Thought Picnic: Killing their people with incompetence

Nothing to hold my confidence

I have many views about how I think there is no upside to Brexit if at any time I thought the government of Boris Johnson had a tenth of the acumen, principles, competence, and/or the capacity of the coalition war cabinet of Winston Churchill, I might even consider they’ll pull off a useful EU deal.

Their response to the Coronavirus pandemic already shows they are completely incapable, the excuse that they did not know enough about the virus to act with alacrity, preparedness and purpose does not wash, because governments all around the world had the same access to the information we also had, New Zealand, South Korea, and Germany are good examples, even Scotland rejigged their response to contain it.

Killing their people with bluster

The difference is they took the information and acted on it, testing, detecting, isolating, locking down, monitoring, tracing, and informing truthfully. These are what others did without boasting and with a clear grasp of the realities they faced. The virus had no time for bullshit and there was no vacuous optimism that could take the place of effective action. It showed up Johnson, Trump, and Bolsonaro as windbags and their citizenry is paying for it with deaths that top the global tragedy of this pandemic.

Blog - It perished in a lake of tea

For all this, I was listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4 the other night when I heard the last few lines of a poem, haunting and dangerously fearful, I stirred from my slumber to look it up. Brian Bilston encapsulates the tragedy of our times, both on Brexit when he wrote it two years ago and now as we bungle a deal as much as we bungled the response to the Coronavirus. I am sorry, whilst I have no instant hope to give, I hope the only way is up from this rock bottom splatter at the bottom of the cliff. [BBC Magazine: Brian Bilson - 'How I accidentally became a poet through Twitter']

Hold my hand while we jump off this cliff

‘Let’s jump off this cliff – it’ll be fun! A right laugh!’
urged all the people (well, I mean just over half
of those who had bothered to speak up at all).
I peered down at the rocks; it was a long way to fall.

I said, ‘This cliff’s more than three hundred feet high
and my doctor tells me if I jump I will die.’
‘Cliff-jumping’s fine!’ they said. ‘Don’t trust doctors, trust us!
We read all about it on the side of a bus.’

Worried, I met up with my local MP.
I shared my concerns. He was forced to agree:
‘Why the rocks below would smash you to bits!
Where did you get this idea of jumping off cliffs?’

‘It was the will of some of the people,’ I said
and his expression changed to another instead.
‘I think,’ he revised, ‘you’re being melodramatic.
The problem is you. You’re undemocratic.’

On the clifftop, we waited. In silence we stood.
Then a voice: ‘Remind me, why is cliff-jumping good?’
But we looked down at our shoes, baffled and stumped.
Then, out of embarrassment, we held hands and jumped.

© Brian Bilston Hold my hand while we jump off this cliff

Holiday Snaps: A haul of perfidy

Getting sorted

We finally broke away and the holiday we had been preparing for arrived just in time. It was quite a struggle of persuasion with guile to get my good friend of 30 years to agree that we need to spend some quality time together away.

Something substantial beyond the times snatched on the phone or when we met up for short meals whenever our paths crossed in London.

Reticence and reluctance is what I have to tackle as hurdles and this time I had the full force of the elements as I wanted us to go away for two weeks to one of my haunts that I had spent 100 days at, a place where at the reception, I am welcomed, “Mr Akintayo, welcome to your second home.”

And finally

I had not been since December 2010 and I was quite looking forward to it, my friend however, was wishing I had forgotten or some other circumstance would crop up that it would never happen.

At best, he wanted to go away for a week, at worst, a week’s holiday for me was no holiday that in the end, I booked 11 nights, and yet, I almost did not hear the last of it because 10 days was the halfway point, as if you could go away from 10 and a half nights, anyway, this is for the record, because, it would be referenced when next I need to tackle reticence and reluctance towards getting away.

A pedantic inconvenience

He arrived from London, we had a quick meal at my apartment and they made off to the airport. Though he would not believe it, I do suffer a few privations when I go on holiday alone, but when with company, I try to ensure there is nothing, if anything to complain about.

