Photo time!

After the harrowing realism of the last post, let's take a chill pill and watch some pretty pictures from said trip before it turned into Road Carnage. This is the view across False Bay, aka the most Great White-dense sea in the world, from Cape Point.

Cape Point is not the southernmost point of Africa, contrary to common belief. That honour can only be bestowed on some unassuming rock in between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Coast. But it's here that the warm current from the Indian Ocean mingles with the icy cold Antarctic current, and it's where Magellan and company turned a corner en route to the Orient. All that history does not stop yours truly from looking spectacularly stupid in this pic, however. Note that it was windy. It's always windy here. And the green boulder behind me is, in fact, the cape point.

You can climb a hill to the light house and stand and stare at the ocean that stretches uninterrupted all the way to Antarctica.

This all reminds you how far away you are from home. According to this sign post, I'm exactly 9623 km from London.

The Cape Point is a nature reserve, but its only exciting fauna is an animal the size of a large guniea pig, whose closest living relative is the elephant!

And finally, a picture of Miracle-Gro performing one of her miracles using a very large gun that somebody had left standing around. She's gone off to Mozambique for 3 weeks now, and I hope she will watch out for the land mines.

The boy in the road

I drove very slowly to work today. I looked twice in the side mirrors before turning, checking my blind spot whenever appropriate. I gave way, I slowed down. I repeatedly got beeped at, but that does not concern me anymore. I don't want to be that boy in the road.

Yesterday, on Sunday, I drove Gro and her friend Marius who is visiting from Norway down to Cape Point. It was a beautiful day, but there was a feeling. I don't know. I almost scraped the side of my car driving to pick them up to go. Gro had her wallet stolen in town the night before. A friend who also lives in Gro's road was out by her car sweeping up broken glass deposited there by somebody who had smashed her window to steal nothing more than a few CDs.

It felt like one of those days.

Still, even when there are ominous signs around, the beauty of the peninsula soothes you. This place truly is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'll post some pictures soon. It's the contradiction of the place, which bugs you out of your mind. Everything is lovely, warm, pleasant. Until something happens.

The thing about the sheer cliffs and dramatic nature is that the roads are all but straightforward to negotiate. Often you have a drop on one side, and a cliff on the other. Sometimes the speed limit is 90 kph on these roads. I can't drive 70 on them, nor could Marius who was co-pilot on this 4 hour trek south and back.

We were driving pretty conscienciously through the reserve, as a huge 4X4 pick up truck - the kind that you'll see rednecks drive when they go out to hund deer or something - overtooks us at an insane speed before disappearing around a bend. We slowed down, and followed. Then things happened very quickly.

In front of us, the bend was blocked by two things. One was the pick-up truck, all but unrecognisable, its entire front smashed in, petrol gushing out across the road and smoke coming out the back. It had careered into a large tourist bus - not a normal bus, but a heavy thing that looked like it could charge an elephant - and which had only been pushed a metre or so sideways by the impact.

We screeched to a halt. In time. Behind, people followed suit. I don't know how close we were to each other behind the speeding car. But I am inclined to think that the fact that we were keeping a sensible speed limit at the front of this slight tailback may have saved us all from a serious serial collision.

The first thing you want to do when you are metres away from a car that gushes petrol and smoke is to reverse. There was a car behind, so we couldn't. Instead we all got out and watched. The people in the car behind were not so taken aback. Presumably, they've seen more accidents like this. A group of men ran up to the totalled car, helped out the driver, the person in the passenger seat who had what seemed like a leg injury.

And then they pulled out the boy.

According to the people who had been on the bus, the boy had not worn a seatbelt. He was bleeding profusely from lacerations to his face. Somebody found blankets, a first aid kit, even a woman with medical training. But nothing could stop the fact that at first, the kid was making noises. And then he wasn't.

It took the ambulance over 30 minutes to get there. We all had to double back, eventually, seeking another way out of the cape point nature reserve across dirt tracks and potholes. I had left my details with the policeman, as I can testify to the driver of the truck speeding.

I have no idea what happened to the boy. These things don't reach even the local news.

What strikes you is the pointlessness of it all. What would the driver have gained? Two minutes? And what may he have lost?

