Red, red robin: quicker than dead

Saturday afternoon: stunning, with warm autumn sunlight radiating down. The sun's azimuth is low now, refracting off the marina water beneath into a myriad of tiny shimmering speckles, pointillist-style. A robin flits into the bush below our deck, barely visible under the leaves. Its little head jerks back and forth, triangulating its surroundings, looking for prey or predator. It reminds me of the 'quick and the dead.' I remember being taken as a schoolboy with the story in Judges of the three hundred soldiers who drank of the spring with cupped hands, while the others got down on their knees. These latter were sent home because they had exposed themselves to a surprise attack. Going to the supermarket is a bit like war, you need to be quick and sharp. Plan your list in advance and move through the store, methodically. Unlike the streets at least, the rule of the road is pretty flexible and there are no stop signs - you can just dart in and out. I like to take a little break from the mass of shoppers. You find in every supermarket quiet sections where almost nobody goes: shelves with the novelty knives, double-sided tape and pool chlorine. Then back out into the jungle for the final sally. On the way home I stopped in at Noordhoek to check the surf. The wind had veered round from a strong north-wester to a south-easter. This left a large beautifully hollowed-out swell  and a bunch of surfers were far out back being towed by a jetski into 20-foot peaks, spray whipping back off the top. I'm no fan of jetskis but this one made sense. A Californian dude walked up and we chatted about the surf. He was passing through from Indonesia and was later spotted tearing up the fast waves at Inner Kom. The QSL is from the US Coast Guard near San Francisco, heard in 1989 in Johannesburg about 10500 miles distant, in communication with an aircraft.

The perilous soul of San Pedro Sula

Cape Town in April and May - just one day after another, warm and windless with stunning evenings. Graceful Table Mountain reigns majestically over the proceedings and the city has turned out in droves. You name it: catch a wave, run in the forest, ride along the tranquil coast, it's all there. But who knows what goes on in the dark, mean streets? For there is a malevolent side, the city having the highest murder rate in the country and a rank of 34th in the world. Drug-linked gang warfare is rife in some parts of town. Ask any doctor working in hospitals in poorer areas and you'll hear a story of shocking A&E night after night. Young doctors come here from Europe to learn; they see more in two years than they might in a lifetime back home. SA gets a lot of bad publicity for its crime rate but the truth is that if you keep to the right side of town you'll be pretty safe. The media magnifies the danger because that's what it's paid to do. I remember people telling me that there were many parts of Belfast that were perfectly safe during The Troubles. When we lived in London's St Johns Wood for a couple of years in the 1990s, we were surrounded by some of the poshest houses in town. But there was also quite a bit of council housing and one Saturday afternoon a gruesome stabbing took place in a pub right around the corner. So pity poor San Pedro Sula in Honduras which has just earned the rank of most dangerous city in the world, for the second year running, with a murder rate about 4 times that of Cape Town and about 100 times London. The QSL is from Radio Internacional, broadcasting from San Pedro Sula in Honduras on short-wave 60mb, heard in London in 1995. The picture is of the beautiful but difficult to pronounce Pulhapanzak Waterfall - a distinctly un-murderous looking natural beauty spot.

Ummm, yes it's UMNO again

Malaysia's prime minister is not short on names: Dato' Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak. That's a tad more than the poncy record British multi-barrelled surname of Francis Edward Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, 8th Baron Thurlow, who died recently . But let's just call him Najib Tun Razak for short. He's pretty well connected for a Malaysian politician: father Tun Abdul Razak was the country's second prime minister, while uncle Tun Hussein Onn was the third. He was elected president of UMNO, the United Malays National Organisation in 2009. UMNO has been the party in power in Malaysia since independence in 1959, a run of 54 years and was once again victorious in the latest poll which saw record numbers of voters turn out. It wasn't plain sailing for the world's longest-ruling party (following the demise of the Colorado Party in Paraguay a few years ago) as it slipped further in the poll but still ended up with a comfortable parliamentary majority. Allegations of electoral fraud are unlikely to bear much fruit. Malaysia's policy of favouring ethnic Malays over Chinese has caused a steady erosion of support for UMNO and its coalition partners in recent years. Even so Malaysia remains a remarkable economy. Over the past forty years it has transformed itself from an exporter of commodities like palm oil, rubber and tin to one of the largest shippers of semiconductor devices, electrical goods and appliances in the world. Inflation is under 2% and GDP growth tracks along steadily at 5% plus. Years ago when I was listening to a lot of Indonesian radio stations I had it in mind to try to learn Bahasa Indonesia, a delightful language. I then discovered that there are similarities between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia. To locals there are many differences for sure but to the untuned ear they sound mutually intelligible. The QSL is a beautiful card from Radio Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, heard on 60mb in Cape Town in 1968. The little blurb on the card states that chief exports are rubber and tin. Boy did that change!

Swap the stetson for a beret

Through life we wear two hats, at least. Make it a stetson and a beret. For instance, you're a pedestrian on the Zebra crossing in London and get very indignant if a motorist fails to stop but if you're the driver you want that pedestrian to wait for you to go by so as not to break your flow. It's the same with the green man at the traffic light: pedestrians just love that little guy, while the motorist drums his fingers waiting for the red guy to come up. And so on: when you're in the car, cyclists are a hazard; when you're on the bike, motorists are a menace and they're polluting the place to boot. The contrast is even starker in bureaucratic situations. You're standing in the bank queue (yes, sometimes you still have to do it). You've been waiting quite a while and let's face it there are only so many things to look at, like the tedious bank TV explaining all those great services that you mainly won't ever use. At last it's the turn of the person in front. You hope his business will be short and sweet and can't believe it when he breaks the news that he can't understand why he can't draw money from his account and the teller has to do an in-depth check. By now he's now blissfully unaware of the frustration simmering in the line behind. He just wants his problem sorted. Then there's the house buyer and the seller. For the buyer, there's stacks of houses to choose from and he can saunter through your place weighing up the odds. For the seller, you've dolled your place up and if he's going to invade it, the least he can do is make an offer, and quickly too. Just about any buyer will do. The American hatter, John B. Stetson was born in New Jersey and the QSL is from the Bell Telephone system in New Jersey, one of those beautiful cards they sent out in the 1960s, heard in Cape Town in 1969.