Recensione: "La Via della Cina" di Renata Pisu, ****

Sinossi
In questo libro l'autrice racconta il suo rapporto con la Cina, iniziato nel 1957 quando, insieme con alcuni compagni, si trasferì a studiare a Pechino, all'università di Beida. Vi trascorse 4 anni e da allora non ha mai smesso di tornare periodicamente in quel Paese che l'ha contagiata di un male inguaribile, il "Mal di Cina", segnando in modo indelebile la sua vita. Quello che leggiamo nel libro non è solo un resoconto o un reportage di viaggio, piuttosto assomiglia a un percorso tra passato e presente che si accompagna a un itinerario esistenziale.

Today the new Millennium starts

Today is the start of the new millennium.

Some, like Dick Teresi, have argued that this is the result of a number of errors in year counting committed in the past, in the middle ages in fact. There never was a year 0, we went from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. He says there should have been a year 0 however between those two years, just like there is a year 2000 between 1999 and 2001.

However, others argue that because years B.C. are counted starting from -1, there is no room for a year zero, just like on a Carthesian coordinate system, where zero is a point, not a time interval.

Be that as it may, we are stuck with that, unless we decide to renumber all years from 1 B.C. backward, so that 1 B.C. becomes the year 0, 2 B.C. become 1 B.C. and so on.

Since we are likely to stay with the current counting system for a while... pop the Champagne today!

Recensione: In Sudamerica, di Italo Moretti, ****

Sinossi
Dei fatti che hanno segnato la storia dei Paesi latinoamericani negli ultimi trent'anni si parla sempre più spesso, per la loro influenza sulla politica e la diplomazia europea dei giorni nostri - si pensi al caso Pinochet, o ai figli dei desaparecidos adottati dagli stessi carnefici dei genitori. Moretti ha seguito per la Rai le vicende di quei paesi (in particolare Cile e Argentina) dai primi anni '70. Nel suo saggio racconta quanto ha visto e vissuto, riportando brani inediti delle interviste ai protagonisti della storia sudamericana.

Recensione: Straneurocrate (2000), di Marco De Andreis, *****

Sinossi

Poche cose risultano più ostiche e tediose dell'Europa comunitaria. D'altra parte l'Unione europea ha un'importanza crescente nella nostra vita: le decisioni che ci riguardano prese a Bruxelles e a Strasburgo sono sempre di più. E poi c'è il fatto che le istituzioni comunitarie non sono state concepite per rendere conto ai cittadini europei, bensì ai governi dei Paesi Membri. Questo libro tenta di colmare la voragine fra il (poco) fascino e la (molta) importanza dell'Unione europea, cercando di spiegare l'utilità e il funzionamento dell'Europa comunitaria. E non in termini astratti: l'autore è stato un "eurocrate" negli anni dal 1995 al 1999, e qui li racconta.


Recensione

Il miglior libro per capire l'Unione Europea senza annoiarsi a morte nel tentativo! Parafrasando il film di Kubrik "Il dottor Stranamore", De Andreis racconta di come "ha imparato a non preoccuparsi e ad amare l'Unione Europea", cioè i suoi anni a Bruxelles, dove ha lavorato come membro del gabinetto della Commissaria Bonino alla fine degli anni novanta. Egli usa l'esperienza personale per sviluppare un lungo ragionamento induttivo sulla macchina comunitaria, da una parte, e sulle politiche europee degli stati membri, dall'altra.

Tutto quello che avreste sempre voluto sapere sull'Unione Europea ma non avete mai osato chiedere. Anche perché pure se lo aveste chiesto non ve lo avrebbero detto, data la mancanza di trasparenza dei processi decisionali comunitari, dai quali ormai dipende la maggioranza delle nostre leggi nazionali. Questo potrebbe essere un sottotitolo per questo libro, che parla di cose serie senza prendersi troppo sul serio. Anche se scritto dieci anni fa, per cui in parte ovviamente obsoleto, il libro resta attualissimo per penetrare la fitta cortina che oggi come allora nasconde l'apparato comunitario al cittadino comune.

Parafrasando il film di Kubrik "Il dottor Stranamore", De Andreis racconta i suoi anni a Bruxelles, dove ha lavorato come membro del gabinetto della Commissaria Bonino alla fine degli anni novanta. Egli usa l'esperienza personale per sviluppare un lungo ragionamento induttivo sulla macchina comunitaria, da una parte, e sulle politiche europee degli stati membri, dall'altra.

Da europeista convinto quale sono, il libro mi ha confermato una cosa: far gestire le cose a Bruxelles mi piace sempre di meno, ma resta forse il male minore rispetto ad un ritorno di poteri agli stati nazionali, oggi inadeguati a far fronte alle sfide del XXI.

Puoi leggere un'intervista all'autore qui su Gnosis.

Book review: Zero, the Biography of a Dangerous Idea (2000) by Charles Seife, *****

Synopsis

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.
In Zero, Science Journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers—from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists—who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time: the quest for a theory of everything.




Review

A fascinating book for the non-mathematical minds like mine. I was mostly struck by the philosophical implications of the concept of zero. I would never have thought that a number could have had such impact on religion, politics and indeed our way of life. The main concept I came away with is that zero, the twin brother of infinity, was not recognized as suchin antiquity. In fact it was expressely rejected by most ancient civilizations, and remarkably so by Aristotle: his theory of a "prime mover" of a finite universe (God) was taken up for two millennia by priests of various religions and catholic popes. To reject Aristotle and accept Giordano Bruno (there may be, indeed, there probably are other worlds and the universe is not finite) was heretical: there was no need for a prime mover any more and, ...might there be other popes besides the one on earth? Giordano Bruno paid with his life for defending infinity and, therefore, zero.

We have obviously and luckily moved beyond that by now, but zero has not yet become a familiar concept for most of us. Most people, if asked, will start counting from 1, though 0 is the first number. Most celebrated the new millennium one year early, on 31 December 1999, because they were unaware that there was no year 0, but the 3rd millennium began on 1 january 2001. And 0 is placed after 9 in the keyboard of my computer, and not before 1, where it should be.

This is not a heavy math book, but a pleasure to read for the scientifically minded, especially if you have a propensity to look for the root causes of philosophy and politics.