And all the memories flood back to you about the times that you went into a bend a bit too fast. maybe you veered slighly into the lane that - luckily- was empty of oncoming traffic. Maybe the wheels just kept you on the road. Maybe you came out of a junction and didn't see the motorcyclist until the very last minute. Maybe you accellerated unneccessarily down a steep hill because it made you feel alive. Maybe you were trying to impress the person with you in the car.

All those moments when your heart stopped. And you think, god that was close. And then you keep going. And do it again. And there's just too many of them to count. Or even to control. Who do we think we are, risking not only our own lives but those of our passengers, our fellow motorists, pedestrians. And you feel, when you see something like we did yesterday, so stupid. So juvenile. I mean, don't we ever grow up?

So I braked today. Let them beep.

Online!

The good news is that Research Africa is online. The bad news is that there are bugs. So... check it out here, but don't be surprised if you have a rough ride...

If you don't care about the site, but only my noble journalism, check it online here here. There should be a pdf on the site, but I don't know where. If you want one, send me an email and I'll make sure you get it.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly good. Here are some endorsements:

A valuable resource on Africa's scientific rennaisance that should be on the desk of every policy maker.
Calestous Juma, Harvard professor of international development and UN rapporteur on science in Africa

Research Africa is an excellent initiative. It should enable African researchers to access news, views, advanced skills courses and funding easily and quickly. It should help the continent unify its research strategies and bring scattered researchers closer together. All speed to Research Africa's electrogigabyte flows!
Renfrew Christie, dean of research at the University of the Western Cape (SA)

It's so nice of them to be so nice to me.

And today, I went to Parliament for a launch of the annual R&D survey. All the movers and shakers were there, and all of them were very encouraging. I think they're just really happy that somebody is shining a light on this kind of news for once.

In other news, I've received the container with my stuff. Just as I was beginning to wish that a fortuitous storm would come along and sink the ship, and consequently my things, into the abyss. After they had finished carrying my stuff into my flat, the place felt all cramped. How will I now be able to do cartwheels in the lounge?

Into the night

Tonight is the longest night of the year. Midwinter. Suitably, it rains. Cats and dogs. Or maybe cheetas and hyenas, or whatever.

The website is due to come online today, and suitably (again) it is not without problems. Mainly, the front page - ie the page you hit when you go to RA.net - is like a big questionmark. The London team has worked on the website for a week now, how could they not make sure there was something to look at on the front page????

Sorry, I'm venting. It's a little frustrating when nobody thinks of the most obvious things.

Paul has a tummy bug. His son has a tummy bug. His wife came down with it last night. I feel like a chicken in Indonesia, when the one next to me gets a runny nose...

Speaking of being ill, poor Michael Owen, that looked like it hurt. There were three Swedish girls in the pub last night, and a gazillion english boys. They didn't mind, though. I think they saw us as a curiosity. Girls watching football without husbands in tow? Who actually know the offside rule? You must be joking!

I missed the first goal, because I was texting Miracle-Gro moaning about the performance of my team. So there... Thing is, the pub went quiet. there wasn't even a groan from the England supporters. Or else I went momentarily deaf. In any case, we all three of us had a bit of a blonde moment, going 'what happened', 'was that a goal', 'yes it was', 'oh my god' ... YAAAAAYYYY! about two minutes late... Er...

The Chinese aren't answering their phones. Do they have something to hide?

Born to cruise

I've got my car. It coughs in the mornings and splutters but I just need to master the choke. It doesn't like the cold, poor mite. Here is a picture of one just like it... I told you it wasn't pretty!

The long weekend that was due to national 'youth day' on Friday was sunny and lovely, but in the end I stayed in Cape Town. There is so much to see with a car! Next weekend I'll venture down the cape peninsula, or up to the vineyards. Cousin is very keen on not having to be the designated driver and I need the practice.

I'm slowly recovering after last week's hiatus and am thinking about what to put in my next issue. There's a chinese premier minister travelling around the continent shaking hands and announcing things, so I thought I'd take an in-depth look at their financing of African science. It's no secret that China is VERY interested in Africa's natural resources - its oil in particular. Presumably they are interested in Africa's brains as well...