We first encountered the facetiousness of a Thomson Holidays check-in clerk who was particular about my hand baggage weighing 6.8kg when it should according her be just 5kg, we lightened my hand baggage by transferring some things into my friend’s luggage.

I later did a search on the baggage restrictions of Thomson Holidays and found that the weight restriction applies to checked-in baggage, but it is dimensions that applies to hand luggage. If there is a rule, it is unwritten, but enforced under duress at a point where one does not have the means to argue the case with evidence. I was not pleased.

Through not thorough

We fast-tracked through security, though I noticed there was no rigorous border checks either on our way out in Manchester or at our point of entry at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria airport.

Not that our fast-track was anything like it, two families with kids ahead of us were as disorganised as you could have a troop of people that the normal paced security checks seemed to go through briskly.

Then we settled in the airport lounge for the less than two-hour wait for boarding. Though boarding seemed to happen on time, we were held at the gate for another 20 minutes and it was 30 minutes beyond schedule before we took off.

A haul of perfidy

The safety announcement appeared on the screens on the backs of the seats we faced, it was a girl probably lip-syncing the safety instructions with other kids demonstrating all the safety procedures. It was funny, entertaining and well, serious too.

The screens then returned to a repeating cycle of holiday offers besides which we suffered sensory deprivation for almost 4 hours unsure of where we were, how much long our flight was or if there was anything to observe even if it was a night flight.

When I asked the air hostess about getting some entertainment on my screen, she said it was not a service offered on their short-haul flights.

Now, that threw me because a typical film would run for two hours or thereabouts, the flight from Manchester to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was of a 4 hour 10 minute duration.

Checking Wikipedia for the skinny on flight lengths, short-haul flights last less than 3 hours, medium-haul flights up to 6 hours, long-haul up to 12 hours and ultra-long-haul flights are over 12 hours.

Then the definition becomes obfuscated that a short-haul flight can be limited to 500 miles (800 kilometres) or for UK Treasury purposes, it is an absolute flight distance of under 2000 miles (3600 kilometres).

Then, I realise the subtle technicality that Thomson Holidays has liberally adopted for the purpose of passing off the required Air Passenger Duty £138 per passenger as a discount amongst other things. The distance from Manchester to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is just 1,877 miles (3379 mile). The travesty and perfidy of it all.

Yet more time

I had arranged to be picked up from the airport rather than take the Thomson Holidays shuttle service which from past experience has me delivered to my hotel last, after travelling round Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles discovering where all the luxury hotels were.

Yet, it took well over an hour for our luggage to hit the conveyor belt because we arrived when luggage handling shifts changeover, something I thought could be better managed with an overlap so as not to inconvenience passengers at the end of a long flight that kept them at the airport beyond 1:00AM.

We got to our hotel just before the crowds arrived, were booked in and basically, the holiday has begun.

Rest, relax, rejuvenate and recuperate.

Incredible India: Tour Guides between Sacred Cows and Cash Cows

Looking for a good tour guide

A tour guide is an essential resource and I know, having visited a number of places. Their knowledge of the object of interest; be it, the history, the architecture, the people, the customs and other useful trivia is invaluable.

They also give good tourist advice – what to expect, how to react, what to do, where to meet and many more things – then, they are agents, agents of local businesses that depend on tourist foot fall, as restaurants and manufacturers of souvenirs and goods of sometimes substandard quality sold as exquisite.

In cahoots to irk us

We picked up our guide as soon as we entered Agra, after introductions, he immediately suggested we stopover for lunch, whilst there was keen interest in getting to the Taj Mahal we were hungry and easily out-voted the keenest of all of us to step in for lunch.

The buffet was a set price and I specifically asked if it included all taxes and charges, the guide replied in the affirmative. I felt in a strange restaurant, a buffet presented a see-smell setting that you could not read off the menu, so I opted for the buffet.

