe that she has never dyed her hair!)

I recently subjected myself to a gruelling psychometric test designed to assess how Right/Left brain you are. You can do it yourself at
http://mindmedia.com/braintest.html
This was the result:
"Andre, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.
Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.
You tend to see things in "wholes" without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utitlize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.
In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some "inner dialogue."
All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.
You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.
It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk "missing out" on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account."
Several things emerge from this for me. First, it is merely a confirmation of how I feel anyway. But more importantly it puts it into hard copy, words that I can read and ponder on. Then I can act upon those words. With this in mind, I was chatting to friends last night about Julia Cameron's 'Artist's Way' and, making a quick calculation, realized that it has been almost a decade since I had my first exposure to it and every aspect of that remarkable process still lives with me every day. We talked about the power of the montaging exercises we did and how I had reread my crusty journals from the time and delighted in seeing those aspirations and changes that took place in me being documented and subsequently realized.
So, with my eyes wide open I dived into a new week, starting with a further attempt to achieve my news year's resolution, the dreaded ghanda berundasana!

For the uninitiated, this is a rather interesting Yoga pose where you increasingly bend over backwards until you can kiss your ass.
Now this may seem like a trite little resolution, but a whole lot of other stuff hangs off it if I am to be successful. Most importantly, I have to be able to bend over backwards. This means a daily Yoga routine stretching all the ancillary muscles and squashing the gooey bits inside to eventually facilitate my berundasana attempt. I then fling myself over backwards and try to walk my arms through my legs. Naturally, I have to find a suitably evocative and spiritual space to do this, so I am duty bound to get out into a place of serenity each day. Then I must learn to focus only on my own body and soul and ignore the confused stares of passerbyers. It is further a great opportunity to use my bicycle to and from, so all in all, by breakfast time I am well ridden, well stretched, well squashed and well on my way to kissing my ass before the year's end.
While in this open radar frame of mind I took another journey back into recent documented history. I paged through images from Ida and my time in Hereford and Wales last year. Three pix drew my glee....one of a grave stone in a country churchyard (click on the images and read the engravings) and the other two, a tale of how an ancient church in Hereford has regained its lost parishioners by serving coffee and cake during services!

Have fun, both these are right/left brain teasers.
Back in Durban I have been on the trail for a new tree to plant for our dear compadrette, Albuquerque Patrice. Durban's very own tree and monkey lady, Jean Senogles, listened to how I described the following future moment: "Imagine 10 year's time. You, Ida, Patrice and I are standing on a craggy cliff, overlooking one of the last bits of pristine river valley within the urban precincts of Durban. Next to us is a well rooted tree, planted there at a time when many of us could only see patches of light through the dark clouds.

Jean strides off into the wet undergrowth and emerges triumphantly with a potted tree of note (e-sharp). "Perfect!" she says, "the forest cabbage tree...Msenge in zulu. This tree's sole evolutionary purpose...don't you love Darwin!...is to chase the light at the top of the forest canopy!".

Say no more!

and 'F' is for Flying...

If you are ever offered an adventurous flight in an airplane take it. Such opportunities don't stick around for ever. So it was for a few months with East Coast Airlines, based at Virginia Airport (FAVG) in Durban, South Africa. This little delight of an airport boasts all the charm of a rural strip but is barely 10km from the heart of one of Southern Africa's most vibrant port cities. A seaward circuit promises that all your approaches and departures will be over one of the finest strips of golden-beached coasts in the world and South African aviation safety standards will get you in and out every time safely. So, for a while there was an exciting opportunity for aviation enthusiasts to get a cheap trip and equally cheap thrill by booking a seat up to Oliver Tambo (FAJS) International in Johannesburg with East Coast Airlines. Their Cessna 414 flew up to Joburg at 21h00 each evening to collect a load of newspapers for Durban circulation the next day and for about $20 you could fly up in the empty plane. The trick was to get into the plane first and then lean over into the open pilots' cabin and gazing lovingly at the blinking lights, ask all those questions that have been burning in your crazed airplane loving brain. I well recall my first flight. Every now and again the pilot would whip out a torch and shine it on the wings, checking for ice. At one stage we were informed that we had to choose between freezing or a longer flight as we had to choose an altitude to accommodate the faulty cabin heater. But the most memorable was our aero-surfing experience. As we flew in the downwind of the Drakensberg Mountains (12000ftASL) the pilot told us how the wind coming off the mountains would often form wavelike ripples and if we flew into them we could actually surf the airwaves! Sure enough it happened and, as a surfer myself, I was delivered a double whammy of delight. So it is that this blog is dedicated to mountain flying, the joy and the real dangers therein. By understanding the physics of high altitude mountain flying and equipping yourself with the necessary skills this vista of flight opens a compelling door to all who should seek to push their envelope......and be sure to stay alive to inspire others. After all, who said that safe has to be boring?


