Bronze for Fran

Daughter Fran has just won a Bronze medal for Great Britain at the Paralympics in Beijing. D0 metres Freestyle class S3.

One more race on Monday.

This is a fantastic place and event.

DW
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China 3

On the subject of Transport, I have come to a place a bit further away from the hotel than I was at the end of my Forbidden City walk yesterday. I took the Tube: stress and hassle free and it cost me just 2 Yuan to get here: that's 16 pence.

Stick your rickshaw laddie!

Meeting up with an old mate of mine from Malawi and Kazakhstan later. He's working on social security reform. Haven't seen him for about ten years.

DW
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China 1

This place is magnificent in the scale of the way it does things and there is an energy here that isn’t obvious everywhere else I go.

 

The Beijing Paralympic Games is being hosted on a grand scale, the event locations are grand and superb: talk about photogenic. I have been over to the water cube (cube? Whoever named it the cube must have been away sick when they were supposed to be learning about shapes in maths at school. It’s a cuboid) twice. The aquatic centre, to give its proper name, is right next door to the bird’s nest stadium and together they make up a magnificent spectacle at night. Thousands of people throng there too to enjoy the sights and the music driven water fountains.

 

I have been to watch some swimming events then and they are brilliant. Can you imagine winning a man with no arms winning the backstroke event? It happened. Can you imagine someone who is wheelchair bound winning the 100 metres freestyle event? It happened. These athletes are serious people. Life has cut them a dashing blow from birth or as the result of an accident but that didn’t leave them rotting in bed and wondering what to do. They have taken life at the full and they are doing something positive.

 

I watched the men’s Boccia final last night: a game akin to crown green and flat green bowling. The two Portuguese gentlemen in the final were wheelchair bound and clearly severely disabled. There they were though, playing this game to a high standard and giving it there all. I have said it before and I will say it again: those lousy young people in the UK and the rest of the world who mope around with “nothing to do” need to watch these athletes and think again.

 

On a thread on the Have your Say section of the BBC website there was a woman who said it is sick that the Paralympics is being held at all. I know who is the more sick don’t you? I couldn’t respond to that woman at the time but there were lots of people who put her properly and firmly in her place.

 

DW

China 2

Igot a taxi to the Forbidden City yesterday as I was worn out from all of my exertions and my right knee is giving me jip. As I walked to the entrance I was enticed by at least three men on bikes to buy a Lolex: cycle by Lolex watch salesmen they were.

 

On my Facebook page you will see a photo I took of a sign of a notice on the back window of a car that said “Baby in Road” ... I kid you not!

 

When you hear an older local speaking on their mobile phone before you see them you will immediately think:

 

There is a huge argument going on; or

This man has a grudge against the State and he is trying to get the world to listen

 

So Loud!

 

On arrival at the entrance to the Forbidden City they were drilling their guards. The guards in green uniforms were being drilled in turning left, moving forward one step ... all very balletic I have to say.

 

I heard and then saw my first Russian people today: three lots in the end.

 

By the end of my tour around the Forbidden City I was absolutely worn out: my knee isn’t painful but it is draining my energy. I was hiding from the rain and studying my map when a local who spoke English asked me where I was going. I told him Chongwenmen and he said he’d get a rickshaw for me ... cut a long story short, we set off with him manually pedalling me in his rickshaw. He then stopped someone in a motorised rickshaw. I paid the first man who then paid the second man. Deal done I thought and off we went. Very flexible mode of transport and we got to my hotel pretty quickly. When we stopped this driver asked for more money. Well, no language in common so I told him to follow me to the hotel where I asked one of the Hotel lads to help. Cut a long story short, he wanted the full fare from me. In the end, what this meant was that I paid the full fare. The fixer took one third for fixing the deal. The driver wanted 100%. I paid twice!! Now, it wasn’t much and all the driver wanted was the one third that the fixer took BUT I won’t use anything other than a formal taxi or the underground again. I paid a lot more for the rickshaw than I did for the taxi so that’s rubbish for a start.

