I believe in a minute for every man When he must take notice of the clock and all its hands If he sees the road leads straight ahead Got to run on down, never never be afraid And it's yours, go out and get it Don't get wet, please keep dry Think about the people that made you cry.
I know a man, six feet tall Buckskin jacket, velvet stripes and all From Boston town, educated well And he keeps his mind within a padded shell It's yours, go out and get it Don't get wet, please keep dry Think about the people that made you cry.
Behind the curtain, upon the shelf Lives a man, living with himself Behind his eyes, behind his smile What's going on, nobody in the world can tell It's yours, go out and get it Don't get wet, please keep dry Think about the people that made you cry.
It's yours, go out and get it Don't get wet, please keep dry Think about the people that made you cry.
One I would have been, one I am. Sleep in peace John.
Having got Christmas out of the way (as well as a slight case of Lassa Fever or some other tropical ailment), I can now return to my circumnavigation of the globe. You may recall I was lounging in the Entebbe Hilton quaffing an ice-cold Tusker beer and anticipating the trip to Mount Kilimanjaro which (carrying on my tradition of showing the local currency) I paid for with this.
Settling into my trusty Mooney and slipping some Osibisa into the CD player, I took off and headed south-east. A sizeable chunk of the flight is over Lake Victoria which is such a welcome sight after the aridity of some of the previous legs and I soon found myself in sight of Kilimanjaro as I crossed over into Tanzania. Snow-capped all the year round, Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa at 19,330 ft and was first climbed in 1889. For some time it held the distinction of being the highest point in the world that had mobile phone coverage! It's actually an inactive stratovolcano with 3 separate volcanic cones; the widest being Kibo which has a crater diameter of 1.5 miles.
The airport itself is quite small although it can take 747s so landing my little machine was a doddle. Certainly, the view of the mountain is wonderful and I have added that to my list of places to go before I die. I couldn't resist ignoring tower instructions as I started out to Mombasa and flew round the summit before settling down to the 50 minute flight to the coast and my first glimpse of the Indian Ocean.
These days, Mombasa is famed for its wonderful beaches but it has an extremely chequered history. The original Arabic name is Manbasa; in Swahili it is called Kisiwa Cha Mvita (or Mvita for short), which means "Island of War", due to the many changes in its ownership. It actually is an island - with a causeway connecting it to the African mainland. Reputedly visited as early as the early 15th century by the Chine fleet of Zheng Ze, it wasn't until 70 years later that Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach there. Word on the streets was that he was not exactly welcomed with open arms so the Portuguese returned 2 years later and sacked the city - sort of a precursor to Bush diplomacy!
Right, a quick dip in the ocean and, with my Speedos still damp, it was off again once more to fly to Kenya's capital: Nairobi. This leg kind of goes back on itself as Nairobi is to the north of Kilimanjaro but it flies over one of Kenya's many national parks. It's hard to believe that the largest city in East Africa was still only a swamp back in 1899 until Uganda Railways built there and Nairobi (named after the Masai word for "cool waters") grew faster than a fast thing.
Landing at Jomo Kenyatta International, I was careful to only take a minimum of Kenyan shillings with me as Nairobi is renowned for its criminal activity with 1 in 3 residents apparently the victim of crime and, allegedly, a lot of very rich policemen! Mind you, there are few shadowy characters as Nairobi is only 150kms south of the equator (falls over laughing at such wit and fails to notice somebody nicking his aircraft). The city is apparently a testament to high-rise glass and steel with little character although it does boast 4 major football teams and several decent golf courses as well as a National Park on the doorstep.
Now, we come to a brief hiatus in our little trip-ette. Having had my Mooney misappropriated by a local hoodlum (OK, I fancied a change but that sounds much more intrepid, I decided to check out some other aircraft. I toyed with a few others but in the end, I settled for my dear old Mooney once more albeit with a new paint job. Oh, there were faster, glossier aircraft but I'm a creature of habit although, between you and I, I did try a new A380 Airbus which was amusing if nothing else. Can you imagine me responsible for 850 passengers?
