The Tired of Tired

A Spell of Funk

The past few days have been meh! A total lack of interest or enthusiasm. The usually sunny and hot weather has done little to brighten any sense of existence. In bed last night, I felt the tired of tired, but I had to fight off that feeling. It was not healthy.

I had tried to engage in some activity, beginning with the Africa Day event on Saturday, which left me unimpressed. Then at church the following day, I read the notice for the Whit Walks on Monday and was promptly dissuaded from attending: the preacher invited to minister was lauded not for her ministry, but more for her celebrity and her appearance on Gogglebox. I do not care to remember her name.

A Surfeit of Bad News

It does not help that, with my radio tuned to a BBC news channel, the snippets of interesting stories came laced with a surfeit of depressing news. Abuses, infractions, illegalities, and criminality by those who should know better, yet who would neither be held to account nor held accountable by those who matter, the latter too afraid to take a moral stand for fear of the blowback.

At times, you would think you need a holiday from the world, to a place of peaceful reflection on the beauty around you that you almost always fail to see.

In Search of Tranquillity

On Monday, I did go into the country, hoping for that very escape, but the tranquillity and fun I had expected never quite arrived. Tuesday brought another attempt at engagement: a men's group billed as a dance session.

In practice, it was more body movement and the rather boring projection of closing our eyes and imagining silly things. The only genuine pleasure I drew from it was setting up the table for food.

It was at that group, too, that the broader sense of injustice came home in a far more personal way. A fellow attendee had been attacked, and his assailant had received only a light prison sentence. I could do little more than commiserate with him and offer a hug.

The Weight of Work

On the work front, which brings its own share of excitement, things have been somewhat depressing. There is no wherewithal to achieve; the hours like the deepest, longest night of a nightmare, failing to find a conclusion even as the day breaks.

Unease, dissatisfaction, lethargy, fatigue, and listlessness leave you in recoil from living to the full. Once again, I find myself striving to escape this state of funk, and I know it will pass; I just wish it would pass quicker than I can remember I was ever this disturbed.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Riding Reclined: Cape Town Transport Tales

Cape Town Adventures

Last week, Cape Town reached the climax of preparations for the 109 km Cape Town Cycle Tour 2026. The weekend before saw Cape Town Pride, with us all congregating after the march at the Green Point Track. What a beautiful day it was.

However, I bring up cycling because something about our Uber rides around Cape Town reminds me of recumbent bicycles: those reclined, lumbar-supported seats that seem to make a statement rather than suggest healthy reasons.

The Recumbent Tendency

I haven't seen one around town, but this tendency has caught my attention. I sit behind drivers when travelling with Brian, and I have noticed that nearly all of them recline their seats as far back as legally permitted. It makes me think they want to be riding recumbent bicycles.

To my memory, only one driver kept their seat upright; we rode with him last night. You might assume the reason for reclining seats is to accommodate larger drivers, and some could do with weight management.

However, even the apparently fit and trim have adopted this relaxed habit, reclining comfortably at the expense of their passengers. I could ask the driver to adjust their seat, but I would rather have a comfortable driver enjoying their music and being happy with their settings than interfere and create an awkward situation. It is within my rights to request this, but I prefer not to.

MyCiTi Bus System

Beyond Uber, our main transportation option, we tried the MyCiTi mass transit bus system for the first time. We travelled from Woodbridge to the Waterfront. The bus took its own route, avoiding traffic, which was a marvel. It was safe and comfortable, and as I boarded, someone gave up their seat for me.

All it required was tapping in at the bus station and tapping out when we alighted. I suspect adventure might take us to other places as we explore the different bus routes around Cape Town. The MyCiTi system does not yet serve Pinelands, but Brian pointed out that bus stop signs indicate that the service is coming this way in the not-too-distant future.

Coastal Exploration and Train Journey

On Tuesday, which turned out to be the hottest day of our sojourn (bar yesterday, when residents were advised to stay indoors), we went out to Muizenberg. Starting from Sunrise Beach, we walked all the way down to Muizenberg Beach. After a meal, we continued past Rhodes Cottage Museum to St James.

Just seeing the traffic on the main road was dispiriting enough to rule out hailing a cab back home. The ticket office was closed as the train arrived. Without any clear knowledge of the network, we boarded a clean, though busy, train all the way to Observatory, as it was the only place we recognised on that route to Cape Town.

We kept track of our journey using Google Maps as the train indicators were not working. Nineteen stops it was, and it would have cost us ZAR 12. Unfortunately, there was no one to either check tickets with or purchase them from, so it became a free ride. [ZAR - South African Rand ($1 = ZAR 16.59) (£1 = ZAR 22.20)]

As we alighted at Observatory, I saw the penalty notice: ZAR 40 for not having a valid ticket. We had a good excuse. The St James ticket office was open longer hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but on other weekdays, it closed at 13:30. We boarded that train at 17:28.

Final Thoughts on Public Transport

Getting on both the bus and the train has been something we have considered during our previous stays, but reviews of the services suggest dangerous and safety concerns for non-residents.

