Winning the
marathon has always signalled the height of athletic prowess. Whist the
title of fastest man/women on earth the 100 metres has the glamour,
endurance races for me are the true epic of athletic achievement.
The
Comrades marathon,at 56 miles, longer than the normal marathon. It
always captivated the South African audience with its "cock crowing"
start, to the climax of Polly Shortts this race is full of pathos.
Bruce Fordyce was the man, he was god. The only question asked as the race progressed was "where is Fordyce".
He
always ran a cagy race, hovering about tenth as the race progressed
easing himself forward to ninth, eighth, seventh, sixth, could he do it,
surely not. And then came Polly in all her glory as he picked of the
rest of the lead runners one by one. Imagine the the dismay, you had
been up in front for most of the race when this enigma appeared on your
shoulder, merciless he passed and left you in his wake as he surged yet
again for another win. God was in his kingdom and all was well in the
world. For Fordyce the anointed king, the race was won but for so many
the challenge lay ahead, grinding out the miles, an eye on the clock,
the cut offs at Drummond and Cato Ridge where, if out of time you were
forced to retire, or the final ignominy, at the finishing line, the
official turning his back on the approaching runners raises his gun as
the time runs out to expel any further competitors from winning a
medal.The crowd at the finishing line screaming, urging them on, people
throughout the country watching on their television were doing the same,
come on, come on, come on. The sound of the gun was like a shot through
the heart to those still struggling towards the line, some sprinting,
most close to crawling, it was to no avail, their effort in vain, no
medal this year !!
There are many tales of heroism, of camaraderie,
of self discovery throughout the race. People plumb new depths or find a
resilience that surprises them, stories to dine out on friendships that
last a lifetime.
Amongst the good there is always the bad and
downright foolish. The story of the guy who caught a taxi to shave off
40 ks, or the identical twins who shared the running by swapping every
so often, the one resting whilst his brother ran. Their only mistake
was that they wore their watches on a different wrist and were
disqualified.
Some of my fondest memories of South Africa were
watching and trying to embroil my kids in the drama. It was theatre of
the highest, a true life and death struggle carried out amongst a people
who were living a schizophrenic existence but who came together on this
day in a bond of common humanity.
What a
strange people the Yanks are. Fundamentally rich beyond reason they have
this obsession with independence and the fallacious concept that we are
all born equal to compete for life's riches. The cult status given to
firearms apparently ignorant of the danger of guns in general. There
denial of the need in a civilised society to provide basic and
fundamental assistance to all members of society such as medical
insurance and through it medical care for all family members. Their
method of governance set out after the Civil War through a Constitution
and the balance of power, Presidential in design but limited by Congress
for the purse strings to pay, has resulted in the absurd bartering of
power to enable the administration of the country to do its job for the
citizens of that country. Ideology and not common sense raises its ugly
head, each side digging in refusing to give way, grid lock ensues and
everyone is made to look weak and powerless.
I suppose the real
issue is that the country is not a united whole but rather a
conglomeration of separate states each carrying its own veto. Congress
represents those States and the voters who elect their Senators and
Governors do so on narrow local issues. The same voters elect their
President with a different set of criteria in mind. The fear of
powerful governance from the centre, powerful enough to cancel the self
interest of local politics has always been an issue in the USA and we
are often confused by this dichotomy. If State politics is most relevant
to the voters in that State, the offer of pork today is very persuasive
compared to the National issues that might be of value only as a
concept.
The very reason for central, national governance is to bind
all the citizens together for a common aim or standard right across the
country. It also attributes the cost of any scheme to each tax payer
and allows all the citizens to feel they have some ownership of the
scheme. In the States they are split into 52 factions and there is
little collective empathy for people in another part of the country.This
much heralded independence, this belief in standing on ones own feet
has provided the impetus for the tremendous growth to power but it has
left many people behind struggling to live and make ends meet. For every
winner a looser !! Should a society not be more compassionate, more
civilised, more humanitarian.
On Sunday I
tuned in to BBC2 to watch the World Championship Road Race. There had
been plenty of pre race chatter about the chances of Chris Froome, this
years Tour de France winner, or the help of last years Tour winner
Bradley Wiggins.
