when one plus one equal less than two...

This is a conversation between journalists. If you are not one, please log off immediately.
If you are, please read on and maybe we can help each other out.
The last time I was in the newsroom - in 2006 - I was not aware of the way the craft has changed. I understood the usual refrain that newsroom have become too junior and blah! blah! blah!. If and when I needed to work on the story, I would call the reporter concerned and we would work through the story together. I still believe that you do not teach someone by doing their job but rather you as the Prophet says, you lead them to the threshold of their minds ...
The young minds that I had to work with were a marvel. Namhla Tshisela stands out for me as one of the best budding journos in this country. There may be a scores of Namhlas that I do not know but I do not believe we are short of talent.
But we are short of the work ethic. Again let me clear. I have done almost everything that has to do with newspapers. I have also been on the PR side, newspaper management, writer and so on. Now that I am on the receiving end of bad media, I realise that there is something lacking in our journalism and something drastic needs to be done.
I get asked all sorts of questions by various journos. There are times when I am completely stumped by the questions. I ask for time and reply in due course. But that is exciting. It teaches those of us on the other side to really interrogate the information we want to pass on to writers. But the converse should be true. The other side should interrogate us and I have been thoroughly taken to my limit by clever and thorough questioning.
But I have been allowed to go scott-free as well by lazy reporters. You almost want to ask them to ask certain questions. But no, they are in a hurry and will not be bothered to probe. There is a tinge of sadness because I believe spokespeople want to talk some more and expand on their subjects.
And then there is the type that will have you do all their work. For example you send out a press release about an arrest and that suspect will appear in court on this day. Halfway through the day of the appointed day, you get a call from a journo sitting in the office. "Did the so-and-so appear in court today?"
That I believe is laziness of the worst kind and I do not take kindly to it. Whatever happened to people going to court or cultivating sources within the court system? For crying out loud, journos should get out of the office and go there. I should not be doing the work. Or you get asked whether you know lawyers involved in the matter and what might their contact numbers be? Why should I have those number? What then is the work of a reporter? To get all the information without lifting the proverbial fingure. I think it is unfair. But above all, do you think I protest too much? Awe! Goba msenge zidl' imbuzi.

Clawing back our future

It has been two months since I joined the men and women in blue. OK, maybe I should say they have paid me twice already. I love it.
If a few months ago you would have suggested that I will have a rank and work for the SAPS, I would have told you to have your head read. Today I wake up and wade through the traffic to Pretoria where I get a chance to do what I love and get paid for it.
I speak for the new unit the Hawks. Off course there are those who hanker for the past and will tell you about how good the Scorpions were. They certainly gave a good account of themselves and arrested a lot of people through the media.
This is exactly where the Hawks will differ. Our duty is to make sure that culprits are brought to book. Not through the media if we can help it but through thorough and effective detective work without jeopardising anything.
But you are always judged in relation to this old unit. We hope very soon South Africans can judge us with the results that should start showing soon. There have been a few and more is yet to come.
Meanwhile, some of us will wake up everyday, go out and try to make a difference. That much we owe to our kids.

