Fish and Beer : Zimbabwe Style

Africa Pictures from Mid '80s.

Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Kilimanjaro in the background.

Zimbabwe, Mana Pools, Zambezi River. Note the bark stripped off the giant Baobab tree by elephants.

Kanzangula, Zambezi River. This where four countries converge. Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana. As far as I know it is unique.


Photographed from a small boat with a 500mm mirror lens.



I think they are called Igrits.



This is Lake Victoria, Tanzania. Looking towards the south bank and the 'city' (more like a shit hole) of Mawanza.



Zambezi, Mana Pools

The Dog’s Bollocks?

Bollocks, Bollox, who knows, but it seems the dog has mine.

Zim, ca. 1986 on the property of Mugabe’s former Air Zim pilot. Was a really cool place, just outside Harare. All gone now.

This is not ‘Nam

Looking at the slides as I scan them send shivers through me. I admit it, that decade plus, spunking dosh I didn’t have in Africa was the dog’s bollocks. What a life. Dig these pics. It is about 1986. A group of us are doing a three day canoe safari down the Zambezi.

Then this chopper comes at us. They are anti-poaching gunships. Zim side was nearly all National Park and the Zambians were constantly poaching. Their side was eaten out and all they had left was women with great tits. When we went down the river that year there was a drought. As you can see, the animals were suffering.

Once upon a time in Zimbabwe

When I was a kid in Rhodesia I had a Kodak Instamatic. Film cost one dollar for 12 pics. In fact, if memory serves me right, you paid for the developing at the OK Bazaars (black and white) and received a ‘free’ film. With my pocket money at 25 cents a week, later upped to $3 a month, you can gather I didn’t take to many pictures.

Later, in the police, a couple of months before I left, I bought a second-hand Russian made SLR. But again, tight arse me took next to none and regret it…big time.

Between 1984-94, I returned to Zimbabwe regularly. So often, it bankrupted me! But, this time I had a camera. Quite a few actually. Turns out I shot hundreds of pictures. I have stuff from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa, Botswana and most of them…Zimbabwe.

The ‘Jewel of Africa’ before it all went tits up. All on slides. A short time ago I finally realised a dream and purchased a scanner capable of doing quite a good job and have for the last three days scanned non-stop, four slides at a time. I still have another week to go. These I haven’t had time to crop, I just wanted to get them up asap. Double click each pic for super size.

They say every picture tells a story. That means I have a lot of stories. So let me kick-off with these shots of a waterfall. We all know the Victoria Falls. I have so many of them, I am sick of looking at them. But these are of a little known falls that for the life of me I cannot remember their name. Inyanga, the mountain area of Zim, had some lovely falls. This one was a tad out of the way. After parking the car you followed a path that went parallel with the river for about three kilometres.

And then you are there. The river drops off the escarpment down into the Honde Valley. This is near the Mozambique border and the farming community were well slaughtered during the war.

New Cool Beans

I just found and installed some new toys, so please use them. You can now be notified every time I have a new post and you can also become a follower. At the moment it is looking rather sad :-(

Join The Rhodesian Navy: We Need You!

Yes, the time has come for the great Rhodesian fighting forces to gather once again and join Captain Pugwash and his crew to rid the seas from the Pirates of the Zambezi, via Somalia. Those that remember the days of the great Rhodesian Navy, as they used hand grenades in Kariba to get fish fingers, can regale their tales of derry-do once again.

The time has come once more. The evil has spread and only semi-comatose alcoholic geriatrics in their fifties, wearing a Rhodesian Service Medal as a monocle, can eradicate the latest vermin to trespass the sacred waters of the Indian Ocean. (Which, actually, is a rather stupid name, as most of the time you will be just off the coast of Africa. Maybe the Indians patented the ocean first.)

A picture of a nasty pirate

No pirate would dare attack a ship flying the Rhodesian green and white, the bows displaying that sacred name, USS Ian Smith- Surprise. Yes, be one those who made the waters free for loads of rag-heads to continue peddling black gold to dumb Westerners.

You too can leave your job, bitchy wife and binge drinking children and get paid to sit on a floating bomb for three weeks talking shite and Roger the cabin-boy. Just drunkenly point a shotgun towards the ocean from the top of an oil tanker at a tiny blob of bobbing coconut rafts, loaded with screaming savages armed simply with high-incendiary RPG spears made in Russia, and shout

‘My name is Able Seamen Stains and I am a Rhodesian’, and if worst comes to worst - you get a four month free holiday in Somalia.

Picture of Oil Tanker hit by nasty pirate spears

The pay is stupendous and it is all TAX free. However, the all inclusive costs are the key to give up whatever miserable existence you have and sign on to the NEW Rhodesian Navy.