In our experience, it was safe, comfortable, and affordable: something worth trying where the service exists, especially during the day. At night-time, though, I would have my misgivings.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Desert Island Discs: Connecting stories

Their Interesting Stories 

I began this blog days ago after weeks of wondering how to approach the subject. Over time, it dawned on me that what I had to say might not fit into just one blog; there were simply too many interesting things to discuss before the blog began to resemble a soporific treatise. 

How people have lived their lives and how they have impacted others or humanity always fascinates me. Friday evenings represent a time to reflect on the lives of the recently departed when, on BBC Radio 4, I play back the latest episode of Last Word. 

This is a weekly obituary programme that highlights the life stories of four people, along with notable mentions of two or three others. After an introduction, people shed light on the lives of these personalities, eliciting interesting facts about who they were, what they did, and the significance of their existence among us. 

Music for Solitude 

A couple of months ago, during one broadcast, a rather unfamiliar but interesting name came up. I cannot remember which name it was, but upon searching for it, the first result was their appearance on another BBC Radio 4 programme, Desert Island Discs. 

Desert Island Discs was first broadcast in January 1942. A guest is invited to imagine being a castaway on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe but with the provision of eight chosen audio recordings, the complete works of Shakespeare, and a religious book of their choice. 

This programme follows an interview format interspersed with the guest's chosen music or audio recordings. It can be quite intrusive, and the light banter allows for probing and interesting questions. Even the choices may hold intriguing stories about the person’s life. At the end, guests are asked to choose just one of the eight audio recordings to take with them, along with a luxury item, a tradition that has been in place since the late 1950s. 

Over 3,400 episodes have been recorded, but some are lost. Others can be recovered or contain fragments from episodes previously thought to be lost, sometimes as brief as two minutes, while typical episodes run around 40 minutes. 

An Event of Propinquity 

I recently started playing back the episodes from the very beginning of those that could be found, and what an experience it has been; it is like a history of popular culture told from the perspective of individuals, many of whom, including some of the earlier hosts of the show, have passed on. 

I plan to cover this in subsequent blogs, but I was inspired to complete this blog because I am now in the middle of 1971. Earlier this morning, I heard the Desert Island Discs episode featuring Clodagh Rodgers, only to log on to the BBC News website to learn that she had just passed on. [BBC News: Eurovision singer Clodagh Rodgers dies aged 78] 

It is quite remarkable how the various ideas, events, and individuals that shape history can have a significant impact, create memorable moments, or become notorious. These elements weave together to form a fabric of the human narrative that deserves greater appreciation for its instructional value or as cautionary tales. 

I have begun to take detailed notes and establish connections between different observations, sounds, and memories. These reflections may be incorporated into future blog posts.

Barabbas trumpets a Golden Age

A day of two commemorations

Considering that I seem to observe events, it would have been remiss not to have noticed yesterday's activities; the unfortunate propinquity of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the inauguration of an American president. It was totally missable (a word rarely used) and redolent of something to be disregarded.

If anything, it was so totally predictable; someone undeserving of it was accorded the respect and courtesy of being peacefully handed the reins of power that he stroppily refused to do out of a total lack of decorum, at the last inauguration. I guess this already sets the tone for how this blog will go. [The Guardian: Trump says he won’t attend Biden’s inauguration]

The humour in a travesty

As the event would pervade the airwaves, it was impossible to ignore, I had a news blackout and decided anything about it was best viewed through the prism of how the night talk shows depict the events of the day. Like I have handled cancer with humour rather than despair, this was to be seen through the prism of humour before despondency sets in.

At the swearing-in, which was to be hand on the Bibles held by his spouse, at least two talk shows suggested, since the inauguration was moved indoors, the fire services had refused the bibles be touched by the president to avoid a conflagration of the Capitol. We could well assume either the person or the book would burst into flames if they came in contact. Outside, the freezing cold might have extinguished any point of ignition.

The silhouette figure of his spouse cum black chapeau with a wide brim created an air gap to the intended public intimacy between man and wife that did not escape the amusement of a global audience. Many other things were said that require no repetition. Barabbas of the modern age is quite different from the one gambled on by Pontius Pilate who only had a history, this one will have a future that many might view with trepidation.

Blog - Give us Barabbas!

Blog - It is well with my soul

Winding back a century in time?

The full personification of felonious Barabbas came with the pardons granted to the mobs involved in the invasion and insurrection at the Capitol on the 6th of January 2021.

A rash of Executive Orders followed, and a new era of American exceptionalism and isolationism has begun. Leaving the WHO and some predicated on the America First notion. Why it has not reversed straight into the Prohibition era of a century ago escapes me as that would be the Golden Age being sought before it was snatched away by the Great Depression. History will repeat itself as a risible farce and that is not a prophecy. [Wikipedia: Roaring Twenties] [The White House: Presidential Actions]

We shall not be moved

We in a broader sense would refuse to be affected or impacted by the expected dysfunction of that place, while adopting a perspective that should exhibit surprise and mirth. His predecessor bought himself a life of peaceful retirement without regret by the pre-emptive pardons of relations and others in the gunsights of a vengeful kakistocracy.