Off we go now to Kasulu in Tanzania, flying along the lakes of Victoria and Tanganyika. It's a long boring 2.5 hour flight although the thermals over Tanganyika made it somewhat turbulent - not the time to open one's Thermos! Kasulu is presumably merely a fuel stop on the journey as I've seen more life and culture in a tub of yogurt. I tried Googling "Kasulu" in my usual bid to impart some snippets of fact to my beloved reader and this was the total result:
"Kasulu is one of the 4 districts of the Kigoma_Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by Burundi, to the East by the Kibondo district and to the South by the Kigoma Rural and Kigoma Urban Districts. According to the 2002 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Kasulu District was 628,677."
That is it! Naff all else. No exciting details of wars, gold, diamonds, poaching.....not even a picture of a local cattle herder.
I sit in my cabin, munching on an unspecified indigenous species sossidgeinnabun, hoping against hope a Starbucks will spring up shortly and wondering how things are in dear old Blighty? It's been a while since I left her shores and I think fondly of all the things that mean so much - Woolworths, MFI, the excitement of Celebrity Big Brother ............ the cornerstones of Civilisation that will always be there.
I've actually flown ?24 legs of my journey now and, looking at the route, I don't seem to have travelled that far. Knowing just how many hours I've sat in front of my PC to get as far as I have makes me realise just what a huge planet Earth is. I can only wonder at the trepidation as well as the tedium experienced by the original trans-global pioneers as they flew into the unknown - especially without the infrastructure and communications which we have now. Aircraft held together with string and hope, what must the pilots have felt? Little did they know just how their exploits would shape the future and that, in a few short decades, we would accept air travel as they accepted the motor car.
It's been a while so I thought it was time I emptied the crumbs out of the keyboard and did a bit of a catch-up. Actually, when was the last time you tipped up your keyboard? Forget the 5 loaves and the 2 fishes, mine had embarrassing amounts of detritus within. It's a Logitech Wave and whilst I love it, it isn't intelligent enough to cope with the equivalent of several packets of crisps, 3 beef sandwiches and the occasional Ryvita drifting around and, eventually, enveloping its buttons. My compressor I use for model painting was brilliant and, after some high-pressure squirting, my dirty qwerty soon became the pride of Bertie!
The illness within Bassett Towers over Christmas has finally passed and I can begin to get on with some of the tasks I promised myself in 2009. These include:
1) Finish my Round the World flight
I've been sadly lacking in this for a while although it wasn't for lack of desire. I was contacted by another cyber aviator who is also performing the said trip and it's nice to know that there is company out there. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm competitive but I suddenly panicked about being overtaken and have now fitted air-to-air missiles to my Mooney just in case! Chris' blog is well worth a read as he actually appears to know what he is doing a damn sight more than me. I did spend a fraught day sorting out my PC last week as my 2nd 300GB drive, which I use purely for flying, was getting a bit full. I stripped out everything, saved most of the downloads to disc and reinstalled the basic "best bits" to optimise the performance so, hopefully, I shall be flying again next week.
2) Put all the videos of the kids when young onto DVD
This has been a slow and painful process which started several months ago and also stopped several months ago as it was such a pain in the butt. Of course, when I started again this week, I had totally forgotten just how it was done but I am now well over 2/3 of the way through the pile of VHS cassettes. It involves capturing the video and then editing, saving as Mpeg-2 files, converting to a DVD format and then trying to work out how to put more than one VIDEO_TS file onto a DVD. On the good side, it's great to see the kids in their early years once more and also realise that I have enough filmed evidence to tease them for many years. On the down side, I thought I looked so cool some 17/18 years ago, however.....................eek! I really should have gone to SpecSavers: glasses that were so wrong, eyebrows like bloated caterpillars and very little evidence of my distinguished silver threads. I've decided that maturing looks more than compensate for the loss of the astonishingly quite well-honed body of my 30s (if I say it enough times then surely I'll believe it one day?).
3) Address myself to becoming proficient with Photoshop CS4
Master Bassett has paid for a year subscription to PhotoShop Creative magazine as part of Daddy's Christmas pressie and I now have this arriving on my doorstep each month. It has so much in and i really want to buckle down and become as good with PhotoShop as I possibly can. Incidentally, just to prove I am not the only loony in the family, the magazine arrived addressed to: Bertie Bassett, HappyTown, followed by the proper address. You stupid boy, Pike!