These include –

Free ride on a helicopter.

Free Porno films and Jaz mags.

Free Beer and Whisky.

Free whores from every hole you port in.

Free accommodation

Free access for wheelchairs

Free funerals.

If you are interested, further details are here in the following eMail sent to me.

Ex Rhodesian forces required for security convoy work.. As long as you can spend three weeks away from home at a time and are still fit to fire a weapon, you will be considered. Starting in early 2009. Contract is indefinite. You will be working at sea and will be flown to site by helicopter, so if you get sea sick or air sick, consider not applying or can you take the relative medication?

Three weeks on, 10 days off. Salary - USD1000-00 per week - cash, no tax or deductions, all expenses paid. Large bonus paid when engaged in a security incident (up to USD 20 000 bonus). Must have a vaild passport.

For more details email Gee Bee at:

gdgservices007@yahoo.co.uk

Toilets, Drums and Monkey business.

These photos were taken recently in the public toilets on the South African side of Beitbridge border post. That’s the one made famous by my YouTube which has topped the 200k hits. I suppose it sums up the money situation in Zimbabwe very well.

These short bits were lifted from www.zimbabwesituation the last couple of days:

The country's currency plunged to a new record low on Monday, trading at an
average Z$28,4 quadrillion to the U.S. dollar and triggering massive price
increases.

The hyperinflation figure as of July is officially pegged at 231 million
percent. The Central Statistical Office (CSO) is yet to release the
September, October and November figures. Independent economic analysts argue that the CSO figure is unrealistic and that inflation could be running into
several billions if not trillions.

The city of Bulawayo was engulfed in tension over the weekend, following
bloody clashes between riot police and people queuing to try to access money
from their banks.

Scores were left injured on Saturday when heavily armed riot police ran
pitched battles with anxious customers who were losing patience after
failing to access their money from the city banks.

In Harare, the military police on Saturday battled fellow soldiers who were
creating problems in bank queues. Reports say baton-wielding military police
beat soldiers in uniform. At Coal House in central Harare, where two
building societies are located opposite each other, fights erupted as
members of the public cheered.

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Crazy shit!

When my Mom flew back a short time ago I made her get some US dollars at the airport. Phoning her (amazingly the phones still work), she told me that without them they might have starved. There is a bit in the shops, but only for US$. How the general population manage too survive is amazing.

Meanwhile, the world’s bloodiest conflict since the Second World War has kicked off again in the Congo. Five million dead so far but thankfully for Africa it is all the Whiteman’s fault once again. So, according to what I see on TV and read on the net, if we didn’t have mobile phones, the Congo would be a peaceful prosperous place. One imaginative individual came up with the perfect solution – go back to the Bush Telegraph days.

Working closely with Nokia, several models were being created. The smaller ones for ‘phoning’ someone in the same room as yourself, the bigger ones if the person you wish to speak to is upstairs, such as your son. You would beat out ‘boom, boom, boom’, followed with ‘ploop, boom,slap’, which means ‘hurry up, the sadza is getting cold.’

Cell phones need cells to make a network, so a new style of ‘call-centres’ is being planned. The idea is to have a telegraph pole situated at the end of every street in the UK and an illegal Zimbabwean immigrant perched on it with a drum three meters in diameter. Their job is to receive a call and pass it on. A test run of the technology was applied during the recent United States presidential election.

A message ‘Don’t vote for the Blackman, he will invade your farm and homes’, was sent without adequate anti-virus protection and arrived in millions of peoples’ ears as ‘Do vote for the Blackman and get a free home and farm.’ As a result, when the news reached Kenya, all of Obamas’ relatives up-sticks and packed for the move to the USA. Above is a picture of them on the way to the airport to check in their baggage.

Nokia admit ‘there are some teething problems’, but that hasn’t stopped Sarah Palin suing them for a full cupboard of designer clothes.

Presently the whole manufacturing process has been put on ice after the entrepreneur who started this all died after inhaling anthrax spores that seemed to have been on the imported animal skins he was using. (This is true – check this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7705328.stm )

Production will resume under new management as soon as the British authorities give it a clean skin of health.

Last laugh.

Yesterday I was looking at eBay, category - Zimbabwe. It is amazing how much of the silly money is up there for silly prices! Then I came across a blinder. There was someone flogging a Zimbabwean gorilla. As the photo shows, there seems to be some kind of mistake. There are many guerrillas in Zimbabwe. Former ones now renamed as ‘Wovets’ from the words ‘war veteran’.

This one is the alpha-male.