 

DW

 

Beijing

I made it! It’s a long way from Khartoum to Beijing when you have to go via Doha, Dubai, Amsterdam, Manchester, Halifax, Manchester and Dubai. But it’s worth it.

 

I arrived at around 3:30 pm and after a false start when I couldn’t find the travel agent’s representative and then went to the wrong hotel I got to the proper hotel at around 5pm. Unpacked and then went straight to the Aquatic Centre to see Fran. Well, I SAW Fran but only across the pool. We’ll meet today.

 

Fabulous swimming centre and it’s right next door to the bird’s nest stadium which is just brilliant at night all lit up in red, orange and gold.

 

I travelled the length of Beijing to get from my hotel to the Olympic Green station and had to change lines twice in both directions but I only got lost right at the end when I left Chongwenmen station by the wrong door. I walked around a bit and then found a very helpful group of people willing to help me and one of them spoke English very well. She had no idea where I should go but found a man who did!

 

Off now to Tian’anman square and all that surrounds it before heading back to the aquatic centre this evening.

 

I have taken some snaps with my phone’s camera so far but will take my proper camera with me today.

 

Zai jian until later

 

DW

On the way toBeijing

I am flying Emirates to Beijing and am half way there: currently sitting at Starbucks in Dubai International Airport waiting for my connecting flight. Here are a few observations for you.

 

The first thing I did with Emirates’ fantastic entertainment system was to listen to Drip, drip, drip little April showers ... from the Disney cartoon Bambi. Can’t beat it.

 

I then watched a film about two schoolboys’ daft antics. English film with English actors set in England, in the main. One excellent moment, though, involved the really cool French exchange boy. This boy wanted to light his cigarette but didn’t have any matches or a lighter. He got several boys to line up and hold hands, with him as the last one. The first in the string of lads then touched the live wire in the street lamp they had opened up. Touch the wire, boys all jiggle a bit and French fag bursts into flames. Fantastic!

 

Two oldish Lancashire Lassies sitting across tbe aisle from me, this happened:

 

Stewardess (Korean I think with a pretty good English accent) said, as the plane was landing: Sorry, guys, can we just have your seats forward please?

Lancashire Lassie 1: (In true Lancashire Music Hall gormless style) Yer wot?

 

I cringed.

 

The pilot told us that as the weather in Dubai was warm and humid we should be careful as we went down the steps of the aircraft as they might be slippy.  I followed the two Lancashire Lassies out of the plane. Lassie 1 was OK but Lassie 2 immediately started walking very slowly and gingerly and held out her arm and hand getting ready to grasp the hand rail for dear life a full five metres before she got to it. They were then the slowest two down the steps by far.

 

As I drank my coffee I looked from time to time at the departures screen. As planes took off they were removed and new ones added ... as usual. As we got nearer and nearer to my plane being listed I started to watch more frequently as I didn’t know the gate. This is true: when it got to my plane being next to being listed, they didn’t update anything for around 10 minutes. So I got sick of looking and opened up this laptop and started typing this. As the computer was booting I took a look at the screen and lo and behold, in true watched pot never boils style, they updated the listing as soon as my back was turned.

 

DW

Queues again

How can you tell my phone's working again?

Queues: you can't beat them. Well I can't anyway.

Khartoum: boarding the plane in a normal and orderly manner when the family immediately in front of me caused a five minute hold up. I then sailed through. The security guard who then inspected our passports looked rather bored until he riffled through mine and beamed at all of my UAE, Kuwait, Oman etc stamps.

Doha: same situation. I joined the queue in a sexist manner, immediately after an attractive young lady. Our queue took a flyer and was easily beating the other queue at our gate. Until, you've guessed it, it came to someone just in front of me. Then it would have been better if I'd joined the other queue.

Dubai: I backtracked for some reason just before security and then got behind the most dithering man I've seen in a long time. Then a minute before I finished the transit desk between 50 and 70 Chinese men in identical grey boiler suits turned up go through security. How did THAT happen to me? We'll, in that case I pushed in and promoted myself significantly. I got away with it too.