Pains of separation

Lebo Khumalo ... the lady of the moment

Today it was not so bad. The lethargy, the pain, the anxiety of separation was less pronounced.
Instead of leaving the house yesterday, I walked around and suddenly started looking for things that in reality I did not need. After 16 months, I was finally leaving home. My partner, Lebo, found it just as hard. She is no crybaby believe me. But yesterday I swear there was tear or two in her big eyes. Unfortunately for her it is difficult to hide when she cries which is as rare as the snow in Jozi.
The reason for this state of affairs is that I started work yesterday. Better still, I started in a new job, the first I have had since my unceremonious parting of ways with a former employer.
In the new incarnation I have become a policeman – at least that is who will be paying me to speak on their behalf. To be more exact, I will be speaking for the Hawks or the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigations headed by Anwar Dramat, a man who is has a reputation for smashing organized crime. Ask the Cape Flats gangs.
I was not aware that staying at home and working with my partner had such an effect on us and our relationship. There were times I came close to strangling her and her me. But we pulled through. The best time was when we were on the road for three months on an audit trail for Transnet’s Freight Rail. It was the best and the worst time for us. We scoured the entire country. We slept in B and Bs that were absolutely fabulous and others that were dodgy. We stayed in motels and hotels. We chased the sun, literally, as most of what we needed to do had to happen during the day or when there was still light.
We stayed at small wonderful hotels and we walked out in the middle of the night from some. We drove on tar, gravel and something in between. We negotiated rivers and sand dunes. We were incredibly hot and sometimes bone-chilling cold.
We ate the best and the worst. The best was at Le Mast in Upington. The worst was everywhere. We found out that Mpumalanga has the worst biltong of all provinces. Strue’s bob. Northern Cape was good, very good.
Sometimes we were lucky. Other times our luck ran short. But we were together. I drove most if not all the time. She was the ever-precise navigator. And do you think the driver listened to the navigator? She found sleeping places while I negotiated some of the worst roads in the republic.
Back home we went out on negotiations and deal making. Sometimes it happened. Other times we came back empty handed and sore. We were broke and sometimes incredibly flushed with money.
In short I was in her face and she in mine for all that time. We survived. Yesterday was the day to leave home and it as extremely hard. I walked in and out. I started the car. I stopped it. I looked for things I did not need. I was not sure what to wear. It was then that I realized how incredibly lucky I has been to have the chance to spend as much time with someone I am not yet married to. Officially that is. I realized how important and crucial she has become in my life. I realized how I miss her and love her.
It was in leaving home that I realized where my future lies. What a journey it has been and not in a million years could anyone have written this script… What a life.

Sweet innocence of youth

The pride of being South African - we can learn from the Zondi children.

I bought my daughter a sim card today. Yes it is the umpteenth time I do so and am likely to continue doing so for the forseeable future - maybe even when she is well over 21. Now she is a tender 13 though if it suits her she is 14.
She loaded it in the phone we borrowed her - she decided to leave hers carelessly at school and it was pinched. Happy she sent us - my partner and me - her number and wanted us to chat to her. Except whatever we did, we just could not get through. We told her friend and called her on telkom - yes those creatures still exist.
So resourceful as she is, she called customer care. ( I am not sure I would have thought of that at 13 but things have changed). She called back, on Telkom nogal, in a flutter of sorts to tell us that she needs to register herself before it will be activated. Halleluia. Something is working. No more can people just buy sim cards and use their phones for crimes.
"This Zuma is serious," she said. Hmm! Zuma did not have much to do with this but I decided that if she believes that, let it be. One more person believes Zuma is making a difference. A few more and who knows, we may have positive energy in this country. God knows we need it and I love my daughter for being so innocent. But then she has just finished reading Jeremy Gordin's book on Zuma...

A stinking idea

This is one of those commentary that may sound patronising. But it is not meant to be.
I completely understand that we pay people badly in this country. The argument that half a loaf is better than nothing is a bit dodgy for me.
The municipal workers fall in the category of those people who believe their lot can improve. With food prices up and electricity and whatever else skyrocketing, I understand the clamour for more money.
But after wading through trash in Braamfontein because municipal workers think they have a right to do so because they are not being paid properly is just bull. That I do not understand. I don't get the point of capsizing dustbins.
What is the point? Why do you mess up where you will sleep later? I have no other issue as some of my learned friends will tell you about international hosts and the like and what they think. For that I dont give a toss. But I fail to get the point especially when the leaders play it down as if it is the most understandable thing on earth.
What is the point? Somebody...