4) Do an OU course on web design
When I was of that particular age, my parents never encouraged me to even consider university and I therefore left school at 16 and did as they "suggested" by joining the Civil Service. In later life, the desire to learn has become increasingly attractive and I have considered doing a degree. Part of me knows that I could and would achieve it so there isn't much of a challenge in that respect so really it's down to what degree course I would like to do. Part of me also knows that I get bored easily and therefore do I really want to commit to a long-term project? As I was browsing the OU website, I saw this and I have decided that this is for me as a start. Practical knowledge which I can use on the website I have had for several years and never really used. I'm sure some of it will be things I know fairly well but it will be a good exercise and a solid grounding for future courses.
So, that's a bit of a catch-up on events.
The only other bit of fun I have to mention is something I started before Christmas when I began experimenting with voice recognition software. I show below the actual dictated segment - good luck!
Because it seemed to be writing a lot of blog at the moment, I decide eat that I would try some speech recognition softwarethis is my first attempt at using it and I thought I would committed down as a block so be there for posterity I make no alterations were edits to it all stop paragraphI'm actually dictating this at normal speed just to see how will react but because under in my flying around the world blogs at the moment there is can be a lot of them and also apart from anything else my desk is cluttered up with flight yokes controls throttles keyboards joysticks and various other paraphernalia, I really can do with a method of actually putting words on a screen without having to find space keyboard.You may well find that there are going to be so rude words as I'm watching Liverpool losing at the moment as I'm dictating this and therefore it could be quite fun whether it recognizes new or should I say rude words I'm not quite sure that Will Wilson find out. Anyone just watching what this is doing and it seems to be fairly reasonable considering I just had a couple of minutes serve talking about Sir Alex in Wonderland so they could work out auction it is almost a goal and where was I yes Alice in Wonderland voice recognition purposes am say it is picked up really rather well which is quite good so their way half I forgot all about punctuation are met,:; there are some in register make me try remember why is not intelligent enough to keep within punctuation are not quite sure?Anyway to be lovely talking to you. This merely confirms that when I dictate or when I write it still comes out is total nonsense!
Perhaps I have stumbled on the secret of Professor Stanley Unwin :D
The elephant had lived for over 80 years. As a young bull, he had towered above his peers and eventually his stature and wisdom were recognised and he took his place as the head of the herd. As they moved through the African land, it was he that guided, it was he that led the way. The elephant sired many calves and they were his legacy to a changing world. His was a world of freedom and he moved wherever he wanted, unconstrained by borders and tirelessly travelling his kingdom. He had no need to be wary for he had few dangers facing him and his natural concern was for the protection of the herd. With his instincts honed to perfection, the herd prospered- their reliance upon him testimony to his leadership.
He was old now. He stood alone - the herd long gone as the young bulls had gradually usurped his position. As he had aged, each attempt to defend his dominant role had tired him more and finally he realised that he no longer had the strength to fight. Useless to the herd and forced away, he had wandered into his own world, his enormous body now shrivelled and the folds of skin hanging loosely in testimony to his growing inability to fend for himself. He was on his final set of molars and these had been worn down by the almost continuous act of feeding required to satisfy his massive frame.
Now, the feeding was difficult. He was only able to eat on the softer leaves and plants and these were far more difficult to find. No more could his massive bulk push down a tree so he could take what he wanted. No more could he take what was his by right of superiority. He knew he was dying. Occasionally, he would smell the scent of a passing herd, a lion or an evocation of his prime. His instincts still reacted although it was becoming harder to understand why they did so. His life now was focused on survival, each minute an exquisite agony with his tired muscles struggling to support the weight of his splendid tusks - once a symbol of his magnificence but now, cruelly, an ironic burden.
He leaned against a tree, his rheumy eyes continually leaking tears which formed obsidian paths through the dust covering his skin. It was a delicious moment of respite and, for an instant, he allowed himself the luxury of relaxation. He never felt the bullet which obliterated his brain. He never felt the clunk of the axes carefully hacking out his tusks. He never heard the gleeful shouts of the hunters as they ignored the great frame in their appreciation of their perceived bravery. His final act was one of charity as the creatures of the land fed on his body. His final memorial not of what he had been but of what others could take from him.
Everything written herein has been occasioned by a combination of advancing years, caffeine and the singular inability to look life squarely in the eye and say "OK, I give in".
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