Newsletter 2013

Innovation 

Surprisingly, there are people out there who can still handle my sermons! Those close to me have no doubt had enough of my sermons on innovation. In March the World Intellectual Property Organization invited me to speak at a conference in Dar Es Salaam. 

The president of Tanzania, who was due to open the conference, was late (or rather delayed). So the conference only started some hours late. To make up for lost time, some of the afternoon speeches had to be abandoned. I was one of the casualties. So I ended up with just an all expenses paid holiday!

I was not always so lucky. I had three more speaking engagements during the year where no such excuses were forthcoming.

They say the length of a progress report is inversely proportional to actual progress. Accordingly, considering I spoke at length about innovation this year, I made little actual innovation.  Probably the only useful thing I developed this year is a gasket-less boss for heating elements.

Traditionally, asbestos gaskets were standard in thermal engineering. With the phasing out of asbestos, synthetic substitutes had to be found. Unfortunately the performance of the substitutes I have used has been less than satisfactory. Fortunately I have found an idea that does away with the need for gaskets altogether. The solution I settled on is a tapered boss

for heating elements. I have done more than six months' trials of it and looks very promising.  Initially I was considering going to  China to find someone who could machine threads with a taper. Then I was pleasantly surprised to find someone who could do it in Msasa, Harare!

I also had a monumental catastrophe on my hands this year.  It was a case of more haste, less speed. To save money, I mounted a water tank up a tree.

It worked well for a while until one fateful windy day. The tank swayed and eventually keeled over.

When the wooden pallet it was resting on cracked, it made a racket so loud that dogs in the neighborhood barked!

So I'm now up there with The Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the league of monumental failures. 

However failure often comes with the territory of innovation. It cannot be eliminated but its probability can be reduced. One tool for doing that is mathematical modeling. With that objective in mind I have resumed meaningful effort towards my maths degree. 

To test new ideas I still have to fabricate pilot models by trial and error. Needless to say that is a slow and expensive way of doing it.  It happens to be one reason why the central cooling (the reverse of central heating) project is taking long.

If successful, it could obviate the need for  separate aircon compressors for each room. 

It could also help work on the Testikooler ( a mobile personal air conditioner). 

A decent grasp of mathematical modeling would speed up everything. 

Adventure

In the local council elections held on 31 July 2013, I stood as the Christian Democratic Party candidate for Ward 2, Harare. After a  grueling campaign trail, I garnered a princely sum of 76 votes.  I was disappointed but it was therapeutic to remember Simon Pitt's words from a prior council election in which he was pitted against Rev Alan Spence.

Simon said gravely, "God looks after his own." So maybe there is good reason why I didn't get in this time. 

After my election defeat I retreated to Montenegro to lick my wounds in peace and seclusion. 

You can read about the holiday in a separate post below. 

Business

One of my boyhood heroes, Frederick Sanger passed away this year. 

Reading about how he bagged two Nobel prizes is among my most enduring formative experiences.

I vividly remember the newspaper article in which he described himself as "probably above average but not an outstanding scholar."

If a non-outstanding scholar could do so well, then there was hope in biochemistry even for me! That's partly how I was inspired to study biochemistry. My other heroes at the time were pop stars. Without Sanger, I might have followed a very different course.  In which case the Gwatamatic(http://youtu.be/7k0Dyi6UwuQ) would never have been. I probably would have ended up playing lead guitar with the Sex Pistols, Four Play or similar sounding groups. 

The only biochemistry I do now is sadza cooking. Needless to say I don't expect to win a Nobel prize for that. But I do win Gwatamatic contracts from time to time. 

In common with other businesses of a contract nature, it entails a feast-or-famine trend. Feast when the contracts are flowing and famine when they dry up. Business was terrible this year but my body and soul are still together, so there must have been a net feast. Maintenance work used to pay the bills when there were no contracts. However things have changed somewhat. 