Hey ho!

DW
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Phones ... Hardly

I am in Dubai Airport duty free and have just noticed the Vertu range of mobile phones. They're labelled exclusive. They're tagged as phones for the discriminating chap.

There's phones with gold. There's phones made from titanium, in an 800 ton press of course.

You can pay 112,000 Dirhams or so for the gold phone and as little as 24,000 Dirhams for the titanium version. A snip in my opinion.

Just in case you haven't traded in Dirhams for a while, a rough guide is to divide them by 7 and you will get Pounds Sterling. So, that's about £16,000 for the gold phone and just £3,428 for the more ordinary titanium phone.

There are cheaper phones than the titanium phone but one wouldn't would one.

The most interesting aspect of the sales pitch is the complete lack of reference to its functionality as a phone. They have incorporated the letter V into the shape of the screen so that's a bit of a downer for a start. Rather vulgar to think about this end of things though isn't it?

And here's me jipping at the thought of paying £200 or so for a BlackBerry. Pshaw!

DW
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More on the UN

I found out today what the multi million Pound car park at the hote was all about. The hotel was home to, get ready for this, a UN SENIOR MANAGEMENT RETREAT. Poor wee lambs: can you imagine the stress they must be under?

These people can't even respect the country they have retreated into. This country is really called THE Sudan. On the presentation slide that I managed to take a look at these clowns had called it just Sudan. You know, some people are deeply offended by such ineptitude.

DW
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Feel part of the Community

I went back to the Afra Mall today to change some money. I went into the exchange place and started doing the deal. I was given a scrap of paper and a pen that almost worked. I needed to divulge my name, address in Khartoum and telephone number.

Almost as soon as I started my deal I was joined by someone who felt the need to stand right next to me. Another man decided he would do the same. Now, I didn't feel threatened, just hemmed in. As I stood there I thought about that woman in Oxford one day who was offended when I got to within 6 feet of her in a similar situation!!!

Then other people moved in and I was truly part of a crowd. Once I'd finished I turned round and found 15 - 20 people around me.

The concept of personal space did not transfer to this part of the Colonies. Maybe that's why they gave General Gordon such a hard time. :-)

DW
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Oil Prices Again

This is a Simulcast

 

They are at it again: those people trying to convince us that the financial markets are working efficiently and fairly and have nothing to do with speculation.

 

So there was a financial “expert” blethering away on BBC World yesterday: he was EXPLAINING why the Dollar has surged and why the Pound is falling in value. He didn’t mention speculation in this context and yet we all know that 95% of all deals in foreign currency are to do with speculation.

 

Then this Expert said that because of the “... collapse of the oil price ...”. I must repeat a post I made a couple of weeks ago when I talked about the language of the oil price. Why do they say the price has collapsed? By using the word collapsed they are suggesting that the high prices reached up until about two months ago were normal or expected or acceptable. When the oil price was surging from $90 a barrel to almost $150 a barrel, they said the price was unsustainable ... because of speculation ... because of the disequilibrium of supply and demand. All nonsense of course: it was all because of ill informed speculation.

 

I proved with the example of the cutting of production by the UAE for annual maintenance having no effect on prices that supply and demand had nothing to do with the oil price.

 

So this expert did his best and he mentioned a number of possible factors: interest rates in Australia, the need for changing interest rates in the UK, collapsing oil prices, the threat of recession in the UK. All laudable words and much of it pure drivel. I keep meaning to make notes of the names of these experts so that I can name and shame but I think I am always just overawed at their bare faced effrontery. One thing you should notice is that the BBC doesn’t use the same non BBC expert very often. Wonder why?

 

DW

The US Presidential Election and Sarkozy

US Presidential Election

 

I woke up far too early today and switched on the news. BBC World of course, so that meant hearing NOTHING at all about the World but learning something about America. The vast majority of BBC World’s supposed international coverage is really only American coverage and that gets on my nerves. Nothing wrong with America but if I wanted to learn all about it I would watch CNN.