Lest anyone be deceived, the tech plutocrats of this incoming oligarchy had the front seats, this will not be the government of the people, for the people, by the people, but who wants to listen to the truth when the lies appeal so well to our basest instincts?

Life will go on; most of us survived the first time, as we, and Americans especially, forgot those who did not, because of the heartless incompetence of managing the global pandemic then. We have mostly climbed down the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs towards its base; which is why every similitude of Barabbas in democracies worldwide is chosen over a better person. The day after is a time for reflection and anticipation.

Learning from the letters

Letters from the past

In the process of writing one’s story, much research still needs to be done, the many things you think you remember from things said and related, over time that should be reviewed and confirmed. The confusion of dates and events along with those involved.

I thought I was going type out the sketches of memory percolating in my mind over the last couple of weeks, but at the same time, I had been thinking of reading letters going back 30 years just to fill in some gaps.

Reaching for the trusty shoebox, I read the first lover’s letter from April 1992 and many subsequent letters afterwards with some dates confirmed and what feelings we had for each other then. My parents each with their entreaties about what should be doing in the UK, full of advice on how to approach things and the obligatory badgering about making introductions and getting married.

Letters with a blast

On the event side, it occurred to me that there were things I might not have noticed, marriages, births, and deaths placed in their perspectives of relationships, celebrations and there were quite a few, who was doing what and where, especially how they were getting on, I had not read these letters since when I received and read them the first time.

Other things that could wear you down from all quarters, as questions, requests, demands, and pleadings extending beyond relations to friends and passing acquaintances, many with the view that you are living large abroad with no responsibilities apart from that which regards them. If one were to put a cost to the tranche of requirements, you would be totally wiped out. For those of us with regular engagements, you had to ignore and withhold a response totally.

Yet, there were many more letters to read all of which read out in my head in the hearing of the voices of the authors, that itself brought a kind of mental strain even though none had the contemporaneous urgency that portended the time of writing, I had to give it a break and find another time to read a few more.

Letters written to last

Though, in one of the letters from my mother with some useful historical content that I jotted down from my notes, she also revealed that she once worked at Vono Tipton. Vono was also known in Nigeria for beds, bed frames, bedsteads, bedding, and furniture. What I did not know was that VONO is in fact an acronym for Vaughan Only, No Others. The company was founded in 1896 by Ernest Vaughan and at one time, the largest employer in Tipton. [The annals of Tipton industries]

As for the other pertinent pieces of information I gain, I would suppose those would be woven into the stories to be found in my book.

Digging for news from much dirt

It really is not news

What passes for news nowadays when I scroll down my newsfeed more than grieves me, there are titbits of information, knowledge and ideas shared but in the main, it is about forgettable event and people seeking notoriety, controversy, conspiracy, and gossip.

Just the headlines alone are off-putting, affairs of inconsequential people laid bare and publicised for no particular benefit, but it appears to sell. I see some that talk about the decline rather than the rise of people in their looks, their worth, or their fortunes. More sinister is the opinion mine of suggestion and supposition with no basis in truth to create feuds and turmoil in the lives of others.

A place for the nasty

If you deign to read any of it, the copy is just the beginning, scroll down to the comments and they are vicious, nasty, and horrible. I have come to accept that there are misery vampires out there who seek lives to suck the joy and happiness out of.

In other ways, it is just projection. What people say about things is probably more a reflection of themselves than of the issue they are commenting on. I still believe in the view of if I have nothing good to say, I will say nothing. However, if there is a contrary opinion is needed, it should be delivered in the nicest way possible, without malice, spite, or prejudice.

Putting my filters to work

Maybe, what I need to do to work on better filtering the kind of news I get, though there isn’t much I can do if random links are delivered as part of the advertising and marketing streams that even the somewhat salubrious sites need to exist.

In other ways, I think, about the following things:

• Is it newsworthy?
• Why is this important?
• Who? And that is many more questions, some you do not voice.
• What is the intention for this piece?
• What is telling or teaching me?
• What is the information shared and how does it help me?
• Is there anything here that can help make me a better person?
• Is this about the human experience of the marketing of misery?
• What good can come from reading this and then sharing it?
• Maybe I have an opinion on it, how can I express it well?
• Are these people just overexposed and in seeking notoriety?
• What is the example here worthy of my attention?
• Can I learn anything useful from reading this?
• Is this factual, truthful, an expose, or just opinion masquerading as such without the expert underpinnings to make such assertions or commentary? These pandemic times make that is a serious question to ask when we consume anything that purports to be news.

The list is neither complete nor exhaustive, but one should avoid clickbait, fantastic headlines that have no bearing on the story. Then one last thing, apparently informational pieces that cannot be placed on one page, requiring you to click through multiple pages weeding through stupid and uninteresting advertisements exploiting your apparent curiosity. I’ll be honest, I do not waste my time on that anymore.