With the Tour result under his belt and the Olympic
Race also won, the nation rewarded Wiggins with a CBE (Commander of the
British Empire). I'm afraid the Empire would have been still born if he
had been one of its Commanders! He has shown himself to be flawed
since the marvellous year of his great achievements, spectacularly in
his fear of descending the mountains in this years Tour of Italy. He was
scared and his comment "I descended like a girl" didn't endear him to
the women cyclists who have done so much to put the UK on the cycling
map. His general demeanour leaves a lot to be desired, self centred,
egotistical may be part of the ingredient that makes a winner and he has
certainly shown himself to be one of those but when the chips are down
and he is asked to battle for the team or pulling on a national jersey,
to represent the country, if there's nothing in it for Wiggins then he's
not up for the task. Mark Cavandish is also a character who is known
for his bluntness but he wears his heart on his chest when on a bike and
during the race he buried himself with effort to carry Froome into the
race.
The weather was atrocious, the rain non stop making cornering a
nightmare. You would have thought that riders from this country would
have been, if not in their element at least not out of their depth but
to a man they jacked it in and retired.
The "men" from the dry warm
countries stayed the course and competed. Cancellara, Nbali, Sagan,
Valverde and many others, having pulled on the national jersey were
aware of their responsibilities, were aware of their fans and their
countryman, they were there to compete and compete they did.
What
does this say of our lads. Has the experiment of drilling out our sense
of nationality in the rush to become multi-national, multi-ethnic
actually worked and we no longer have a sense of unity and are rather
the individualistic society that Mrs Thatcher so wanted us to be. You
see it in many of the money corrupted sports like football where pulling
on the national shirt was something to die for and on the field they
gave there all. Today they have an eye on the bread and butter club team
before giving their all and we are left with the sight of mediocrity.
We have a
program over here in the UK Watch Dog which highlights poor service
offered by companies to customers in the UK. I don't usually watch it
but having more time on my hands I watched an episode today. There were
multiple instances where companies are not fulfilling their side of the
bargain having taken the money, people were left high and dry waiting.
In
many instances its a natural progression since today we shop on line
and never meet the supplier and often have only a hazy knowledge of
where the company is situated or have any history of who we are dealing
with.
I remember describing in a previous blog the run around I had
had ordering something from Amazon only to find that the company who
purported to be in East London, at two addresses where on arriving to
exchange a faulty part, the owners denied any knowledge of the company.
Amazon were disinterested in my suggestion that they should vet their
supplies and the customer must fend for themselves. A sign of the times
we live in.
On the Watch Dog program the company under scrutiny were
no fly-by-night East End firm but one of the iconic companies of our
age, BMW. A number of customers had experienced failure with the cars
power steering mechanism, during a journey, it had ceased to work
causing a not inconsiderable panic to the person driving. We rely on
power steering and have been conditioned to expect it to take the weight
off the effort required when turning the wheel to go around a corner.
BMW have turned a deaf ear to the potentially dangerous failure refusing
to acknowledge that there is an inherent problem, well at least they do
in the UK. In America and Canada the cars with this failure are
recalled and fixed at BMWs expense but not in Britain. The Actor Hugh
Grants daughter became embroiled in the problem, her car failing on the
motorway had exposed her to danger but BMW were not interested until her
famous father became involved when miraculously they suddenly agreed to
repair at their expense and showered the party with flowers and words
of anguish for their tardiness. Amazing the power of celebrity.
Our
Road Safety organisation have very strict guide lines for the MOT Test
regarding power steering. Any faults have to be sorted out otherwise its
a failure and the car is not allowed on the road. This same
organisation when approached by the many car owners who have experienced
this defect with the BMW Mini have failed to take the matter up with
BMW. Its as if we are in a duel universe, the citizen who has a second
hand car is prevented from driving whilst the "wealthy", "powerful",
"influential", motor car company is immune from any sort of stricture. I
wonder if its something to do with any of those adjectives ?
As winter
draws down and the nights draw in we begin to hunker down into our
burrows for warmth and light. The central heating is switched on and the
curtains drawn, ever earlier. These seasons which effect us all seem
more acute as one gets older, the cold gets into the bones and one feels
the draught as the circulation struggles to reach the furthest points.