In a sense, the business is hoist with its own petard. The Gwatamatic rigs are now so sturdy thanks to German gearboxes and Korean PLCs(programmable logic controllers).

Sturdy enough to cope with even ZESA power surges. As a result maintenance revenue is now minimal! One day I might have to invent gremlins to create some maintenance work!

This year I came up against the first serious "technology transfer" attempt that I am aware of. That is the euphemism they use nowadays for theft of intellectual property.

A certain large organization attempted to violate my Gwatamatic patent. Fortunately they haven't got very far, so far anyway. They are probably finding it more involved than they bargained on. 

Underneath all that hardware, intellectual property is at the core of what I sell. So I view threats like this as on par with attempted burglary. It's one reason why I won't partake in illegal downloads of music or other proprietary software. 

Spiritual

During the year I retired from the Easyworship (video projection) team at the church after an eight year stint. 

My idle interval was short lived though. I was soon invited to join the remuneration committee. That together with regular elders' duties is enough to keep me out of mischief. 

Family

My nephew has succeeded where I'm still to succeed. He's found a bride and the wedding is in the Christmas week.  So the whole clan is likely to descend on Harare this Christmas. I'm looking forward to it. 

I wish you all a good Christmas. 

Finally, it appears selfies are in. Even the Pope is doing it! So I've weighed in too:

Montenegro 2013

My holiday was off to an inauspicious start when the Montenegro Airlines flight out was more than three hours late. 

Gatwick Airport was the rendezvous for our package tour of Montenegro. 

(Montenegro is one of the offshoots of the former Yugoslavia).

To get from Heathrow Airport to Gatwick I used a direct National Express coach that charged a whopping £25. I  did it because of the time constraint. If I had known the plane was going to be 3 hours late, I could have managed the same transfer for a fiver on the red buses! 

When the plane eventually arrived, there was no explanation or apology for the delay. The cabin crew did not look too motivated. Granted, they got the work done, but totally devoid of style much like the beasts of burden (magwayimani) we use in rural Zimbabwe. My experience of the flight was reminiscent of other sluggish state-run airlines namely Air Zimbabwe, Cyprus Airways and Air India. They all need to take a leaf out of Sir Branson's book. 

The delay meant we were now going to get to Montenegro after sunset. Unfortunately our target airport, Tivat, was not able to handle night  landings. So we were diverted to Podgorica airport and had to complete the the rest of the journey by a two hour coach ride, only getting to the hotel at 1:00am. I was absolutely worn out through it all, having been on an eleven-hour flight the night before. The silver lining was that I slept very well that first night at the hotel, as I normally do when I'm exhausted (in keeping with the theory of conservation of pleasure). 

Once we sliced through the state-run inefficiency, we found a delightful kernel inside. Once we got to the hotel, life began in earnest.

Our mother hen was Rachel.

She was infinitely more cheerful than the average tour leader. Every time she spoke she sounded like she was going to burst into a giggle any moment! Our speaker (pastor) was Gareth.  

His unassuming looks belied a tremendous analytical capacity. He shared  some profound perspectives on the book of Daniel that were new on me. With the hedonistic focus that normally comes with the territory of holiday resorts, spiritual drift is always a real risk. Gareth did a sterling job of recalibrating our spiritual compasses every evening. 

Our tour was limited to the Adriatic coastline. It is amazingly picturesque

backed by equally beautiful rugged limestone mountains.

We even got to climb one of the mountains.

The coastline is highly indented, creating plenty of sheltered bays and a remarkable 294km of coastline ( a lot longer if you choose higher fractal resolution).

Even though Montenegro is on the Adriatic Sea, its climate is essentially Mediterranean with hot dry summers and autumns. The locals and visitors alike certainly knew how to worship the sun. 

I saw a lot of pseudo-negroes. That's how deep their tans were. Some were almost darker than me! I don't think the clothing industry fares too well there because of sartorial minimalism both on the beaches and streets alike.