Book Review: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, by John Gray, *****

Man and woman in a Sikh temple

Synopsis

A practical guide for improving communication within relationships, helping both sexes get what they want from love and friendship. The author encourages readers to accept the other gender's particular way of expressing love and helps men and women accept each other's emotional needs.

'A treasure', 'a bible' and 'an heirloom' are some of the words used to describe the book that has saved countless relationships and improved innumerable others. Now repackaged to relate to a new generation of readers, this phenomenal book continues to carry its legacy of understanding and trust into the world.

Since its first publication, over a staggering 15 million copies of MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS have sold globally to single men and women looking for guidance on how to find the perfect partner, married couples seeking to strengthen their bond, and divorcees hoping to fathom where it all went wrong. Gray's insights into how to allow your other half to "pull away" like an elastic band, prevent your emotional baggage from polluting your current relationship, and translate the phrases of the opposite sex are as relevant now as when they were first published.

With straightforward, honest writing from that precious male perspective, Gray unlocks the secrets hidden in your partner's words and actions to enable you both to reach true mutual understanding and a lifetime of love. Discover for yourself why thousands believe that MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS should be mandatory reading for everyone.


Review

This is one of the most important books I have ever read. It succintly puts together the reasons why men (all men) are different from women (all women); why this creates problems of communication in a couple; and what to do about it. I found it fascinating reading and illuminating for its insights. This is a summary table I have written based on the book. I think it summarizes the main thrust of the argument Gray makes and is spelled out  in the video by Paul Dewandre (in French) Les hommes viennent de Mars, les femmes de Vénus.

Man	Woman
values competence	values relationship
reasons in sequential mode	can do multi-tasking
wants to resolve a problem alone	wants to talk about a problem
is rational	is emotional
needs trust	needs attention
needs appreciation	needs understanding
is like a dolphin, wants a fish when he gets something done	is like a garden, wants to be mantained every day no matter what

For alternative arguments on the same topic, read my reviews of the books by Cordelia Fine and Allan and Barbara Pease

Recensione: Lettera da Singapore, ovvero il Terzo Capitalismo, (1995) di Giuseppe Bonazzi. ****

Sinossi

Il libro nasce da un'esperienza personale dell'autore ed è strutturato in maniera inconsueta: a una prima parte scritta nella forma diaristica di lettere ad amici è consegnato il racconto emozionale, soggettivo dell'impatto tra l'autore, armato delle sue spesso inadeguate categorie "occidentali", e una realtà così contraddittoria, esotica e misteriosa.

Accanto a ciò, la riflessione propriamente teorica. "Unicum" politico, sociale, economico, Singapore è retta da una singolare forma di democrazia autoritaria, con il Presidente e "dittatore benevolo" Lee che gode di un consenso elettorale plebiscitario.

L'autore scorge in questo sistema una caso di "terzo capitalismo", non riconducibile né al liberismo classico né al capitalismo sociale.


Recensione

Bonazzi ci racconta il mese da lui passato a Singapore a fare ricerca sull'economia e la società di questo paese molto peculiare. Il libro è interessante perché oltre a raccontarci le sue esperienze dirette l'autore fornisce anche molte informazioni di tipo politico, economico e storico che aiutano a capire il contesto in cui lui si è mosso.

In particolare Bonazzi ci spiega come a Singapore si sia potuto sviluppare, con contraddizioni ma anche enormi successi, il "terzo capitalismo", una via alternativa sia al liberismo eccessivo sia alle socialdemocrazie dirigiste dell'Occidente.

Un ottimo libro da leggere prima di andare a Singapore, anche se l'esperienza dell'autore risale al 1995 molto di quanto scrive resta ancora valido a distanza di anni.

Today is not the start of the new Millennium!

To see when the new millennium actually starts, go to my post of 1 January 2001!

Much of the world celebrates the new Millennium today, but it will actually happen in a year's time.

The year 2000 is the last year of the XX century, not the first year of the XXI, and thus also the last year of the 2nd millennium AD...

Itinerary of trip to Rajasthan, India 22 December 1999 - 10 january 2000

View Rajasthan trip in a larger map

This the map of my itinerary. Soon to be followed by details and pictures from this trip...

Book Review: Bad Times in Buenos Aires (1999), by Miranda France, ****

Synopsis

In 1993 Miranda France moved to South America, drawn to Buenos Aires as the intellectual hub of the continent, with its wealth of writers and its romantic, passionate and tragic history. She found that is was all these things, but it was also a terrible place to live. The inhabitants of Buenos Aires are famously unhappy. All over South America they are known for their arrogance, their fixation of Europe and their moodiness.

Book review: Cobra Road, by Trevor Fishlock, ***

Synopsis

Trevor Fishlock set off from the harsh and haunted gables of the Khyber, zigzagged to the dazzle of India's southern tip at Cape Comorin and came at last to the little town called Cobra Road. Here, he presents his experience, the smell, feel and history of the subcontinent.



Review

This is a fairly typical jounalist's book. A good journalist for sure. It is full of sharp anecdotes and vivid vignettes of India's immense diversity.

It is also a very disorganized book, his personal explanations intertwined with more detached historical explanations, eyewitness accounts and stories he picked up along the way.

They style is uneven, at times fun and witty, at times rather boring.

All in all a book that I would recommend, even with the reservations above, especially for readers who have never been to India or read much about the country.

Read my other reviews of books on India here on this blog.

19. - 18 AUG: Flight back to Brussels and end of trip to Zimbabwe

Morning at leisure and transfer to the airport where out faithful KLM Boeing 747 is reassuringly waiting on the tarmac.

It is the end of another trip to Africa and again I am left with the desire to return. A trite, banal remark, but so true. More than that, I have an ardent desire to see a better Zimbabwe, one in which blacks don't have to regret having won their freedom because the previous racist regime ran things better. Zimbabwe is a rich country but its people are poor. Especially blacks. This need not be the case and hopefully won't.

18. - 17 AUG: Harare

mostly dedicated to Shona art. Museum and shopping

to be expanded

17. - 16 AUG: Flight to Harare

Relaxing morning at our cliff-edge hotel before we have to start to get ready to return to Harare for a couple of days of shopping and visits, it's the end of this trip.

Uneventful flight, only a long annoying delay at the Vic Falls airport.