Riding the recession in Mpumalanga

The house that Esther built... Pics: Musa Zondi

Esther Shongwe had to give up most of her life’s comfort. Her quest was to supply the capital of Mpumalanga with one of its conference facilities Nelspruit so desperately needed. It was not enough that she was making some money from the bed and breakfast – The Nutting House.
That is probably is one of the wisest decision she made. That investment and the belt tightening may be paying dividends now. Big time. As she watches her business colleagues reel under the effects of depression, she can only smile and thank her lucky stars.
“I realized that the province and particularly around here in Nelspruit there was a shortage of conference places. The establishment had a 50-seater which was not enough. We had to turn away a lot of business because of that.
“That is when I decided to invest in a conference centre which can take up to 1200 people. So when people of talk of recession, I cannot relate to it because our business is thriving,” she says without any hint of bravado.
This has also meant that her 33-bed establishment has not gone begging. “In fact, I have had to book a number of people in other lodges near to ours as I cannot accommodate all the people who need a bed,” she says.
The figures for tourism in the province are not encouraging. Lyndi Grimbeek, an official at the Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism says it has been downhill from last November. December and January saw tourism incomes diving by at least 30 percent.
“What saved the situation was that a lot of people decided to take their holidays locally. But importantly we have learnt a lot from the experience. We have learnt to listen to our clients, contain our costs and provide clients with what they want,” she says. This sector is better than others like car dealerships and estate agents who have either closed shop or drastically downsized their operations. “This has led to a number of people losing their jobs,” she says.
The owner of Nelspuit Wholesalers E Minty attests to a tougher trading climate. His establishment which trades in anything from garments, buckets, chairs, food, catering equipment – you name it, has seen a decline of at least 15 percent in the last six months or so.
“The food part is fine. The isn’t much difference there except that some specific items don’t move as much as before. It is in other items – the non-food sections - that we see a real difference. One

of the items that moved a lot before the elections was a kanga in the ANC colours with the picture of the party’s president Jacob Zuma,” he says with a chuckle. When we arrived to interview him, the shops were relatively empty for a Saturday morning. But he is not fazed. “We plan for periods like these and so even though we lose out a bit, we make it up in the economic upturn,” he says.

As we leave the shop, we see a few kangas on display near the till points.
Most of his clientele is locally-based – bunking a belief that it would come from Mozambique or Swaziland. The point of the interdependency between the province and the adjacent countries was alluded to by Grimbeek when she said that citizens of those countries are depended on Mpumalanga economy. “Most of the companies that invest there are South African. So in a way, the economies are interdependent but we drive the main economic activity,” she says.
Chief executive of the Maputo Development Corridor, Blessing Manale ascribes the soft landing for Mpumalanga to a number of macro-economic movements that have shielded the province from the full might of the recession.
“Before the recession, it was projected that the growth of the Mpumalanga will be at least 4.7 percent. Now that projection has been moved upward to at least 6 percent,” he says.
Surely that bucks the trend and flies in the face of common wisdom about recession and how the whole country will be affected.
“Not really,” counters Manale. “ You have to remember that Mpumalanga is home to the Medupe power station that Eskom is building. That project alone has injected a lot of money into the province. But besides that, there are a number of other projects which have lessened the impact of the downturn.
“One of these is the Moloto Rail which is a project between Prasa and the provincial government for moving people around the province. Then there are projects in Mozambique itself which are driven from the province like Mozal, the $562-million Matola Water scheme which will rival the Lesotho Highlands Scheme.
“There are plans for the automotive supplier park and work to this end has already begun. There is a gas pipeline from Mozambique which has benefitted the province greatly. These are some of the flagship projects that have made a difference and cushioned the province. Also the 2010 investments are beginning to show in construction and road rehabilitation because Nelspruit is one of the host cities,” he says.
Most of these projects fall within his ambit including the N4 project. “In the last ten years after the rebuilding of the N4, we have found that suddenly a lot of traffic is moving through Maputo port which has increased Mpumalanga’s currency. This means that as a province we need to jack up our infrastructure to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these developments,” he says.
The one sector that has suffered is mining but “we believe the other developments have balanced it out” and the effect has not been as bad as it would be. All in all, Manale is positive that the province will see through the recession without any structural damage to the province.