The wonderful world of aviation is blurred into 3 distinct areas: Those who do the real thing, those who dream of doing the real thing; and those who simulate doing the real thing. Clearly there is a huge crossover as many a dedicated virtual pilot or air traffic controller turns out to have just got back from his/her real job as a fighter pilot or ATC jockey. Such is the level of complexity and reality of today's simulation software that we are seeing these packages being used increasingly as components in real life training. US navy airmen are provided with a well-known Flight Sim package as part of their kit.
What the simulated world does very well is IFR (instrument navigation). What it does not do well is giving the ergonomic experience of actually flying a plane. It was in search of this experience that lead me to take real world flying lessons at my home base.....FAVG, no less. What I discovered was that the experience of getting into a Cessna 152 is extraordinarily close to doing it on a well set up simulator (in my case Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004). I was able to replicate almost all the lessons I had in ZS-MPG on my laptop at home, including the spin training which I REALLY enjoyed! For the unitiated, a spin in an aircraft is something quite extraordinary and you either hate or love it. It goes like this: You pull back on the yoke (the stick thing that makes the plane go up or down, left or right) without increasing the throttle. The nose comes up and eventually the plane starts to stall. This is not like a car stalling. In an aircraft, an aerodynamic surface is said to stall, when the air that is moving relative to it's surface is no longer fast enough to create lift and the surface (normally a wing) drops. One would recover from this stall by putting the nose down, regaining airspeed and then climbing back to level flight once the wings have recovered their lift. With a spin, as the stall begins, you kick in left or right rudder, the plane yaws and one wing loses its lift earlier. The plane plunges to the left (or right) and after a few balletic aerodynamics, settles into a nose down spinning tumble. From the pilot's POV all you see is the earth below you rotating. If you have done your homework you will then instinctively initiate P.A.R.E. Power out! Ailerons neutralized Rudder opposite direction to spin elevator slowly up to recover and pull out the dive. I will not tell you about the time I forgot the 'P' part. All I know is that I am alive today because of a very sharp instructress....
So, while us simming pilots are great at getting around in pitch dark and misty weather, we have mostly developed the bad habit of flying by our instruments when we should be watching outside of the plane. Mountain flying is thus a very good re-educational ground for simmers. If you go by your instruments alone you will probably come to a dead end.
For real world fliers who may read this blog, treat this as a reminder of the real responsibility that you have to fully prepare yourself for the unseen challenges of flight in mountainous areas. South Africa, like the US, has magnificent mountain ranges presenting awesome flying opportunities. Next time you go to the Drakensberg and you watch the tourist helicopters buzzing around their business, have respect, have respect!
A great guide to Mountain Flying has been produced by the FAA and can be dowloaded or viewed from this URL: http://mediafire.com/aviation. The file is called 'Mountain Flying.pdf'
and now......join me for some mountain flying, dreaming or simming!
Close your eyes....imagine the sounds of a busy international airport, cold winter weather and the excitement of an impending adventure! You are at Denver International Airport, Colorado, USA having just flown in from well.....wherever you flew in from! Go and get a hot cuppa coffee and a good healthy bite because for the next flying hour or so, you won't want to waste a moment on doing anything other than taking in the panoply below that is your gentle introduction of things to come. We will fly a high altitude turboprop plane from Denver to the regional airport, Alamosa Bergman Field (KALS) altitude 7539 ft. Alamosa is slap bang in the middle of a valley surrounded by walls of high mountains. This gives us the opportunity to get used to high altitude flying without the added challenge of excessive mountain walls and winds. It is here that we will change planes for a single engine, normally aspirated aircraft which will be our constant companion for the next 450nm. Within 15 minutes flying time we have Mount Blanca, a 14, 345 foot mountain and Crestone Peak at 14,294 feet. Once we have built up our confidence and skills within sight of Alamosa we then (after a good night's sleep), head for tha' hills!