There's all sorts of delays to do with printing the cover letter to go with the first issue mail outs. So I don't think those of you who are reading this from the UK or elsewhere will get your hands on a copy until early next week. But I'll say when the site goes online and you should be able to download pdf versions.

For those of you who are interested, SciDev.net has an interesting editorial about science in Africa. http://www.scidev.net/content/editorials/eng/african-science-now-is-the-time-to-deliver.cfm

Heja Sverige

When did footballers turn from plain boys with stocky legs and bad haircuts to adonis-like hunks with good ones? Soccer players were seriously ugly when I was a teenager. Maybe it's late-onset puberty.

Come on Sweden! And Spain, as I drew you in the office sweepstakes.

Cockroach poo

Yesterday - well what to say? Highlights included Miracle-Gro helping me to transcribe a near-unintelligible interview with what sounded like Manuel from Fawlty Towers, dithering with William about the cover way past my self-imposed deadline and realising at about 7pm that I needed to go on a layout course.

The proof has some glitches, which are being sorted today. But my chest swells with pride when I look at the sorry little rag. A mother-child bond cemented by a painful birth perhaps?

It's a public holiday on Friday, and I might be going away with some friends of Gro's for the weekend. If Lost doesn't arrive... But I think it's stuck in a post office somewhere. Letters seem to take about a month to arrive.

I may be allowed to take home the car today. Brave new world.

Oh, and when I got back home last night there was an insect the size of a small pony waiting for me in the bath tub. It had left little presents for me that I had to wash away before engaging in a long hot soak. I've never met an insect large enough to produce visible do-dos. It minged. But I got my revenge. The roach is now at the bottom of the bath drain contemplating its sins in an acid bath of insecticide.

It's in

It's in. Half ten. I'm too tired to type. Tell all tomorrow. Soon, I'll be off to the printers to check the proof. And then I'll go home to sleep the sleep of the righteous.

Burning the midnight oil

It’s 21.30 [last night, at time of posting - ed], dark outside like only the African night can be, and raining as if Cape Town were God’s personal window box and today was watering day. I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up tomorrow with my slippers bobbing past my bed and the mountain in my back garden having turned into an island. Not that it will change anything. Decked out in scuba gear or not, tomorrow I’m going to press.

I don’t know whether to laugh, or to faint, or do both, although it might be hard to achieve both to satisfaction simultaneously. So I’ll just keep typing. Yesterday, I worked. I worked until late at night. Today, I’ve worked. And panicked. And now I’m working some more. Tomorrow night there will be no more ‘more’. There will either be a magazine. Or there will not.

I’m meant to be writing the editorial. I hate editorials. There’s a reason. You may not think it from the way I’m going on here, but I’m actually pretty lazy. I don’t like using my whole brain if I can get away with using half.

News articles, now, they are like IKEA furniture. You collect the pieces, and with a little bit of luck and the odd forceful nudge if there’s a particularly stubborn joint, hey presto, a wardrobe! You can write news stories in any state of mind – death in the family, team sucks at the world cup (yeah, what’s up with you Ibrahimovic, the ball goes IN the net!), your favourite jumper has just been eaten by your cat – it’s all right, you’ll still get there.

Editorials are a bit like that, except where the flatpack box was before there is now a lump of wood and an axe. If you’re lucky, the nails will be included and you won’t have to smelt your own.

With editorials, you have to start someplace and, using your own sorry-ass mind, end up somewhere that makes sense. And not just in cloud cuckoo land where you’ve just spent the past six hours writing an editorial.

Editorials are prime targets for plagiarism. In fact, a successful Guardian reporter once told me that editorials were the easiest thing in the world. “You just talk to someone sensible, and then you go back and write that opinion as your own.”

My problem is that I was blessed and cursed with a preternatural ability to see both sides of an argument. Nice trait, you might say. I guess, if you work at the UN. But you try to argue a point in text when the half of your brain that is not currently ruling your fingers is busy constructing a pretty convincing counter-argument.