Some of us placed orders a la carté and we tucked in, at one of our stopovers, I had a local yoghurt/curd drink called lassi – they say it is good for stabilising stomachs at risk of traveller’s diarrhoea – so I had a glass of that too and noticed the difference between the nonsense I had earlier and the finesse I had this time.

When the handwritten bills came, the charges were extra rather than included, that spelt the beginning of the tour guide’s woes in terms of our future generosity – I was in a group of people who had being taken for a ride.

[My trainer was mortified by the fact that the bills were not printed, suggesting there was a racket going on; the printed bills were probably for tax purposes as the restaurateurs fleeced the tourists creaming off the extra.]

High value entry

We boarded our van again and then made for the Taj Mahal, foreigners pay 750 rupees, members of the SAARC countries pay 510 rupees and we are all referred to as “High Value Ticket Holders”

The tour guide got the tickets and after going through the list of prohibited items, because of my MP3 player, I had to put my bag in a free locker. Included in the ticket price was a bottle of water and covers for our shoes.

From the ticket office we boarded a battery operated vehicle that took us to the gate, we were told to spurn offers of other kinds of rides that came at extra cost.

At the main gate to the Taj Mahal, there were queues for Indians separate from those for foreigners and then the ladies had a separate queue to with shielding where they had to pass through security.

Reading the sign “High Value Ticket Holder Ladies” could almost have been read as high-class prostitutes – therein is the unintended context of sign-posting.

For our security, the loss of liberty

Soon we were though security; it must be brisk business for security firms in India with the X-Ray scanners, the walk-through metal detectors, the wands amongst other security paraphernalia.

All accesses to the metro stations have one, the ladies are given separate access, even the vegetarian outlet beside my training centre had one.

In the midst of assumed freedoms the communal liberties have acquiesced to searches and demands for information that will make Westerners rise in revolt – that is the way in South Asia, tensions remain high, hot-heads abound and fanatics when triggered by Machiavellian leaders up to no good for political advantage, there is no telling where the next spot of danger lies.

A new camera idea

The tour guide corralled us and explained a few things about the out-buildings before he tried to shop us to photographers for prices we were not ready to pay. Much as we like to handle pictures on photographic paper, I think we have more of tendency to take digital pictures we can share online.

Now, if there were cameras with proximity transfer technology that allowed professionals to take pictures with their high-end cameras and expertise then swipe those into the memory repositories of our low-end digital cameras, there might well be a case for these vulture photographers.

We resisted and hardly 5 steps on, we were being offered the same service for half the price, by which time we were not ready to listen to whatever was being said, we wanted to go straight to the Taj Mahal.

After a short explanation about the place, the buildings and some history, we walked through the gate to behold – covered in the next blog – we arranged to rendezvous up in 90 minutes.

Stone cold annoyed

On exiting the grounds, we boarded a battery powered vehicle for the car park but we disembarked much earlier as the tour guide called for the van to pick us up.

After collecting my bag, the tour guide gave us some spiel about the art and craft of marble stonemasonry was in decline and our visiting a “government sponsored” project will help sustain that craft.

I was not persuaded to leave the bus, whilst others left to learn about masonry, interesting to some but once again, the bilking of tourists had spoilt the atmosphere that we were close to insurrection if not lynching the tour guide.

We could not be persuaded to visit an embroidery shop across the road and the suggestion to visit a carpet factory gained no traction because there were no carpets at the Taj Mahal and if the carpets were Persian – we might well be in Iran.

[My trainer felt the carpet making trade was an atrocious abuse of children in sweat shops.]

Not a tip for the trip

As we parted ways with the tour guide, there was not much gratitude left to express, the tips were hardly tipping out of our wallets, what he eventually got was derisory at best and maybe a lesson for another time.

The Indians have their sacred cows but tourists to India somehow get preyed upon as cash cows, only this time, we wised up to the fact that we will not be done over again.