Day 1: We head north, following the main roads, which enter the mountains in a tongue at the top of the lowlands. From here we will encounter several peaks with elevations exceeding 14,000 feet. Navigation will be VFR all the way, so weather is critical. Be prepared to turn back! As long as we can see the roads and the towns we should be fine. We will pass Villa Grove, Buena Vista and Twin Lakes on the left. The towering Mt Elbert (14443ft) on our left next is confirmation that we will soon be in sight of Leadville Airfield (KLXV), the highest strip in the US (9927 feet) and third highest in the World. Near Leadville is Mount Elbert, the highest point in Colorado at 14,443 feet. It is here that we will test our new knowledge in mountain flying. In the middle of a summer's day, taking off from Leadville could be equivalent to taking off from the top of Mt Elbert in Autumn. Knowing that would you attempth the departure? The higher temperatures of summer days effectively increase the density altitude at Leadville to over 14,000 feet, and if you do manage to get off the ground there is still trees and higher ground to clear.
This is why the uniques challenges of mountain flying are stressed. The rules are simply not the same as down in the thick air where most GA pilots have learnt their habits.From Leadville we head almost due west over the ridge to Aspen (KASE) elevation 7,820 feet. If the terrain is too daunting then we can again hug the valleys and follow the roads. Departing Aspen to the Southwest, we overfly several daunting ridges and canyons enroute to Gunnison, Colorado (GUC) elevation 7,673. The Black Canyon close by is in the top five scenic areas of Colorado. From Gunnison we head Southeast over North Pass (elevation 10,149 feet) back to Alamosa. This is in total about 5 hours of flying. It is well advised to do some training with the expert mountain instructors based at Alamosa. The cost for the instructor is $395.00 per day. Rental cost for the airplane is $99.00 per hour. We should put aside at least 1 day for this.
The total distance is in the region of 500nm. If you feel up to some more, we can do some low altitude flying after getting back into our turboprops and head off south to Albuquerque. This is a good place to get back on our commercial flight. An added bonus is that we can refuel or stopover in Los Alamos. This is especially useful for those of us whose planes are nuclear powered!
I have all the requisite topo maps etc and below is a beta flight plan. The VORs are not attached to the fields but are close enough to be a safety backup. Have fun! Read the FAA document, and get some sleep.
See you in the thin air!






BETA FLIGHT PLAN - COLORADO MOUNTAIN TRIP (2009)
# Type: Name: Frequency: Course: Dist.: Time:
============================================================================================
Depart: Denver Intl [KDEN] ATC: 134.02 0 nm 00:00
Arrive: Albuquerque Intl Sunport [KABQ] ATC: n.a. 616 nm 04:20
============================================================================================
Aircraft: Cessna C182RG Skylane
Cruise: 120 kts
============================================================================================
1 Depart: Denver Intl [KDEN] ATC : 134.02 0 nm 00:00
--> Climb to 12000 feet.
3 Waypoint: ALAMOSA [ALS] VOR : 113.90 189° 160 nm 01:08
4 Waypoint: San Luis Valley Regl/Bergman [KALS] APT 324° 6 nm 00:02
5 Waypoint: Lake Co [KLXV] APT 337° 109 nm 00:45
6 Waypoint: RED TABLE (EAGLE) [DBL] VOR : 113.00 284° 30 nm 00:12
7 Waypoint: Aspen-Pitkin Co/Sardy [KASE] APT 163° 13 nm 00:05
8 Waypoint: BLUE MESA (GUNNISON) [HBU] VOR : 114.90 178° 47 nm 00:19
9 Waypoint: Gunnison Co [KGUC] APT 33° 7 nm 00:02
10 Waypoint: San Luis Valley Regl/Bergman [KALS] APT 131° 83 nm 00:34
12 Waypoint: ALBUQUERQUE [ABQ] VOR : 113.20 187° 151 nm 01:03
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 Arrive: Albuquerque Intl Sunport [KABQ] ATC : n.a. 80° 10 nm 00:04
Airport altitude 5354 ft
============================================================================================
Total: (296 Gal fuel required) 616 nm 04:20

Special thanks to the crew at Leadville Airport for the inspiration behind this blog. See www.leadvilleairport.com