Daylight robbery

I think Multichoice runs the biggest scam ever. First they advertise all these specials. And you think, Aggh! whats R199 a month. You summon the strength to call them and voila you are connected. But you see, even though the retailer of your dish will give a voucher to the installer, it will be for one plug point only.

Then you ask the guy for another point in your bedroom - where you should not have the television in the first place - and you part with your first R250. Then he says what about the kiddies bedroom and before you know it, R500 is gone. Or you get these ads for pvr - private video recorder - and you think! it will be cool to be able to stop, rewind, pause ...

You shell out R2500 minimum. Now that you have an installer, he comes around, gets the voucher from the retailer. Suddenly he tells you about splits for this and that so that you are able to watch three channels at the same time - in different rooms hopefully. Yeah, why not you say with that disdainful voice. In reality you are saying: What is an extra R250. Bloody snob. And then there is this and that. You pay.

Then they advertise high definition on your normal screen and what you see is so clear. You go out, buy a flat screen that the salesperson says is HD compatible. You go home and think you can watch HD. No, the Multichoice people inform you. You need an HD decoder.

Can I trade in my PVR? You ask. NO NO NO! That thing. its obsolete, they are short of saying.

Off you go, get the HD decoder come home. The installer comes. He links it up through the multiswitch and voila you can now play channel 170 and watch tv become lifelike.

Three months later Multichoice tells you about the Xtraview. You think what the hell, another expense. You ignore. They follow up with messages that come on your decoder. You read and ignore. Two months later your statement reflects double billing, On enquiry you are told that because you did not choose Xtraview you are being billed separately for the two decoders. But if you take Xtraview and a few rands more... The installer comes, and says you need a heartbeat connection... R700 later you are sorted.
I await the next scheme with bated breath.

Who holds the key of life

The biggest lie human beings continue to perpetuate is that we are the clever species. We shout it with all our might and browbeat our chests like gorillas. In fact at every turn we convince ourselves of our superiority that we do not see the small creatures, things and other stuff plotting our downfall.
Yeah brethren, there are other life forms that are plotting quietly and laugh while we sit in complete arrogance. We can think yes, but are we sure we are the masters of the universe? Take the lowly globe for example. In a bigger scheme of things it may not be very important. In fact you can do without it by lighting a candle, a fire a torch (oops it has a globe also).
There may be feelings of earlier disorientation as the bulb goes and you are suddenly plunged into darkness.
But as you would have noticed, the eyes gradually get used to the darkness and you can pretty much get around with bruised legs and dislocated knee caps. Jump into the car and race to your nearest supermarket or convenience shop. As you make it just in time before closing, you let out a huge sigh of relief that choice is wide. And herein comes the challenge.
All these globes stare back at you. They are tired of the dust and the cold shop they want to go and be useful somewhere. Is your dead bulb a screw on or pin on (or whatever it is called)? How many watts is it? Is it the big screw in or the smaller version? In the near panic you take different bulbs just to widen your choice and to ensure you have light. Hopefully you remember to buy batteries – and a bulb – for the torch.
Before you know it, you have sets of different bulbs in your house that you cannot use at all. Who wants to take them back? Besides you always throw the receipt away and you have no stomach to haggle with a Spar employee who thinks smiling is a swear word.
And then there is milk. It does not matter whether you warm it with the microwave oven or on the open stove. Two out of three times, milks finds a way to spill. And then there are socks. Whatever happens to socks? Somehow you end up with a host of them without partners.
There are many of these strange happenings we cannot explain and yet we think we run the universe? Ask the socks, bulbs and milk.
They may just hold the secrets to the universe.