Holiday Snaps: The best price is resistance

Making friends

Sometimes, I find myself somewhere between genuine interest and intriguing curiosity with the prospect of being exploited the calibration on that meter scale.

Now, earlier I was at the Marmaris Castle, a topic to be covered in much detail later and there was a group of kids on an excursion who when they saw me wanted to take pictures.

At least two were forward enough to try out their basic knowledge of English and before you knew it, we had shook hands, my hand the less regal without gloves have made friendship bond with some 15 children who seemed to genuinely interested and all wanted to know my name and where I was from.

I asked for their names, made real pleasantness and asked if they were having fun, which I had to explain and then a chorus of yesses filled the air.

What you don’t want

There was no exploitation in the air though I was taken aback by the question from another kid about my age which simply revealed one of the basic questions in language you learn without making allowances for the fact that it is rude to ask adult strangers that as a second question of a conversation.

However, walking through Marmaris presents those opportunities, restaurateurs that offer food you are not hungry to eat and then they offer free drinks to draw you in for half-priced food, the bait is slung but resistance is key.

Politely, shake hands but don’t let it linger to the point that you are dragged into the lair, the touching should be sniffed at whilst maintaining a convincing smile and engaging in the idle banter.

What you don’t need

Through the bazaar, he asked if I remembered him in Vietnam to which I responded I had forgotten and then he said he was some captain and I noticed the leg he lost in ‘Nam had grown back.

They offered leather jackets and many to view but I could see enough from the street there was no need to go in and I was not in need of a leather jacket that was not in-laid with Kevlar. At half-price of whatever price, there was no deal for me and a lot for them – resistance had to be futile.

Turkish bangles are not what you dangle for bling, they are not necessarily Turkish though the handiwork of talented Turks but you have to be disinterested and without being uninterested, see the interesting without betraying interest or your end up with a gift that commands a price that you have to pay before you depart.

What cannot fly

Carpets and tapestries, cushions and blankets of legendary Turkish expertise but none fit my exacting specifications, beautiful as they all seem, they are not flying-carpets and so, I have nothing to buy and they have nothing to sell even if it going at half-price and less.

They do not persist for long and where one did persuade me to visit his restaurant to eat fish did did “My Way” the best he could offer was a drink and a haggle over the fish – I calmly told him to keep the fish, the long fish tales and bring the bill for the drink, friendly people who are not after what is in my pocket are probably the most likely to get some of what is in my pocket.

The best price is always resistance.

Africa: Surveying the ruins of Made in China

Let’s say Sino-reticence

I wrote a bit about China in Africa in December and January that I almost turned into a Sinophobe, I even was invited to share my views on a proposed podcast that did not get published for whatever reasons that the other party did not care to share with me.

However, I have not taken my eyes off the topic per se, it only seems others have done a better job of covering the issues from apologists to anthropologists and everything you stick between them.

I must state that I welcome in general the presence of China in Africa but my concern is with the kinds of deals, contracts and arrangements we build with the Chinese that appear not to benefit Africans as much as it should appear to.

The level of investment by China in Africa is watering sums of money that they seem to have excess of and at pains to know what to do with the stash.

Made in China

A recent report in the Economist [1] however brings to light a concern that has been a problem in China and Asia with regards recent reports of tainted milk [2] for instance, then the 2007 melamine pet food recalls [3] in Europe and the United States, the Chinese toys tainted with lead paint [4] that peaked in 2007 but was still an issue into 2010 and now the African version of houses of cards covered later in this blog.

The “Made in China” tag or maybe even the "Made by the Chinese" tag has people questioning whether they are getting value for money or being ripped off; a lingering suspicion about sharp practices and a number of projects built by the Chinese that seem to have lost their presumed durability and purpose like putting up a woollen umbrella in torrential rain.

Yes, rain apparently swept away a 130km (81 miles) road from Lusaka to Chirundu in Zambia and hospital built in Luanda, Angola soon became unsafe to inhabit because of cracks that appeared in the walls within months of its opening.