 

So, they were showing Rudi Giuliani speaking at the Republican Convention: sorry Rudi but you were rubbish. At one point, despite listening carefully, I thought you were attacking McCain rather than praising him. After about three or four minutes it became clear that you were talking about Obama and not McCain. Maybe I dozed off a bit after all!!

 

Anyway, that speech was just emotional nonsense: it got the crowd going, of course, so cheap and cheerful works.

 

Then Sarah Palin came on and I thought I’ll take a listen. I gave her 30 seconds! I am sure I am not the first to say it but it was more Michael Palin than Sarah Palin. I am sorry, by the way, that the US press has homed in on Palin’s private life and her daughter’s private life ... typical, normal gutter press that we in the UK also thrive on.

 

I couldn’t watch the woman though!

 

Sarkozy

 

Speaking of dead ends, have you seen how Nicolas Sarkozy is hopping from country to country these days? It’s classic political style. Fail at home so start travelling and work on your foreign policy. How cheap can these people be? Why not stick it out and face your public? Look at Prime Minister Samak in Thailand. At least Mr Samak is staying put and not trying to do something like solving the so called Tibet crisis instead of trying to resolve his domestic political problems.

 

These people!

 

DW

Keggy

This is a DW special for Kevin Keegan.

I admired Keggy as a player for his spirit and attitude. He was over sold as a player as any discriminating observer of the game of footy knows. Even Keegan himself admits he was never anywhere near as good as the hype would have us believe.

When Keggy was appointed as manager of Newcastle United for the second time following the sacking of Sam Allardyce I said that sacking Sam was a big mistake but not as big as the mistake of appointing Keegan.

Who could have foreseen the nonsense that was then to unfold at NUFC? It beggars belief and if Keggy does resign, who could possibly blame him?

DW

Khartoum Update: weather, Ovaltine and Cocoa, the UN and Kofi Annan, Margaret Thatcher

It was very sunny and hot when I got here on Friday but now it is overcast and very warm. Reminds me of many days in Malawi all of those years ago! It’s not a problem, just a report!

 

Here is some news for you. I have just been to the shopping mall next to the hotel and can probably EXCLUSIVELY reveal, ie no one else has ever told you this, that they sell Ovaltine and Cadbury’s Cocoa there. Now, that is news isn’t it? I have run out of Marmite but didn’t see any of that, I am sad to report.

 

I am still seething, too, over the UN vehicles. I took some photos of just a few of them this morning: all 4x4s and all pretty clean looking. Well, this afternoon there were more than 30 of those big beasties in the car park. All clean too. Why do they need so many very expensive 4x4s to drive around town? I know someone will write to me and say they are helping in Darfur and in the South of the country ... well, I think they are working more against the country than for it. Moreover, for any doubting Thomases, why are there so many people in so many huge and expensive vehicles here at a five star hotel? Where is the cost conscientiousness? What about the opportunity costs of sitting here at what is probably a huge expense when there are people here who are dying of starvation; people who need these clowns to sort out the mess they are part of? I really don’t like this outfit.

 

I said this before but I will remind you. Apart from having spent 5 years in Malawi in the shadow of these people, I was utterly shocked when Kofi Annan got to Sri Lanka after the tsunami of 2006 and refused to visit victims in the Tamil Tiger area. Where is the humanity in that man, then the Secretary General of the UNITED Nations? Following his retirement from the UN, Annan went on to ensure that the illegally elected “President” of an East African country could stay in power by helping to cobble a deal with the Opposition Party. In the meantime hundreds of ordinary people from that country died in Political riots following that bogus election. What a sham of a man. Then his son surfaced from under a big black cloud of alleged corruption. Rotten from the core as Neil Kinnock prophetically said about Margaret Thatcher’s Administration.

 

Speaking of Margaret Thatcher, I have read a couple of times recently that Thatcher is suffering from mental illness: now that’s not news is it? Thatcher was mentally ill long before she became Prime Minister.

 

End of erudite rant!

 

DW

 

 

 

Are Aid Workers all Gay These Days?

