Happy New Year and Bon Appetit (see below)!
The winter months in these parts – December to February - are beautiful, weather-wise. Daytime temperatures drop to around 20 centigrade with blue skies and a sun that doesn’t burn your face off. Things get so cool in the evening that I have to wear tracksuit bottoms and socks and a t-shirt. Almost Arctic! Sometimes I even have to turn the oven on full blast to heat up the flat and this year I’ve dug out a fleece from the depths of my meager wardrobe. I wear a jumper and scarf to work. Sadly, during this season to be jolly, I have to report the demise of my bike. Its rear axle finally went tits up last week and is therefore permanently disabled, like a horse put out to grass. However, in a show of festive spirit, I took it over to a gang of Bangladeshi road diggers and said, “Do you want this?” They replied with blank stares, so I leaned it up against a building and said, “It’s all yours, lads. Happy Christmas!” and walked off, but they were still baffled, kind of afraid, and today I saw that it is still standing there untouched. Before long the neighborhood brats will get their clammy mitts on it, climb on board and quickly fall off. So now it’s walking weather and this morning, with the locals securely in the land of nod, few vehicles on the road, I strolled along the pleasantly landscaped corniche (read: boardwalk/promenade) with the sun kissing my face, nobody around other than the Asian labourers building ever more shopping malls and the garbage men picking up last night’s leftover picnic crap. Crossing a lawn next to the sea I watched a screeching flock of gulls swooping with intent and fighting over scraps, so, ever eager to find interesting events in the sand, I went to investigate and there on the surface were hundreds of fish, each no more than four inches long, skirmishing for pieces of bobbing bread that had the seagulls all feisty. It was a mass attack, so wild that they were even taking bites out of a piece of cardboard. My scientific reasoning puts that down to the petro-chemical effluent that they spend all their time swimming about in. I’m sure there are fish in there with two heads and it was long ago that I stopped taking a dip in those slimy waters. Continuing my walk, somewhat disconcerted, as if by magic, every manner of American fast food outlet suddenly came into view, also the source of a daily feeding frenzy, not by fish but by Saudis, many of whom refer to the USA as the Great Satan, in between mouthfuls of Big Mac, Fords and Chevrolets parked out front, i-phones next to the Cokes. Happy New Year and Bon Appetit (see below)! Comments are closed.
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FOTO BEDSIDE TABLERussell Shorto FOOD FOR THOUGHT
‘I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.’ Ed Begley Jr. * "The more I see of Humans the more I like my dog." Mark Twain * Only when the Last Tree Is Cut Down, The Last Fish Eaten, And the Last Stream Poisoned, Will Man Realize That Money Cannot be Eaten Cree Indian proverb Nb. Doesn't work in Google Chrome, no idea why not...
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January 2016
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