Unlike gorillas, these guerrillas do not face extinction and they just wander around pissed and stoned, taking over farms and trashing them, whilst having a bit of rape and torture too entertain them whenever the power supply to the TV and DVD player is off.

I pointed this out to the people who were selling this gorilla. They blamed the manufacturers for giving them the wrong details. They then changed their description. That was not so clever, as I had told a few people to go check it out for a laugh. Still, never give up; never surrender, so I tracked down the maker.

Blow me down with a warthog tooth! Hansa Toys USA have it on their website, labeled - Gorilla, Zimbabwe. Here is the link –

http://www.hansatoysusa.com/public_catalog/product_detail.php/pid=235~subid=10/index.html

I won’t be telling the ignorant sods. I seriously do believe that the ‘pitt-bull with lipstick’ didn’t know that Africa is a continent, the silly sloth. (Oops, do they have sloths in Alaska?)

Always look on the bright side of life.

Christmas is coming and the rats are getting fat

Please put a penny in the banker’s hat.

If you haven’t got a penny, $700 billion will do

If you haven’t got that, to hell with you!

Is it all doom and gloom? Is it the end of the world as we know it? Yes, it is, but don’t panic because behind every bank is a tax payer. So cheer up, things will be changing but there are ways to look at the entire demise of the capitalist West by looking at the advantages.

First of course, if you still have money in stocks and shares get it out, and invest the money in something tangible. Perhaps a farm in Zimbabwe, for example. If you have money in a bank, do what some experts recommend. Withdraw the lot and convert it into things that will very soon become valuable, such as food. Fill your loft with thousands of tins of sardines. They are very good for you and seem to last for ever. Whatever you do don’t tell anyone in case a few years down the road, when the food riots start, the looters will be breaking down your door.

You have to look at the irony and get a little smile out of it. Quite a few people woke up in the United Kingdom today to find out, that with the nationalisation of the mortgage bank Bradford and Bingley (to be renamed Bingo and Bongo), they are effectively borrowing money from themselves! As a tax payer they now own part of the bank. As a mortgage payer they are now moving their wages from one account to another. So why bother! Simply stop paying the mortgage or tax!

Don’t worry about this. Worse case scenario is going bankrupt. But this could be good news. In England and Wales the law states –

If you were made bankrupt on or after 1 April 2004: Then you will be automatically discharged from your bankruptcy after a maximum of 12 months.

Just one year sleeping under a bus shelter, and then your free to apply for more debt. Spend the time writing your memoirs. Titles such as From Cocaine and Champagne Kid, to Bum on the Run: my life as a successful stockbroker. It must be something really catchy.

Next year you will be able to look forward to the new James Bond film. Unlike the latest one, Quantum of Solace, no multi-million dollar corporations will be able to sponsor it, because they are all bust. Instead, the whole thing will be financed by the Swedish giant Pirate Bay, who will offer it for free to download.

Work on the script is already in process and I have managed to obtain a first draft, tentatively titled – Busted Bastard Banks.

Bond is informed by ‘M’ that unfortunately his pension fund is worth zilch as the government invested it in dodgy hedge-fonds and even though they now own them, they are worthless. There is more bad news. MI6 is to be closed because they conceive that there is no more threat to what was Great Britain by anyone, anymore. In fact, the only person with even a vague interest in the former colonial power house is Robert Mugabe, still chirping away his usual nonsense. As they no longer need Bond he is on his own, and his weapon has been sold for scrap metal.

Bond receives a last present from ‘Q’ who has been forced onto the dole queue. It is a wrist worn sundial which only works at night with the help of a torch.

It doesn’t take long for Bond to find out all his stashed life savings have also been liquidated and now extremely pissed-off, he swears revenge. This time it is yet again very personal.

Bond somehow gets to Botswana where he is taught by the Bushmen to hunt with bow and poison tipped arrows.

He then (somehow), returns and wanders around on a stolen Chinese made bicycle, hunting down destitute stock brokers and bankers living under bus shelters. He introduces himself as ‘Bond, Bankrupt Bond’ and lets rip with his bow and arrow.

His obligatory sidekick, called Wine’o Amy (played by Amy Whinehorse, who also sings the theme song, Cry for my dinner), follows him around moaning a lot and rummages through the rags of the dispatched former money-men, looking for stashed little bags of Class ‘A’ drugs.

In the final scene, Bond and Wine’o christen their love child, 003.5, in a Jewish synagogue with a cameo appearance by Madonna as the body building fairy god-mother.

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Latest interesting links –

Peter Godwin article.

Day of the Crocodile.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/09/zimbabwe200809?currentPage=1

Dmitry Orlov lecture.

Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259