On a song and prayer

How things have changed.
Who would have thought that one would find time and fun freezing in the lowveld winter listening to Afrikaans music? Perish the thought, I say. And that is exactly what the last two days have been. In between violent coughing bouts, I have been serenaded by Afrikaans music, have spoken more Afrikaans than I have for the whole year and have been a real sucker for punishment. I am just glad I dont drink otherwise I would be adding adding brandy as one of the culprits for the misery of my life right now.
There are those who cannot put serenade and Afrikaans music in one sentence. It would be sacrilege, they say. I understand. Maybe it is the combination of drugs I am taking to fight the flu that makes the music sound cool. (A friend says it is not possible I could be suffering from swine flu. I am already a swine)
Maybe it is the cold. Maybe it is just wanting to reach out and understand a culture close yet foreign to me. But seriously, De la Rey is a great song. Take away the politics and it is easy to understand why certain people find it so stirring. Ok, I have not been moved to tears listening to it. But it does remind of the scene in White Wedding...
Anyway things are really happening here at the Innibos Kunstefees or arts festival in Nelspruit. I have had a chance to network, drink awful coffee with powdered milk, get introduced to something new and wonderful in the Afrikaans culture. There was a whisky tasting yesterday by M-power with cigars aplenty. All the vices I have given up. Forget the cold. Live a little and once in your life, tell your kids you were at the Innibos in Nelspruit. It is a great marketing event and the big players have seen its potential.
Mpumalanga Development Corridor has pumped in some funds into the showpiece. CEO Blessing Manale says it is money well spent. It makes sense. The funds that are flowing into the province and the town are huge. Who needs the Grahamstown festival?

In tune with our world

The happy lush green of summer has given way to the brown almost lifeless cover of winter. The Crocodile River is not as full and gushing. Even the vervet monkeys that dart across the road are not as many.
The winter fires have wrecked their havoc on the landscape and there are still smouldering fires on the Patatanek pass. Needless to say, it is cold even with the smoke from the logs.
The Mpumalanga lowveld is not usually this cold. In fact transplanted anywhere from the colder parts of the highveld, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was summer here.
But alas, the blanket of death that covers everything in winter has triumphed. But hang on. Is it death or is it birth? It is both.
If you could, get out of the car and put your ears to the ground. No. Not the tarmac but the lifeless fields or wild areas that serenade the N4 route. At first you will not hear a thing. As you relax and slowly tune in to the world around you, you hear it. Loud and clear.
It is a cacophony of sound as the seeds underneath discuss with excitement the life that awaits once all this dreary winter passes. They look forward to spring. To birth. They are discussing the colours. “I will be a bright yellow and will dart the landscape like a butterfly that is here, there and everywhere,” says one. But he cannot compete with the reds, mauve, violets and whites.
They discuss the brightness of their colours and the lifespan. “I will be around a lot longer than you,” says one of the less colourful plants. Sure. If others can be brighter, why cant it compete on the basis that its dour colour gives it a longer life. The brighter, the more visible to animals.
There are a range of other unique factors they argue on. The irony of it all is that as they dream of what seems like a better life, they are hastening their end. If they could and would, they would just stay there. Underneath the dying landscape lies the seeds of life. But if they do not sprout, life stops. Period
This is the land of biodiversity par excellence. This is the land of the big five. Of diverse fauna and flora. Of ants and elephants, crocodiles and hippos, human beings and baboons.
If only we can listen to the cacophony of sounds and realize that life is at its best when all seems dead or dying. Nature can teach us a lot. We just need to put our ears close to the ground or open our eyes wider.