After check-in at our new hotel I asked for a recommendation for dinner. The hotel's driver takes us to a local restaurant and during the trip I asked him what he thought of the situation in his country. He is a very very black Shona. He is quite upset. Very upset in fact.

He says it was better during the Rhodesia times, when whites ruled the country.

I am flabbergasted, how can he possibly say that? I ask him whether he misses being discriminated against in business and education, not being able to patronize some restaurants and shops, and of course not being able to vote. He says, calmly, that yes now they can vote but there is only one party to vote for, really. More importantly, in Rhodesia they had no status but had jobs and were paid real money that could buy real goods and services. Now they are "free" of discrimination by the whites, but jobs are scarce and money is worthless. It was better before.

I was shell shocked during the whole dinner.

16. - 15 AUG: Victoria Falls - rafting - ULM

Full day of activities in and around Victoria Falls.

In the morning I go for a white water rafting tour down the Zambezi. You can do this for half a day, a full day, or several days. All things considered half a day is a good appetizer, I'd like to do more. But our program is already quite full, so there you go. Some of the rapids are quite easy, after one or two it almost begins to feel boring. But then we get a really steep one, and then a really terrifying one that make it all worthwhile! All the staff are local blacks, except one person who is white. I talk to to him and he is Italian! He says he's been living here a long time, and feels African. When he speaks English he does have a heavy African lilting accent! And especially striking, he has picked up that special African laughter!

In the afternoon I book an ultralight flight over Vic Falls. I miss flying my glider, and I have never really flown a motor plane of any sort. Paul is a young Zimbabwean pilot who makes some money taking tourists around. I meet him at the small Vic Fall airport and off we go. He even wants to let me fly it but I am not so sure this is the best place to try so I regretfully decline. Paul is white, so I asked him about black pilots and he says there are not so many, with a tone in his voice which means there is none really. No money, no education...

We fly over the falls, much lower than we did the other day with the helicopter. Can hear the noise of the water crashing down, the people walking by the walkway. We also fly over my cliffside hotel, I can see people sunbathing by the pool, and my room just a couple of meters from the cliff, facing south over the mighty Zambezi.

We then fly over Zambia, at the other end of the bridge that spans the two countries. We are quite low over a village and I can easily make out the huts, the people and the cattle. My pilot tells me he should not really fly so low, it is not allowed because it might scare the animals and disturb the people. But he does anyway because the tourists like it and the locals have ho telephone to call the authorities anyway. I am rather stunned and a bit irritated to be part of this but say nothing.

As we proceed to fly back to the airport, just before sunset, an airliner, a Boeing 737, is on its final approach to land. Of course we give it right of way! But we are on the ground right behind it, and I can't avoid being rather amused at how here a small ultralight can land or take off right next to a big commercial jet!

15. - 14 AUG: Flight back to Victoria Falls

We get up fairly early and have a good breakfast. After saying goodbye to our hosts we head back to the airstrip with our pilot. The blond lady checks her plane all over, then puts our bags in the hold and invites us to embark.

Pleasant flight back to Victoria. We fly at low altitude, less than a thousand meters, so we can actually enjoy a detailed view of the savannah below us and not a few wild animals.

We reach Victoria Falls, and after taking leave from our pilot we are picked up by the driver sent by our hotel.

He is a really nice person, speaks to us about the situation in the country and complains he does not make enough money to take care of his family, especially now that his daughter is ill with heart disease and needs expensive treatment by a cardiologist. One visit costs 2000 zim, some 50 USD, a small fortune.

Back at the hotel we relax by the pool and make plans for the following days. After the helicopter flight, I'd like to take a flight over the falls in an ultralight and perhaps also over the surrounding savannah. They tell us it should be possible, though not cheap.

14. - 13 AUG: flight from Victoria Falls to Chizarira

In the morning we transfer to the Vic Falls airport to board a private plane to Chizarira. We are welcomed by a serious looking blonde lady in her late twenties who is our pilot.

Our plane is a single engine Cessna, and the flight to our destination is the most interesting part of this day. Once we get there, it's a bit of a disappointment. During a long and bumpy drive to the lodge, ohe local guide tells us it's the dry season (we know, that's why we chose it) and therefore it will be hard to see many animals as here they do not set up artificial water holes like in the main parks. Makes sense, perhaps, but I wish we'd been told before.

Accommodation is fairly basic, there are no tourists (wonder why?) and our hosts are not especially welcoming. I feel like I am being treated like a stupid city person whose only reason to exist is to pay exorbitant fees to white owners of so-called luxury lodges. Food is alright, no more.

I decide to cut this short and arrange to fly back to Vic Falls the next day. There are tons more things to do and see there, no point staying here.

13. - 12 AUG: Victoria Falls Helicopter tour

The highlight of the day is a fantastic helicopter tour over the falls. To board the craft we have to walk over the bridge that spans across the falls between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Passport control, customs etc. but it's pretty straightforward as we have nothing except some cash and our cameras.

I am struck by some billboards in the customs house that advertise skin whitening creams! Apparently it's big business here, even though (as some other posters warn) they can be quite harmful to the skin! Just think of all the troubles whites go through to become darker, here they spend precious money to become paler.

The tour is great. The pilots swooshed back and forth between the Zim and the Zambian side of the falls. I asked him to fly lower, to get a closer look at the water but there are safety rules and he can only go down so much, and in any case it was not allowed to be lower than the top of the falls. Not cheap but highly recommended.

12. - 11 AUG: Hwange to Victoria Falls

Easy drive from this great park to the most iconic site of Zimbabwe: Victoria Falls, obviously named after the Empress of the UK in the XIX century.

I did some research on accommodation. The Vic Falls Hotel is a city monument and must be visited, but it is not
for those who suffer noise pollution: ultralights, microlights,
helicopters, and various types of airplanes circle right above it (to get
the best view of the Falls) from dawn to dusk come what may...

At the Elephant's Walk shopping center we found the best shop for
authentic African antiques in the country; of course, it is not cheap, but
you get 10% off if you spend more than Z$20,000. They will also provide
documentation on the items they sell.

