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.

Japan's Kuroda Restoration

Something quite special is happening in the Japanese economy. But I'm not sure if it's special enough, yet. Japan has a history of changing course dramatically, notably with the Meiji Restoration, which ended centuries of isolation; again in the 1930s and then after WW2. This could be another one of those big leaps forward. Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank of Japan governor, has announced a 'new dimension in monetary easing' targeting a large rise in the monetary base and a doubling of government bond purchases. The objective is to raise inflation expectations and push cpi-inflation up to 2%, from around minus 1% currently. In fact this step is not that new, even for Japan. Firstly, it has already had several large monetary base expansions over the past 20 years while further back it has the far more aggressive example of Korekiyo Takahashi, the finance minister in the 1930s. From late 1932 the government was selling entire issues of bonds directly to the central bank. When people talk about, for example, the Fed 'printing money', this has not really been the case. The Fed has mainly been purchasing assets in the market, simultaneously crediting banks with reserves. Mostly these bank reserves have gathered moss: the transmission mechanism into new credit to the private sector has seized up. Demand in the US economy has lagged since the credit crunch and is now some 6% below trend. In the case of Japan, the economy is so far behind trend nominal GDP that it can never make up lost ground. But the swing to a clear inflation target along with a real commitment to achieve it is a good first move, if not far enough. In due course, the BoJ may indeed follow its 1930s path and 'print money' by directly funding government debt issues. Indeed, if it succeeds in pushing inflation up it may have to buy bonds directly just to keep bond yields from rising too much. The QSL is from JOOR Osaka, heard on AM on 1179 kHz in Morgan Bay in 1992. The station later contacted me and I was interviewed on one of their programmes per telephone.

Chavez is dead, long live the Chavistas

Another Venezuelan election is over. Another win for the Chavistas. But no Chavez this time and it was a close run thing, much closer than expected. It is a shame how the Chavistas have spoiled the reputation of the simple baseball cap. After all, baseball is such a fun game. Che Guevara iconised the beret in his time but despite his sensitivity to the poor and disenfranchised we shouldn't forget he was a heartless brute at times. The Venezuelan opposition is contesting the result and the election council has agreed to a vote audit, which could take a month. So a final twist to the saga may yet emerge but don't bet on it. The economy is in trouble. Although it is very different from Australia's they have one thing in common  - the dreaded Dutch disease. Commodity prices drive up their exchange rates too far. Despite the booming economy, there are pockets of high unemployment in Oz,  with the real Aussie dollar having risen 20% in recent years in line with strong prices and big volume increases in commodities. When apartments in remote Port Hedland go for the same as in Manhattan and truck drivers are getting paid over $200000 pa you know something is wrong. The same problem affects Venezuela which generates most of its export revenues from oil. But oil production and exports are falling and with Brent trading below $100pb the economic arithmetic is turning ugly. Occasionally there is a big devaluation but that doesn't fix the problem. The QSL is from Radio Latina, a 10 kW Venezuelan AM station heard on 1470 kHz in Johannesburg in 1987. Nice personal letter about the station and the town of Valencia, the motortown of the country where Ford, GM and Goodyear had factories.

Captain Morgan Yo Ho Ho

Blood is an amazing thing.  You may meet up with a family member not seen for years who in turn introduces you to someone you've never met or even heard of. Within moments you can be chatting merrily away, starting out with nothing in common other than your kin. Somehow you seem to trust the new acquaintance and share intimate details about family connections. You may even be an in-law so have no actual blood connection to the family member himself. No matter, it's still family. In some nationalities these ties are extremely strong, stifling even. We used to hang out with an extended family from a Mediterranean country where the whole kit and caboodle would gather each Sunday for lunch. It was hard for a family member not to show up. Some people spend hours tracing family roots in the hope of turning up a famous ancestor, who, once discovered, gives them bragging rights and a sense they're special. Silly really, after all people differ hugely even within families, let alone down the generations, so any sense of superiority derived from an illustrious forebear is just spurious. Famous people are often far more revered than they deserve. Some were just plain lucky and others plain obnoxious, but history has been kind to them. There are far more people who led valuable, exemplary lives and passed on unserenaded. Our family claims Admiral Sir Henry Morgan as an ancestor - both an Admiral and a knight! Sounds good but actually he was a terrible thug, a privateer who tore around the Caribbean sacking and looting cities, including Panama in 1671. The QSL is from the US Naval facility at Balboa in Panama, a utility station heard in Cape Town in 1969.

By force of arms, also hips and legs

First big surfing day of the autumn quarter. Nice steady northwester and a good swell at Muizies corner. It's a grey day like London but unlike London it's much warmer and the sea's not cold, especially for wimps like me with the full Monty: wetsuit, hood, and booties. Hey, I wanna stay in the water for two-three hours and not suffer from exposure! I get there early but it's already packed. No matter, I've got a new Macski and nothing's gonna stop me from hitting the waves! I find a place to park in the far corner and in a jiffy I'm out back. The new waveski is lighter and sleeker than the old one and much faster on the wave. Oh wow! Why did I wait so long to upgrade?? Being lighter there's the question of balance. I'm used to the old more buoyant board. Now I must re-learn. Your hip, back and thigh muscles are making hundreds of small adjustments to keep you up and the old brain is having to slowly re-programme itself with all this new input. It's gonna take a few hours out there to ingest all the new info. In paddleskiing you might think that most of the work you do is with your arms: pulling and steering, but a whole bunch of other muscles come into play and usually it's the ones at the top of your thighs that feel a bit stiff the next morning. Macski is a great South African company, based in Port Elizabeth up the coast, in business since 1979 and billing themselves today as the world's no. 1 waveski manufacturer. The QSL is from Capital Radio which used to broadcast on AM and shortwave from further up the coast in Transkei (then a nominally 'independent' country in apartheid South Africa). Note the great seagull logo: they played cool music, just perfect for beach holidays.