Now for the real thing - World Cup 2010

I dont know about you but I like the fact that there is no need today or tomorrow or anytime soon to worry about what is on television - soccerwise that is.
The Fifa Confed Cup is over and very soon,
yes we will be back to the same routine of Premier League soccer, English soccer and all the other weird and wonderful sports we are used to.
Confed Cup was a blast.
A reader in one of the paper today commented how the park and ride improved from shambles in the first game to real organised operation by the end of the games.
I must say having attended two games - USA vs Brazil and Bafana vs Spain games, I can attest to that. The first game was shambles.
I arrived in Pretoria at the agreed venue but the drivers supposed
to take us to the stadium at Loftus were lost. Taxi drivers lost! Go figure.

Mind you they were lost on the way back from stadium to the restaurant where they had picked us up in the first place.

The second game - or the losers' final as they say - was a thorough
breeze. We left JHB at noon via Pretoria. At the last toll gate before Rustenburg we were handed a piece of paper directing us to the various park and rides.
We picked one and drove straight there. A quick transfer to the bus and before long we were at the stadium.
Again after the game, it was basically the same. Out to the waiting buses and before long we were back in cars and on way home. Part of the park and ride problem is that people do not listen. As you board the bus, they tell you that you need to check the sticker on the bus so you will not be lost.
A lot of people boarded wrong buses.
I hope those are not the ones who have been complaining loudest - the ones who had not noticed the stickers.
So just as well we have Confed Cup. There is still a lot to improve but we shall get there.

Singing for the world

The year was 1985. The brief was clear. Actually it was more the idea than it was a brief. We were going to make the concert of the year. St Francis College in Mariannhill is not one of those rich private schools where elaborate matric dances are held.
In fact you could not even begin to call the last concert a matric dance. It was more of the fun and games. I was in an invidious position where I was expected to come with the idea. But in the end it was not an issue at all coming up with one.
The year saw a number of hits but the best was Michael Jackson's We Are The World. That it was a catchy tune was not the reason that we chose it. The message was what appealed to most of us. You see, most of us came from thoroughly poor families and were there at the mercy of the church or some other sponsor from the various countries of the world.
So the appeal to help was particularly edifiying for us. Its one thing identifying your signature tune. It is a completely different executing the task. Then there were no websites with lyrics. We certainly did not have compact discs.
Instead we had a tape recorder and a tune that was badly copied off radio. Radio deejays really messed the likes of us with the well-timed comment in the middle of the song. From the tape recorder with a dodgy battery we had to make sense of the tune and work out the lyrics. Once that was accomplished, we had to assemble and try to sing the song. Except what passed on as lyrics did not make sense sometimes and a huge argument would erupt on the exact words. For crying out loud we did not know the exact words. And much as we cared, it was near impossible to pull off the concert and still find the exact words. So we went with what we had.
Twenty three years on, most of us believe it was probably one of the best concerts we had. And the most important part was that we did not have the resources. A former schoolmate remembers the craze of red jackets. He also remembers like me that only two of the 500 or so boys could afford to have them. That and the concert are our shared memories of phenomenon Jackson.

A friend celebrated 25 years as a priest this past weekend. Yes the real makoya Roman Catholic type that never marries and hopefully does not do what those Irish priests do to altar boys. Our relationship goes back three year more than he has been a priest. To be exact, I met him in 1981 at St Mary's Seminary in Ixopo on the foot of the Drakensberg mountains. Then I thought I would be a priest and make a wonderful one at that. It was not to be. Like Adam, I discovered the apple and it was downhill from then on. Fr Vincent with Zinhle

But the story is about my friend, Fr Vincent Mdabe, CMM. He has managed to be true to his calling through all the tribulations of life. In the period he has lost his sibblings to all manner of ills, had to bury his father and recently buried his brother. He has also played a role in the vocational guidance of young novices at Cedara. Until this year, he was the superior at Mariannhill Monastery, a position that ordinarily would have gone to someone else more older. But even being in such a position did not affect his humility. When my daughter was studying in Pinetown, Fr Mdabe would easily run my fatherly chores including taking Zinhle to a hairdresser if so needed.