But its in the head that the greatest damage is done. The lack of light,
the long dark nights seem to bring foreboding, the time drags and is
not taken with active projects but reflections. The half full, half
empty caricature prevails and brings to mind ones susceptibility to look
on the gloomy side of life, if life is not full of deflective activity.
For
most of our lives we are propped up by events often outside of our
control but events which have to be countered with something we have to
do. The constant doing is what enriches our lives and prevents too much
self analysis. Self analysis of course can be good for one but it has to
be carried out within a healthy environment otherwise the result can
become depressive. The recognition that we are in essence alone is a
sobering reflection since much of our joy comes from people and events
that happen around us. We feed off these interactions and in a way, make
them our own when in fact they are no such thing. It is in our own mind
that we should find peace and contentment, the satisfaction we find in
knowing ourselves, recognising our strengths and weakness, not being
troubled by other peoples evaluation of who we are.
But no man is an
island as the saying goes and so we reach out to others in an attempt
to find similar common ground to confirm our prejudice.
There is no
doubt that your facts are correct and that our concept of African
government, corrupt, riddled with nepotism is the template for much if
not all of Africa. The problem as I see it is that as with everything we
think about we judge every one and everything through the prism of our
own up-bringing. We grew up about 400 miles apart as the crow flies but
our background flavours every bit of our thinking and although we would
agree in a general sense, there would be be many refinements to our
actual view on any subject purely due to the way we have been influenced
by our environment. Many things we in the West take for granted.
Parliament, rule of law, our definition of what is right and wrong is
not set in stone but is learnt or absorbed from the society around us.
Democracy is a fairly recent concept designed to reduce the power of a
monarch and share it with the nobles, it has refined its-self to
different degrees in different countries. In some countries there is no
democracy and yet tradition has developed a way of ruling and sharing
that is perfectly acceptable. Power of course corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely but there are signs of this in mature
democracies if the Party elected wins a large majority. Unopposed we are
in the hands of a few and dependant on the quality of the few.
SA
has seen an enormous revolution, a complete flip flop in the ruling
class and the people who are now the electorate. The hand over of power
and the writing of a powerful constitution, the avoidance of blood
letting that we see in Syria between the different sects, the demand
from the electorate for change not micro change as we have in the West
but fundamental change, for things that had been withheld, things that
any citizen would demand in Europe and had to be built up from scratch.
All this pressure counterbalanced by the pressure and the demands from
the Market for a retention of the dividend and business as usual. The
back ground of virtually all of the people who were thrust into power
was that of servant to master and now they had to learn what the master
actually did. Yes we have seen a fall in the Rand value, and the
efficiency of the Rand Lords to exploit the pool of cheap labour is
constricted by union representation, even by the Constitution so that
gold production has to evaluate the living conditions and the wages of
those who go underground. Is it so bad that these men now have at least
some protection. Can any industrial process be immune from the people
employed and the conditions of their employment. Is Civilisation to be
weighed against unit output and dividend return.
Funerals are
so symbolic they have a prescribed rhythm and solemnity that sets them
apart from practically every other function we carry out in life. Only
in death do we formalise to such an extent. Floating around in the
background someone has died and we wish to show our respects in this
final display of parting, but in the performance the main character gets
left behind, subordinated to a bit part by the professionals. Their
large shiny black cars, the coffin decked out with flowers, the sombre
faces attendants, the top hatted master of ceremonies walking in a
majestic manner ahead of the hearse, his staff of authority swinging
like a metronome before him. The slow ponderous journey through the busy
streets lights burning on each vehicle to mark the corsage and the
special status it demanded. No car never mind the urgency of work will
overtake, no car will butt in at an intersection everyone draws back and
acknowledges this journey as special. Today the crematorium is fast
becoming the most sort-after way of delivering the end rite. Societies
functional clearing up process, as we come to the end of our usefulness
is efficient, our remains are simply ashes like those at the end of a
barbecue to be spread on the garden. No calling back the spirit of the
deceased, their memory suffused in the drinks at the party afterwards,
as we get on with the business of living !!