Now, for fear of sounding a drama queen - I’m still doing ok. Nothing has happened since the last post to really bugger up the timeline for tomorrow. It’s just that today vanished in a puff of mis-sent emails and layout issues. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow just can’t. That Tema woman can’t get back to me and say she’s not happy with the second way I’ve edited her comment piece. The interview with Monsieur Siegler at the European Commission can’t not happen at 11.30. The tape on which I’ll record said interview (a veteran in the game as I can’t [read haven’t bothered to] find a shop that sells the type of tape I need) can’t pick that particular time to kick the bucket.

Nor can there be a problem with the cover story, or with the funny (well as funny as Research Africa goes) bits on the back page, or – god forbid – with the software I’m working on. And email CAN’T pick tomorrow to conk out. It can’t, it can’t, it can’t! And tonight I can’t go to bed. No matter how much I’d like to.

At this point it’s fear, pure fear, that’s keeping me awake and typing. The fear of that place tomorrow night, which know I won’t find myself in – but still, that place where I have to admit that I just wasn’t up to the challenge.

But that won’t happen. I’ll climb the mountain, as usual, because there’s no going round, and no going back down. That’s the thing. If you’re lazy but ambitious like me, you need to make sure you’re high enough when you get to this point that you just keep going.

And, of course, I know how high I will feel after it’s all over. It’s like that guy said: - Why do you keep hitting yourself with that hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.

It's Friday night and it's all right

I'm amazed to be saying it, but I'm doing well for time for Tuesday. Editing a new newspaper? Pah! Piece of cake! There are only three more stories to write, a lot of laying out to do and the whole printing palaver, and then that's it for another month.

I'm pretty proud, I must say. This time last week, things were not looking so rosy. But I'm happy with the spread of stories, I'm happy with the comment pieces, I'm well on my way to being happy with the cover...

And Miracle-Gro (Gro Haram, my trusty Norwegian freelance copyeditor and proofreader) has proved to be speedy gonzales. We'll make the Tuesday 6 pm deadline no problem.

Touch wood...

Basically, it all came unstuck this week. People picked up their phones, they told me reasonably intelligent things and answered my emails. Everybody I talk to is really positive about the magazine, and interested in receiving a copy, which is really good for motivation. Paul reckons he can make the July sales target no problem, and has promised to sort me out with a raise!

Also, the car money arrived yesterday so all that is in motion. Probably still Linda no-car this weekend, but come Monday... I'll be cruisin. Perhaps better leave taking it home until after deadline. If anything were to happen to me (see Death in a tin can below) I'm not sure the deadline for the mag could be met with love nor money.

Only slight irk is that William (boss in London) spotted some libel-type things in one of my best stories. An African research organisation that has been found to have used project grants to subsidise salaries and operational costs etc (fair enough, they were going bankrupt, but the funders were pretty miffed)... I'm going to buy a book tomorrow on South African libel law and see how far I can push it. Shame, it's such a juicy story. But I don't want to be sued in my first issue.

Anyway, it's all under control. I can't believe I am feeling more relaxed this weekend than I was feeling last one. Bring on the football, and dinner and bar-hopping with Miracle-Gro tonight. I feel like celebrating.

Maids, tummy bugs and other local fauna

The cleaner seems to think the only reason I exist is to provide her with the opportunity to polish my desk. She scowls at me now because I'm not keeping my desk tidy enough for her to do her job. Oh well, she can scowl.

Cape Town's a clean place, eh? Every morning at about the time I leave for work, taxis come driving up my street (the communal taxi vans that cost 2 rand, not the metered ones I use) and drop off little black ladies everywhere. They are the domestics. Everyone in my house has one, even the sloppy oversized teenager downstais. Especially him, in fact.

I don't know. I think there's something extremely healthy in learning to clean up your own mess. You can tell the people here - men and women alike, but especially the blokes - have never had to scrub their own toilet. Or wash their own clothes. I find it deeply unsympathetic.

We've had splendid sunny weather for four days running now. Today, however, there is the precursor of rain. The Berg wind - hot air whooshing out of the North from the Kalahari Desert - is a sure sign that things are about to get wet. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after. But as they say down here - you don't complain about the rain.