The Vic Falls Safari lodge is pleasant and well organized; breakfasts are
great on the terrace overlooking the waterhole and the park, the pool is
small but very nice. The Boma restaurant opposite is a bit too touristy,
but the dancers are actually good (not so the story tellers which come
around with pathetic "African" legends to get tips). Food is excellent and
worth the money (count on some 15 USDpp).

This is what I eventually booked.

The Gorges Lodge , some 30min out of town was our real surprise: it is a
series of cottages built literally on the cliff edge of the Zambesi
gorges, around rapid number 19. The view is breathtaking and the service,
including the food, among the best we have had in the country. At USD
225pppd all inclusive it is not cheap, but worth it. The only bummer is
the dirt road to get there, there is no way to avoid your daily share of
dust eating to get in and out of the lodge.

11. - 10 AUG: Hwange national park game drives

Just about every accommodation we heard of in and around Hwange is
overpriced in relation to what it offers: in our experience and in that of
everyone else we met accommodation here is much more expensive than
anywhere else in the country, it seems, as if they assumed that anyone
going to Zim must go to Hwange, which perhaps is even true but won't be
for long at this rate. We stayed at the Chimwara tented camp which at
USD225 per person per day all inclusive, was definitely not worth it. The
"luxury camp" was rather pretentious and details left a lot to be desired,
which at this price is not acceptable; their flood lit water hole was
always avoided by the game while we were there, perhaps because the
property borders on hunting grounds; to get to Hwange you must drive
through a hellish 45 min of (very) bumpy dirt road; food was barely OK.
The only saving grace was our being taken to Hwange by Nick Greaves, a
photographer and long time expert of the park who was magnificent at
gracefully chasing elephants in the park's labyrinths and get just close
enough for the best photo ops possible while avoiding dangerous
situations. They say this is a true wilderness experience, but I do not
understand why one should pay as much as a 5 star hotel in Paris for
that...

10. - 9 AUG: Drive to Hwange national park

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9. - 8 AUG: Bulawayo town tour

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8. - 7 AUG: Big Cave Camp game drives

Big Cave Camp game drives


The Big Cave Camp wilderness area was purchased by Cyril Waddy in 1947 and has been in the family ever since. The Waddys are from pioneering stock and have lived in the country for four generations. Avid bush lovers, the entire family spend a large part of their time exploring, hiking and learning about the many species of trees, flora and fauna that abound in the Matobo Hills.

Big Cave Camp was started by Mike and Yvonne Waddy as a recreational facility for the family in 1980 and was subsequently developed as a tourist facility by David Waddy. Dave can recall how they first lived in a two man tent, with no electricity or generator. Everything was either paraffin or gas operated. Today they are still very much involved in promoting tourism to Zimbabwe, after what has been a tough few years.

The lodge was expanded to accommodate 16 guests, the property restored to pristine condition and a wildlife sanctuary was created for the natural species of game that occur in the Matobo Hills.

The Waddy family continues to live and prosper in this beautiful area. We

7. - 6 AUG: Masvingo to Bulawayo

Depart for Bulawayo and the Matopos - approximately 3.5 hours drive.
Big Cave Camp -

6. - 5 AUG: Great Zimbabwe

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5. - 4 AUG: Harare to Masvingo (Great Zimbabwe)

Hertz Rent-a-car delivers our car at Imba Matombo at 08h30. We load all our stuff, get easy directions from the driver and head South for an easy drive to Masvingo. This is a 3 hour drive on an almost entirely straight road.

The condition of the tarmac is good, and after a short while I get used to driving on the left-hand side of the road.


We check in at the Lodge of The Ancient City again on a Half Board basis. Again a luxury hotel with thatched roofs that blends in perfectly with the local environment.

Rest of the day at leisure, we take a short walk and spend a pleasant evening at the lodge, comforted by a great meal of game and South African wines.

4. - 3 AUG: Harare shopping

Zimbabwe is dismantling the one hundred years old railway track solid teak
sleepers and replacing them with concrete. The sleepers are cut up and
made into furniture; you can find it at several shops in Harare (we found
the ones at Sam Levy's village and at Ballantyne Park the best, they will
also make items to order) but avoid Savanna Woods in Vic Falls as it is
considerably more expensive.

3. - 2 AUG: Harare

Full day in Harare, dedicated mostly to exploring the work of Shona sculpture artists.

We went to Zim especially for Shona sculptures and thoroughly searched the place. Matombo Gallery on L.Takawira Avenue is the best place for quality sculptures, but expensive, and manager Roy Cook, who will gladly devote you his time to explain about Shona sculptures, does not like bargaining, so be prepared to pay for what you get... and more! Be sure to visit also their sculpture garden on the airport road, it holds some masterpieces by "first generation" artists which are not found elsewhere.

The National Gallery is the only other serious alternative, but the selection is poorer. Matombo (which means ROCK in shona) also has a good shop in Vic Falls. They will also arrange shipping at a reasonable rate. Tengenenge sculpture village has gone down in quality and is just a messy mountain of second quality stuff, though occasionally good artists emerge from the lot. Average pieces can be found at many other shops, so if you are not fussy about a specific artist or school do look around. Street markets are mostly for cheap souvenirs, not art.

2. - 1 AUG: Harare

The huge 747 lands and park in the small Harare airport. No buses and no jet bridge "finger", we just descend the staircase and walk to the terminal A deep blue sky and a cool breeze welcome us to Africa.

After an uneventful passport control we get our bags and are met by the rep of Run Wild, the local tour operator we are using for this trip. He proceeds to transfer us Imba Matombo, a great little hotel in the Relais and Chateaux chain. It is a luxurious yet cozy property, white washed houses with thatched roofs. I booked a standard room on a half board basis.

Rest of the day by the pool, recuperating and reading up to prepare for our tour of Zimbabwe.

Imba Matombo remains the non plus ultra in terms of accommodation; they asked us USD140 pppd on a dbb basis, but we got it down to 120 through Runwild; it is worth it! During our stay, an Australian visiting chef delighted us with world class cuisine which took into account local foods and ingredients. You can also just go for dinner. Their "afternoon tea", with cake and cookies served by the poolside or in your room/verandah, and included in the daily price, is irresistible. Only catch: do not use their shuttle bus to town: at USD10 pp/per hour (min 3 hours) it is a veritable rip off.