Sitting in and around the hotel here in Khartoum, I am wondering if the oddly dressed men and the many men who speak with a lithp or some kindred impediment are all gay.

Is it a requirement now to be gay to be an Aid worker?

DW
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Is it Gay to Moisturise?

A young man sat next to me on the flight from Dubai to Doha yesterday. We didn’t speak and there is nothing wrong with that. So my question is, is it gay to moisturise?

 

This man sat down and applied moisturiser to his face. Then he went to sleep. I was rather offended that he turned his back on me as he got himself comfy. He slept almost all of the 40 minutes it took to get from Dubai to Doha. On arrival the man then got out another potion and sprayed his face with it. I don’t suppose it was fly spray!

 

Just a thought.

 

DW

Is it really THAT bad?

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling is reported to have said that the British Economy is in its worst state for more than 60 years: according to BBC World that is.

 

If that is true then we really are in the mire. Remember the devaluation of 1967? How about Denis Healy having to go cap in hand to the IMF month after month and anyone going abroad was limited to taking £50 with them. Then there were the Thatcher years: with that disastrous Chancellor Nigel Lawson followed eventually by the equally questionable Normal Lamont.

 

I have lived through bad times in the UK then so if it’s the worst for 60 years then it must be bad.

 

Then again, this is some sort of payback for the country living on credit for the last 15 years or so. The boom of the Blair years have now come to a head: all of those people wearing Armani clothes, driving a new BMW and carrying Louis Vuitton bags are having to shop at Aldi and Lidl now as their credit has run out. This is REALLY what Darling is talking about, not the credit crunch from the USA. The credit crunch is merely a symptom of gross mismanagement by governments all over the Western world.

 

Who will suffer, though? Hmm, let me think about that.

 

DW

 

 

US Presidential Circus

Living in hotels for week after week as I often do, it is very difficult for me to avoid the American Presidential Election Pantomime (you can quote me and call it the APE Pantomime, but don’t forget to ascribe it to me!). Since I am not American I do not get a full grasp of what they are doing. However, as an outsider I do know that Obama has inflicted himself on the world’s public for almost two years. Obama and Ms Clinton started their campaigns a year early because they knew it would be tough for them. In addition, they are both so hungry (many say greedy) for power that they needed a massive start on the competition.

 

Well, it worked and in the end the only two Democratic candidates in the ring were those two people. Now they are down to one!

 

Well, apart from being sick to death of the process and telling an American colleague that they could take a leaf out of the British Political book and spend just THREE WEEKS on their general election campaigns, I was distressed yesterday.

 

What happened yesterday? McCain, the oven fried Republican candidate (already 72 years old, extremely boring and an appalling public speaker in my opinion), announced his Vice Presidential nominee candidate: a woman, Sarah Palin. Nothing wrong with a woman. What got me was her strident and grating voice: eeugh! She looks presentable and I might even say pretty. But that voice. I have heard her speak for a total of about 30 seconds and it made me wonder how she managed to have five children with a voice like that!! No offence, ma’am ... in case you get the job!!

 

These are the political insights you don’t get everywhere!

 

 

DW

 

 

 

The UN: plus ca change ...

I am seething!

 

I am in a nice hotel in Khartoum. Outside there are many spotlessly clean but very large 4x4 cars with UN in big letters on them.

 

At the airport it looked to me as if there was an entire area comprising only UN planes and helicopters.

 

Having seen these people  in operation in Malawi, I dread to think what they are up to here.

 

They come for years these UN people and sound the death knell for the country they inflict on themselves on.

 

If I get to talk to any of them I will tell them that I would be able to get them all sent home within around a your providing they gave me a staff of no more than 100 men to work them out with their jobs.  As I did that I am very confident that I would have resolved most if not all of the problems facing the Sudan at the moment.  Brave words but give me a chance and I would get rid of the misery.

 

DW

Mick Channon

Sorry to hear that Mick Channon has been hurt in a car crash. A good footy player from years ago.

Gulf Today introduced this story by saying that former football ace and racing horse trainer is in a STABLE condition.

I kid you not!

DW
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