So this weekend he gathered all and sundry who have known him over the years for a celebration. A good time was had by all. What more is in store for this man? Time will tell.

language matters

The brief must have been simple. Create an advert that will cause ripple effect in the same mould as Yebo Gogo. So off the agency went. Creatives got off their backsides and cracked their heads trying to find a concept that was both original and had a wow-effect. Those managing them paced expectantly waiting for their charges to have that epiphanic moment.

And so it came to pass that one of the younger creatives was struck with the idea so intensely, he fainted for a few seconds - as if he was orgasmic. "We will show an unidentified flying object. There will be a congregation of these women looking at this thing taking one of their own. One of these fat mamas will stand up to this thing and insult it. And voila! we will have the UFO return their fellow congregant". The account executive who was now itching to get to this 9th tee shouted Alleluia and off he went, happy that another day and a succesful idea has germinated.

Except what in the world has happened to us. Are we happy to have insults like Voetsek introduced into our conversation as if it is the most natural way to converse? After voetsek, what more are we going to tolerate? An f.. word? And what happens to our children who think television is the greatest teacher? Language matters and unfortunately television plays an important part in the lives of our children. If we let this one through, we should not make a noise tomorrow when some other words creep into daily conversation.

do not feed the baboons

The temptation is to breeze past on the double lane without a thought. Actually, some form of thought is there but it is usually in the shape of a question. Does the car or stomachs need a refill? Invariably after two or so hours on the road, the children are restless. But do not despair. The road ahead is still more interesting. Ordinarily you would be expected to take a left. This time go right. Work against your instinct. The road will not be as good but it is worth it. The mielie (corn) fields of the Free State gives way to the rocky terrain and sharp bends, dips and steep accents. Vegetation and mist. And then there is is. A splendor so magnificent you are out of breath just watching. It is spread in front as your eye can see.Water everywhere. This is the time to eat and relax. The journey now is much more relaxed. As you gather speed down the valley, you suddenly realize that you are not. There are other bodies occupying the road. You think: What the hell? But… The people are more of a fairy kind. It is the. Kids become excited and as we stop, they want to pet and feed the hairy. No, no, no! Whatever you do, never feed the wild animals. The journey continues and kids will not forget this moment soon. It surely beats going to Durban just on the N3.

ghosts of belfast

In the stillness of the night, the sound was unmistakable. Creak, creak, creak. I held my breath. The noise of my beating heart seemed to reverbate throughout the corridors of this place.Straining my neck to listen, the stretching of the muscles almost dropped me dead still again. No. This was not happening. I sat up suddenly. What better way to deal with this sounds than in such a decisive manner. And then at that point the cup of tea on the sidetable fell and echoed for what seemed like eternity.Quiet again, I listened to the sounds. They were clear and unmistakable. Movement. Unhurried. Sometime hurried. Stamping and at times subdued. Muffled and a suddent burst of speed. What am I doing here.Reading a book would have required a lot more effort than television. I settled for the latter. Not that there were many channels to watch. The television sounds seemed to drive away the sounds on the wooden floors. Or was it the sounds in my head I wondered? It did not help a great deal that my favourite programme at the time was a macabre ghostly narrative called A Haunting.

There was nothing that was wow about The Royal when I arrived. Landing at night had hidden the true nature of this place. Conversely, it had reinforced the feeling of alienation and intrigue. The episode of A Haunting the previous night had been especially harrowing and now I was in the middle of a nightmare and yet I was wide awake.

I lay my head back on to the pillow and watched the ghastly movie. I can never tell you that what it was about except it was one of those e-tv special harking back to the days when my father was a young man. I tried to separate the sounds of my heart, my belly with what seemed to be the sound out there. Off course it was marrying the terrible sound off the terrible movie and it got to the point where I had no clue whether I was coming or going.

I woke up startled. The birds were singing. The light was seeping through the heavy curtains. It was morning. I was sure I had closed the curtains tightly. But then again, I was sure that there had been sounds...