Imba Matombo

1. - 31 JUL 1999: Depart Brussels and arrive Harare

Easy flight with KLM via Amsterdam. Free business class tickets, thanks to lots of frequent flyer miles accumulated over time. KLM is pretty good, and my collection of blue KLM Delft houses gets one more piece!

Itinerary of a trip to Zimbabwe, 31 July - 17 August 1999

31 July 1999
depart Brussels

1 August
Arrive ex KLM
Met by Run Wild and transferred to Imba Matombo - Relais and Chateaux
property. Standard double room on a Half Board basis.

2 August
Harare

3 August
Harare

04 August Drive to Great Zimbabwe
Hertz Rent-a-car will deliver your car to you at 08h30.
Run Wild will supply you with a welcome wallet and road map full
directions and show you to the correct road for Masvingo and Lodge of the Ancient City. This is a 3 hour drive on a straight road.

Lodge of The Ancient City is on a Half Board basis - 2 nights.

5 August Great Zimbabwe

6 August Drive to Bulawayo
Depart for Bulawayo and the Matopos - approximately 3.5 hours drive.
Big Cave Camp - Full Board basis

7 August Game drive Cave Camp
Cave Camp game drives

8 August Visit Bulawayo town

09 August 99
Depart for Hwange, actually Dete for the National Park.
Drop off car in Hwange as we will be transferring you by 4x4 into the camp itself so I suggest drop off the car at the Hwange Airport.

Chimwara Tented Camp is all inclusive of choice activities, walks, drives,
night drives on the estate and drives into the National Park, full baord
all drinks, levy, laundry, park fees and transfers.

10 August Hwange game drives

11 August
Run Wild will collect you on the 11th and drive you to Victoria Falls - 2
hours drive.

arrive Victoria Falls Safari Lodge BB basis.

12 August 99
We have booked Ultralite trip over the Falls, this departs from Zambia,
our Manageress will be at your disposal to assist with Visas, transfers and other activities you may wish to book.

13 August 99
Your private charter flight will leave Vic Falls Airport for Chizarira National
Park airstrip (50 minutes) at a time to suit you.

Chizarira Wilderness Lodge is owned and run by Run Wild.

14 August
Flight back to Victoria Falls

15 August
Victoria Falls activities

17 August
Depart to Harare
Thetford Country House Hotel on an All Inclusive basis full board, drinks, shopping and transfers.

17 August 99
Harare shopping

18 August 99
depart on KLM.

Book Review: An Italian Education, by Tim Parks, *****

Product Description
Tim Parks’s best seller, Italian Neighbors, offered a sparkling, witty, and acutely observed account of an expatriate’s life in a small village outside of Verona. Now in An Italian Education, Parks continues his chronicle of adapting to Italian society and culture, while raising his Italian-born children. With the exquisite eye for detail, character, and intrigue that has brought him acclaim as a novelist, Parks creates an enchanting portrait of Italian parenthood and family life at home, in the classroom, and at church. Shifting from hilarity to despair in the time it takes to sing a lullaby, Parks learns that to be a true Italian, one must live by the motto “All days are one.”

Review
Tim Parks has written a highly readable and perceptive account of his life in Italy. Unlike many English authors who write about the country he does not display any sense of smugness and has no complex of superiority! In fact he has so much integrated into Italian society that one might as well say he is Italian by now! He grasps the nouances of life in Italy from the point of view of a normal person living there, not a traveler, not a tourist, not a scholar. He can even make fun of Italians without being offensive. He also appreciates much that most foreigners miss. An open window into contemporary Italy. Highly recommended.

Addendum 2011: While the book was written in the nineties pretty much everything he says is still very much true ten years on.

Book Review: "Italian Neighbors", by Tim Parks, *****

Synopsis

In this deliciously seductive account of an Italian neighborhood with a statue of the Virgin at one end of the street, a derelict bottle factory at the other, and a wealth of exotic flora and fauna in between, acclaimed novelist Tim Parks celebrates ten years of living with his wife, Rita, in Verona, Italy.

Hot air balloon flight in Belgium

Today I flew in an hot air balloon for the first time! Got up before dawn and drove to Viller la Ville, just outside Brussels. It is mandatory to fly in the early hours of the morning or late in the afternoon, when the air is calm. Otherwise the big and not at all aerodynamic shape of the balloon would be dangerously buffeted by the hot air of Summer thermal currents.

We we welcomed by the organizers with some hot coffee and started getting the balloon ready. The huge canvas was slowly filled with hot air by a huge fan. As the sun rose above the horizon, we (half a dozen of us) got into the big basket with our pilot.

As he fired the gas burners into the balloon we slowly lifted off. Soon afterwards the barely perceptible wind started pushing our aircraft over the Belgian fields. Down below, a car was following us, taking instructions from the pilot as to which road or path to follow to better stay close to our flight path and be ready for our recovery. (Note added in 2012: there were no GPS then, so this was the only way for the car to know where to go in order to follow the balloon as closely as possible.)

We gained altitude up to some five hundred meters. It was, needless to say, an exhilarating experience. A few times we flew pretty close to the tree tops of some hills, but when this happens the pilot fired the reassuring burners, the air in the balloon heats up and the craft moved safely up in the sky. The morning air was comfortably cool in our faces.

After about half an hour we began our descent. The pilot let the air cool inside the balloon and the aircraft moved slowly downward in a gentle glide. As we approached touch-down he instructed us to brace. Just before hitting the vegetable field he fired the burner one last time to soften our impact with the ground. As the basket hit the soil it ground to a halt and slowly tilted forward until it fell to its side. I feared for my camera but it all went well.

After disembarking amongst the inevitable excitement we got into the recovery vehicles and drove back to base camp, where a bottle of cool champagne was waiting!

Well done European Balloon Corporation! Hope to fly with you again soon.

Book Review/Recensione: "Red Sorghum", by Mo Yan, *****

ear of red sorghum

RECENSIONE IN ITALIANO DI SEGUITO

Synopsis

A legend in China, where it won the major literary awards and inspired an Oscar-nominated film, this is a novel of family, myth, and memory, set during the fratricidal barbarity of the 1930s, when the Chinese battled both Japanese invaders and each other.

Author Mo Yan won the Nobel prize for literature in 2012, the first ever Chinese living in mainland China to became a laureate. Some criticized him as not being authoritative enough as a writer and more importantly for his shyness in criticizing Chinese literary censorship.