Unfortunately, my disposition has not been as sunny as the weather. On Thursday last week, I ate something I shouldn't, and suffered the consequences. I'm only just getting able to eat properly again today.

Speaking of the local fauna, it struck me the other day that I've been here a month and not seen so much as a gnu. I'm in Africa, for God's sake, there must be more to being on Safari than the odd cockroach behind the sink!

Well yes, there are the dogs. Everyone's got one. There's three in my building alone, and they are nice enough. But there is also a Hound of Baskerville lurking around my part of town, crying away into the night and interrupting my sleep. I don't know. Dogs smell. And they have no integrity. On the other hand, they keep the burglars out. Unless the burglars shoot the dogs with their 9mms.

The cash transfusion coming over from the UK to pay the deposit on my car is experiencing some problems, meaning that I'm still hitching rides to work. It's a pain. But I was talking about it to Rosemary yesterday. Everyone talks about the freedom of owning, and driving, a car. But where I come from freedom is an Oyster card that will allow you to go anywhere, at any time without worrying abot congestion charges and parking. I just dont see it. But Rosemary assures me it's much simpler, and cheaper, here.

And today I've got a week. A week! Until I have to hand the first issue to the printers. Hell, what am I even doing writing this stuff here... i should be writing proper articles... Oh, and for those of you who are interested, my first 'international' Guardian column is published today. Here.

This Saturday also gave me my first real pang of home sickness. I was sipping a Pina Colada in Camps Bay by the beach (as you do in the middle of winter) as I noticed they were showing the England friendly on the TV inside. I went to see Eng-ur-land thrash Jamaica 5-0 at 70 minutes, and for a second I remembered sitting in a pub, pint in hand, alongside fifty other expat Swedes cheering as Zlatan heads it into the net... For the first time I realised just how far away I am from home.

So I'm buying a TV. To watch the games. It feels important.

The Political Prisoner

Last night I went for dinner with an exceedingly interesting man. Renfrew Christie was a spy for the ANC during apartheid, he spied on the regime's nuclear weapons programme. After spending the late 70s in Oxford doing his PhD he came back to South Africa. He was caught, and spent seven years in prison, including spells in solitary confinement and on death row.

Christie is now dean of research at the University of the Western Cape, out by the airport. His institution is a success story in that it has gone from being one of the country's poor universities to being one of its most successful research universities, and its student body is still largely black.

The dinner was basically me bribing Christie to take me under his wing, to invite me into his exstensive network of powerful friends and allies. Therefore I took him to a rather nice place in the Waterfront. So what if it cost me half my monthly expense budget!

He didn't disappoint. He gave me over 20 names of people I should get in touch with, enough anecdotes to write a book with and a ride home. He also gave me his own personal view of the NEPAD (New Parntnership for Africa's Development) science investment scheme (what Blair's Commission for Africa report fed into and which is being run by the Africa Union from Addis). Basically, he reckons, it's a lame duck. It's become bureaucratised, and if it benefits anybody it will only be 6 countries, not 56 as intended. But more about that in the first issue of my magazine...

This is bad news for NEPAD, but good news for me in the way that bad news is good news for journalists. Either way, it's a story and one that will unfold over the next two years no doubt.

Renfrew also invited me to the monthly sessions with the South African Royal Society, of which he is the director general. They take tea and biscuits, listen to a presentation by a prominent thinker, then round off with a glass of sherry in the Company's Gardens - the old gardens of the East India Company. All this at the very civilised time of 4.30 for 5 on a Wednesday.

He also reckons I need to meet the horsey set - they run the place apparently. No problems, as soon as my hard hat arrives from the UK...

A third inroad into Africa is the Embassies, he said. SA is the diplomatic gateway to Africa, and they've all got consuls in Cape Town. It's a nice way of getting round the endless red tape of the ministries. On the other hand, diplomats are slippery buggers...

I've finally also bit the automotive bullet and paid a holding deposit on a white CitiGolf. It's no beauty but it drives, was cheap and is only three years old. I might be able to take it home before the weekend, else, I'll take it home on Monday. Then, I'll be 100 per cent Capetonian at last. And drive to see my next door neighbour.