Fantastic fireworks

It gets worrisome if the seemingly gold-plated and fanciful turn-key projects majorly run and manned by the Chinese are edifices of papier-mâché awaiting the right conditions to reveal shoddy, sub-standard and slap-dash practices that adhere to no rules or standards.

The fantastic pyrotechnics and fireworks only last for the duration of the burning up of the active ingredient and then we are left with just a memory of the spectacle – God knows, Africa needs more than firework displays.

Some of my previous blogs talk about poor human resources management and labour protections such that the difference between the influx of the West and the Chinese was one trying to raise the bar and the other looking for the basement or lower that they can get away with.

Armies of terracotta

The Chinese are beginning to leave indelible footprints around Africa with Africa and Africans taking the brunt of the abuse and lack of care, whilst governments in need of the easy money abdicate their responsibility to the governed leaving the oppositions in many countries an opportunistic galvanising message of showing how the leadership has been derelict in their core responsibilities.

In another area, the Chinese have cornered local markets with better production facilities and cheaper goods that have literally put local traders and manufacturers out of business. For the African customer, this appears to be good news but it leaves Africa at the opposite intent of that age-old proverb about giving a man a fish to feed him a day and teaching him to fish to feed him his whole life.

The Chinese are doing all the fishy business and no one is learning how to fish to be about to compete on any terms. Armies of terracotta cannot fight real battles.

We need to play our friends

Africa is far becoming the Eldorado for the Chinese and they are coming to fulfil their dreams whilst Africans must begin to ensure they share in some dream rather than face a recurring nightmare.

Rather than allow the Chinese to play Africans against each other, it is important for Africa to man-up on their deal-making and gain the backbone to say like the President of Angola once said to his Chinese counterpart, “You are not our only friend.”

Source

[1] The Chinese in Africa: Trying to pull together | The Economist

[2] Latest Tainted Milk Fatalities Rock China | East Asia and Pacific | English

[3] 2007 pet food recalls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] CHINA Chinese toys tainted by lead or made by child labour - Asia News

T-Mobile offers T-Stagnant deals

Sugar cane props

It is late shopping night in Amsterdam so I went into town, something I rarely do to get some stuff.

My backup cane was broken a few weeks ago when I employed it in creating a sense of order around me. It was a cane that I could split into three meaning it could go in my bag for convenience especially in aircraft luggage bins and it was quite light but sturdy.

I went to the Englishman Hatter for a replacement but they had all these trendy canes that would do for clowning rather than for formal attire.

Ending up with a make-do cane that splits and joins up with the aid of elastic band would be a stop-gap to when I can get the real thing. For once, having to lean on a sugar cane might just be as trendy as one can get.

Acquired for a piddle

T-Mobile had acquired Orange Netherland about half a year ago and they have been offering us deals to switch to new mobile contracts – a few months ago, I left one of the shops in a fit of pique because having signed a 12-month contract, I had really been railroaded into a 14-month contract – these companies get away with the most illegal stuff in my mind.

Today, I went to both the Orange and T-Mobile shops and I really could not find a decent deal, all their offers were really for kids with a flair for MP3 players and cameras – I am a businessman, I need a phone and a deal I can use for business.

Besides, I need a company that behaves like one that operates in Europe without charging me outrageous prices for Internet connectivity in another country where the self-same company pretends to be an entirely different commercial entity.

The European Commission needs to get on the case of these daylight bandits, it is just unacceptable.

Give me a deal I cannot refuse

Some people would say I could get a Blackberry – well, that is drink and blueberries are for muffins – just give me a phone that can handle multiple mail accounts, would serve wireless connectivity, 3G, EDGE, UMTS, GPRS and HSDPA (My HTC P3600 already does this.) and do not charge me the world to roam the world and still keep connected.

As far is T-Mobile is concerned, what I saw was the equivalent of a T-Stagnant deal, I need to shop around for something that really makes that useless “A-grade” customer rating I have with Orange make people throw deals at me like I have run into a waterfall.