Recensione libro: Il treno della Cina (1995) di Furio Colombo, ***

Sinossi

Un viaggio nella Cina antica e moderna raccontato da un giornalista. "Ho l'impressione, ripensandoci adesso alla fine del viaggio di non aver visto una sola stella rossa in tutta la Cina. C'è invece, dovunque, dipinto e illuminato, un mare di pubblicità". (Furio Colombo)

Recensione

Un diario ragionato di un giornalista intellettualmente onesto che dopo un periodo post comunista è transitato ai radicali. Colombo racconta quello che vede e ci ricama sopra considerazioni più generali e mai banali. Consigliato per una visione del gigante asiatico negli anni immediatamente successivi ai fatti di Tiananmen, che ricorrono come un ritornello nella narrazione cadendo il viaggio durante il 4° anniversario.

Da allora la Cina non è diventata più libera, come Colombo, tra i tanti, immaginava, ma è diventata più potente.

Stopover in Hong Kong on the way to Australia

click here to see this map in full size

Cathay pacific offers me a day room at the hotel by the airport. Landing at this airport is an experience in itself. As we approach in the early morning hours it is still pitch dark. I can see the bright lights of the bustling city, which has just reverted to China a few weeks ago, in stark contrast with the black background of the mainland. During the final approach the  pilot comes on the intercom and advises that he is going to switch off the main cabin lights so we can see better outside. A few minutes later I understand why. The plane comes in low literally between rows of high rise buildings! You can almost see inside the bedrooms of the apartments as he makes a precise landing in the narrow strip of reclaimed land in Kowloon bay!

Book Review/Recensione: I was Amelia Earhart, by Jane Mendelsohn, ****

Recensione in italiano di seguito

From the New York Times, 3 July 1937

Synopsis

A fictitious account of Amelia Earhart's last flight, with flashbacks to her childhood and difficult marriage. Amelia and her raffish, drunken navigator, Noonan, crash-land on a desert island. They fight, touch madness and finally fall in love, before taking off again on only half a tank of petrol.

The male dodo: are men necessary? (The Economist, December 1995), *****

Image of a dodo, an extinct bird

This post is a review of a most interesting article published in todays' The Economist. It is not about economics, or politics. Not directly anyway. It is about the future of the world, and its hypothesis could definitely affect world politics and economics in a profound way.

When traveling around the world, it is disconcerting to find that most civilizations tend to favor men over women. This article makes it clear that this is not just unfair and counterproductive (we knew that) but ultimately pointless.

As a (still) childless male probably past the middle point of my life, this issues is not likely to concern me directly. I don't see how a surge in the number of young females worldwide could negatively affect my well being. However it might well be that when someone will read this post in one hundred years they will no longer find it funny. It might by then by trite and old stuff.

Here is the article:

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The Male Dodo: Are Men Necessary?

(The Economist, December 23, 1995-January 5, 1996)

Ours is, or was, a man’s world. But biologically speaking, male supremacy hangs by a thread. In half-playful dread, a zoologist looks at what men have to fear from the march of evolution.

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Imagine a white, middle-class, western couple about to pick the sex of their next child (this choice will soon no longer be a fantasy). If they are rational and thorough people, never in a 1,000 years would they choose a boy. Not only is ours more and more a woman's world; by the second quarter of the 21st century, when a child born now will be mature, it will be time to wonder if men have a future. In many areas of life they will be marginal, in others an expensive nuisance.

If that sounds wild or overdone, consider the more glaring weaknesses in the so-called stronger sex. Start with medical ones. Boys are more often born with inherited diseases. Because they do not have a spare x-chromosome, whereas girls do, boys with a faulty gene have no back-up. The effects of this deficiency can range from colour-blindness to haemophilia.

Boys tend to have more troubled childhoods, too. More than twice as many boys as girls are autistic—meaning they so totally fail to develop normal social abilities that they cannot function independently. They are eight times as likely as girls are to be hyperactive—uncontrollably jumpy and energetic. Dyslexia and stuttering are nearly five times as common among men. As most parents of both will tell you, bringing up a boy can be considerably more fraught and risky than bringing up a girl.

It is not much better at the other end of life. Until early this century, American men tended to live as long as or longer than women. Since then a gap has opened up, and it is getting steadily wider each year. Men now die on average fully seven years before women born in the same year. More strikingly, male mortality is rising in relation to female mortality in every age group.

One of the main reasons for this is that men get more of most diseases than women. Before the age of 65 men are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as women; they are also more likely to suffer strokes, ulcers and liver failure. Half of all men get cancer, compared with only one-third of women. Smoking, which until recently was largely a male pastime, accounts for some of this difference, but not all. According to Andrew Kimbrell (The Masculine Mystique; Ballantine), the death rate from cancer has risen by 21% in men in 30 years, while it has stayed the same for women.

For these depressing medical facts, there is a one-word explanation: testosterone. The male steroid hormone weakens the body’s resistance to infectious diseases and cancer; it also seems to cause the body to age more rapidly. Eunuchs usually live much longer than other men. To the conspiracy-minded, testosterone might even look like part of an evolutionary plot on behalf of females.

Next, consider boys’ educational weaknesses. Evidence is growing that on many counts girls are cleverer than boys….

Similar findings come from America. Boys there are half as likely again to be held back a grade in school at age 13; twice as likely to be in special education and twice as likely to drop out of high school altogether. Girls are more likely than boys to go to university, still more likely to graduate, and even more likely to do a master’s degree.

Testosterone’s peak

After school, our putative couple’s hypothetical son would then embark on another risk-fraught period of life as the output of testosterone reached a peak. Talk of violence and, more often than not, you are talking about young men. About 80% of murder victims are men, as are 90% of murderers. Most of these are in their 20s and the cause of most murders is hot-blooded, testosterone-induced arguments over status and love. Well aware of the connection between gender and crime, some American feminists have even proposed a male poll tax to help pay for police and prisons.

Licking wounds and drowning sorrows, young men get hooked on drugs or alcohol about twice as often as women. But that leads to more violence. More than 80% of drunken drivers and those arrested for drug offences are men. The sex ratio of prisoners in United States jails is more than ten men to each woman, and men get longer sentences for similar offences. The great majority of AIDS victims in America (though not in Africa) are men. Men attempting suicide are four times as likely as women to succeed.

Should a man survive his burst of testosterone—most do—and reach the age of 30, the chances are increasing that he will find himself without steady work. The number of American men in full-time employment is falling by about 1m a year. The number of employed women is rising at almost the same rate. If employment trends continue as now, by the end of the century if not before the United States will be employing more women than men.

Britain is not far behind. On Tyneside, once a byword for heavy industries employing skilled men in secure jobs while their wives stayed at home, the reversal is now so acute that a locally-born playwright, Alan Plater, has written a play about it. Shooting the Legend is set in a colliery’s social-welfare club run by unemployed men whose wives work. It is no joke. Roughly, for every new (commonly female) job in banking or airline reservation that has been created in the region since 1980, another in shipbuilding or heavy engineering has been lost.

One reason for this is a change in the nature of work. As each year goes by, job openings in agriculture, manual labour, metal-banging and machine-handling decline, while work in retailing, word-processing, services and health care—all traditionally female jobs—opens up. At its simplest, as computers replace tractors, brain is replacing brawn. Now that they are more and more educated, women will be almost certain to start claiming their rewards. (Conspiratorialists will recall that the original idea for the modern computer was due to a woman, Ada Lovelace.

Should some lucky male, having run this gauntlet, survive long enough to turn to sex with a woman, he will find he has entered a war zone where the enemy has many things, including law, on her side. Among many animal species males are the seducing sex; females the sex that decides whether to be seduced. Interestingly, this is less true for species where males nourish females or foster offspring—virtues females will seduce for. But a widespread pattern is that females flirt, men pounce. Among humans, this preserve is laced with rules, written or unwritten, and full of risks.

Think, to take a tricky but salient example, of date rape. According to Andrea Dworkin, an American feminist, the big difference between seduction and rape is that “in seduction, the rapist bothers to buy a bottle of wine.” Many evolutionary biologists would agree. To them any animal seduction is an asymmetric act of more or less forcible persuasion by a very keen seller of sperm, which comes cheap, to a discriminating buyer of impregnation, which involves huge investments of time and energy. The more asymmetric the investment, the harder the male tries. In human being a few minutes’ work by a man can be leveraged into nine months of female gestation. Whether the eager male is rapist, over-persistent seducer or just a husband is to the thorough-going feminist and to the evolutionary biologist of secondary interest.

Despite the nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat and his wife, another disreputable thing men do is to eat both more meat and more fat than women. The habit goes back to the Pleistocene era, when modern human beings emerged in Africa and began to spread to the rest of the world, replacing earlier forms of the species. Among modern hunter-gatherer peoples men catch most of the meat and women gather most of the plant food. Although men share meat with women, they tend to be more carnivorous.

Red meat comes these days with all the wrong cultural labels. Eating it is increasingly treated as cruel, environmentally damaging and unhealthy. Vegetarianism is on the rise, but particularly among women. Encouraged by this trend, many governments are spending large sums of money in health-campaigns devoted to the demonisation of red meat.

Mummy, what are men for?

Men are not, for all that, utter weaklings. Suppose that, under-educated, diseased, sclerotic and unemployed, the hypothetical son of our putative couple has made it to middle age some time in the 2030s. Just as he is thinking about putting his feet on the chair and cracking a can to watch football, the beer stales and the game pales. Unaccountably he finds himself asking, “What is it all about? What has it all been for?” But this familiar midlife twinge has a new, nasty twist. He is struck with existential doubt not just about himself, but about his gender as a whole. And the bond of male solidarity makes the question no easier to face: what are men for?

Biologically, the purpose of sex is still poorly understood. There are animals and plants that get by without one. Dandelions, for example, produce baby dandelions by themselves. Whiptail lizards in the Arizona desert practise virgin birth, though they perform a pseudo-copulation to get themselves in the mood. There is a whole class of animals, the bdelloid rotifers, that, as far as scientists estimate, have not produced a male individual for around 30m years, and they do not just survive, they thrive.

The puzzle is less why sex (and so males) arose, but why it (and they) survive. Suppose, for a moment, sex is already present. You would think it ought to die out, and here is why. Note that by convention, biologists call even asexual creatures that reproduce themselves female. Imagine now a population of asexual females, which pass on all their genes to the next generation; and a population of sexual ones, which mix their genes with males through copulation or some other form of sexual transmission. (This pairing of sexed and unsexed populations is not as bizarre as it sounds: snails of either sort exist side by side in New Zealand.) Suppose each female has two offspring. The asexual ones will pass their genes on to two offspring, each of which will bear two more, and so on. If the sexual females have on average a male and female offspring, only one will reproduce. In other words, the asexual gene pool should grow while the sexual one should soon die out.

But, luckily for men, it survives. There seems to be a point to sexual reproduction that counterbalances this evolutionary pressure towards femininity. And that point may be summed up by saying that once a generation, sex remixes the genes of two individuals. This spins the numbers on the genetic combination lock that seals each cell, which foils parasitic burglars such as worms, bacteria and viruses. As the main exponent of this theory, William Hamilton of Oxford University, puts it: “Sexual species are committed to a free and fair exchange of biotechnology for the exclusion of parasites.” The reason why a defence is needed is that parasites are always trying to unlock cells using the previous generation’s commonest combination.

It may sound like small comfort to a doubt-struck man, to learn that he is in effect the female sex’s health-insurance policy. But having, so to speak, invented males, our female ur-ancestors then used them for other purposes. Most strikingly, many animal species use males as genetic sieves, to sift out the good genes and discard the bad. They do this by equipping males with all sorts of encumbrances and then setting them to work in competition, either beating each other up or risking their lives against predators and parasites.

The end result, as in a deadly jousting tournament, is a lot of dead males and one or two survivors in clear possession of superior genes: thus has the species been “sieved” for the better. Peacocks’ tails and nightingales’ songs are two examples of the accoutrements to these virility tests designed to get most males killed through exhaustion, disease and violence purely so that females can tell which males have the best genes.

A bull elephant seal may look to some like a male chauvinist pig—all force and no child care—but it is actually the victim of evolutionary manipulation by the female sex: to the extent that the bull seal is designed at all, it is meant to die of disease or violence trying, and usually failing, to win one chance of fathering lots of children.

The hormone testosterone, in sum, is the supreme female “invention”. Not only does testosterone make males do dangerous things, such as fight each other or take absurd risks. It also weakens the immune system. Males, we know, are more likely to get diseases. But now we can see the biological reason why. The higher they push their testosterone levels to win fights and seduce females, the greater the risk of disease they run. The biochemical connection is direct.

Men’s secret

Despite everything said so far, there is hope for men. For one thing stands in the way of a world without beer, hamburgers, pot bellies and patriarchy. Men’s fate hangs by a slender thread, perhaps, but thread it is, and one of a scientifically compelling kind: for the moment, sperm is needed. If women did decide to switch to virgin birth by the simple procedure of fusing the genetic nuclei of two eggs instead of a sperm and an egg, it would not actually work. At least it would not work in our species, or for any other higher mammal, though it might work, for example, in a platypus, a kangaroo or a bird.

The experiment has been done in mice. Scientists produced an embryo with a nucleus made from two sperm nuclei; and another embryo with a nucleus made from two egg nuclei. There was a remarkable difference. The all-sperm embryo developed a large and healthy placenta but a slightly deformed and rather small foetus. The all-egg embryo developed a good, healthy foetus but a small and ill-formed placenta: without a good placenta, the foetus soon died.

In other words, the placenta is largely the product of genes inherited from the father—indeed it is full of paternal genes that almost viciously set about exploiting the mother’s body, not trusting the maternal genes to do so selfish a job—and without a placenta the foetus could not develop. So given the present horizons of bio-engineering, sperm remains necessary for successful fertilisation and embryo growth.

But men should not sigh with relief. For a different worry looms: sperm is, or may be, disappearing. Out of the wondrous modern chemical industry flow products that appear to mimic the effects of female hormones and to reduce the sperm counts of men. (Immediately, that is a problem for both sexes; on a longer, more evolutionary scale, it is a deathknell for men.) If you believe the figures, which some scientists hotly contest, the average number of sperm in the average man’s semen is falling so steadily that it “portends the collapse of traditional means of procreation by the middle of the next century”, according to one expert in the field. If that is true, it is serious. Most men spend a lot of time thinking, if that is the word, about “traditional means of procreation”. The speed of decline is disputed. But studies done in Denmark, France and Britain all point in the same direction: fewer sperm per ejaculation each year.

What to blame for falling sperm-counts is hard to pin down. The problem is not that most chemicals are innocent but that so many are guilty. Now scientists have started looking, they are finding scores of chemicals, natural and synthetic, that mimic the effect of female hormones. When given to male rainbow trout to drink, they cause them to start making female proteins called vitellogenins. Put a shoal of male trout downstream from a sewage farm using those chemicals and the fish are likely to start to feminise. Just about any of the common chemicals used in making plastics seems to encourage the production of oestrogen, the female hormone. Pregnant rats fed on low doses of them give birth to male offspring with small testicles and low sperm counts. Nonylphenol, the most potent of the chemicals, first came to light in a (woman’s) laboratory in Boston when some plastic tubes were traced as the source of a mysterious substance that made breast-cancer cells grow in a glass jars.

The case against men

So is Jacques Lang, France’s former culture minister and a fine nose for fashion, right when he claimed—in the title of his recent book—Tomorrow belongs to women? Recall, a moment, how men let the species down. They are proner to disease, dumber at school and more troubled at home than girls. They are more violent, die earlier, and in many walks of life are becoming less and less needed at work. Biologically, males are useful chiefly as a “genetic sieve” for the safer transmission of the genes of the reproducing female. Male sperm, in addition, seems important to the production of the embryo-protecting placenta. But in the longer-run, there are evolutionary question-marks over the need for men to perform the first of those functions and over their capacity to perform the second.

A world of tamed, feminised or vanished men would be a world with less meat, which would reduce pressure on rain forests. It would be a world with less crime, where even the slums of Rio de Janeiro would be safe at night. Pornography would largely disappear. So would rape, classically understood. Children, true, would be brought up in fatherless homes, but the evidence suggests that it is mainly boys who turn bad in such circumstances, not girls.

Nor, as a vision of things to come, need a world without men hold out such terrible fears. Civilisation owes much to men. But creating cultures and technologies is one thing, preserving them another. A sex adapted to the one is not obviously adapted to the other. In the grand sweep of things, the human race may before long have completed its evolution from a warring collection of romantic, male-dominated tribes to a peaceable, cool-headed sisterhood devoted to shopping and household management—those most feminine of arts known nowadays as economics.

(The Economist, December 23, 1995-January 5, 1996)

Suggested reading:

Film review: Smoke (1995) by Paul Auster, *****

Synopsis

Departing from the conventions of Hollywood story-telling 'Smoke' is constructed like an emotional jigsaw puzzle: pieces interweave and interconnect to form an intricate whole. Unrelated characters - a New York cigar store manager (Harvey Keitel) who has taken photographs in front of his store at the same hour every day for 14 years; a novelist (William Hurt) unable to go on writing after his wife is killed in a random act of street violence; a man (Forest Whitaker) who ran away from his past and tries to start over after accidentally killing his wife. These characters, amongst others, making their way through the lonely urban landscape, might seem to have little in common. But in the couse of this motion picture they cross paths by chance and end up changing each other's lives in indelible ways.


Review

I first saw this movie when in came out in 1995 and then bought the BD in 2012. It is still am amazing film about human nature, love and New York. This kind of stuff could only happen in New York. People of entirely different backgrounds crossing paths for an incredible series of adventures and misadventure. Yes, incredible, but then again this is a movie.

However the emotions that play out in the story are very real, and no doubt will resonate with many viewers.

One last note about the title: smoke is the common denominator of all the stories that intertwine in the course of the film, which is centered around daily life in a cigar store. A pretty unique place where the owner, disenchanted with life, can meaningfully put together a series of albums of four thousand pictures of the same place. I won't tell you why this actually makes sense so as not to spoil the film for you.

And, how do you weigh smoke? You actually can, really, just watch the movie!

A good bottom line from the various stories: stealing is giving, lying is telling the truth.

A deep, captivating, dry humor, no nonsense film not to be missed.