It is not surprising that Montenegro has been a desirable place throughout its history , both for its strategic value and aesthetic allure.

Which explains the plethora of historic fortifications in most of the major towns.

In spite of all that security infrastructure

the jewel of the Adriatic has changed hands umpteen times over the ages since its humble beginnings as a vassal of the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century. 

The historic city of Kotor 

is protected not only against invaders but also against the vagaries of the 

Adriatic. Kotor Bay is a well sheltered deep water haven that cruise liners can't resist. We saw plenty of pretty awesome vessels moored in the bay. 

If you count carefully you will see that that particular vessel is at least six storeys high!

I would like to go on one of those when I grow up. 

There were yet more cruise liners sneaking in and out under cover of darkness like the invaders of old.

Further down the coast were smaller but equally awesome vessels in Budva.

If Budva has the class end of marinas, then the flesh-and-blood end belongs to Herceg Novi .

Every community has its niche competency.  For the Montenegrans, it has to be meat processing. I saw more ham varieties there than I have ever seen.

Some even look like biltong.

I went to a deli once to try out some local fare. So I asked a shop assistant wether a certain variety of cold meat was ready to eat. Like most places in Montenegro, her English was severely limited. So  I was reduced to sign language! Obviously my sign language was not great because she thought I was requesting a sample to taste. She promptly offered the sample which fortunately answered my question all the same. 

The population of Montenegro is less than 700 thousand. So annual tourist arrivals outnumber the locals! As far as I could see, tourism is by far the main engine of the economy. Which does not bode too well for the future. If the titans of tourism such as Greece and Spain are struggling, there can't be too much hope for smaller players. 

Shortly before the end of our holiday, most of us on the trip went down with the runs. For me it lasted only 24 hours but I had to forgo sneezing as well as an excursion to the Blue Cave.

I felt the cave water might not remain too blue if I swam in it in my condition! We are not likely to ever get to the bottom (no pun intended) of the problem. There were just too many variables. 

Someone christened it "The Montenegrin Detox." There is a grain of truth in that. We certainly were over-eating at the hotel. My net weight gain over the holiday was only 2kg, thanks to the stomach issues. I didn't expect to get off that lightly(again no pun intended)!

The first prize for contagious cheerfulness on the trip goes to Sunita.

She was always a delight to be around.

When she succumbed to the tummy bug, the whole trip was the poorer for it. 

I had two flies in the ointment of this holiday. One was the tummy bug (probably due to flies). The other was a proposed day excursion to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Croatia is in the process of joining the EU. So they introduced a requirement for Schengen visas thirty days before our trip. That requirement was not applicable at the time I planned the trip. As new members, they are obviously still over zealous at insisting on EU regulations. I think they deserve a jobsworth award for all that fervor. To cut a long story short, I was pulled off the coach and barred from entering Croatia. As I waited in the border post shed, I witnessed a spectacle of Croatian Police searching this vehicle.

I don't think I have ever seen such a thorough search before. It all made Beitbridge look like a picnic!

I went back and spent the rest of the day loitering  along the Herceg Novi esplanade. When the rest of the party returned, I was really touched by a gift I received from Trish and the two Sues. They had jointly bought me a souvenir from Dubrovnik that now graces my fridge.

It is the only evidence I have to prove that I very nearly got to Dubrovnik!

Apart from the Croatians and diarrhoea (I'm not sure which is worse), I have fond memories of Montenegro. I am glad I chose that destination. Fortunately the two issues did not make a bummer of the  overall holiday. On the Montenegro Airlines flight out of Tivat, I was allocated a seat in the back of the aircraft. It put me in mind of Dr Henry Kissinger who said the only reason for sitting in the back of an airplane is because you either  have diarrhoea or are keen to meet people who do! Even though my own stomach had stabilized by then I did meet people who still had diarrhoea there!

If you wish to explore Montenegro from the safety of a Christian crowd, please visit www.oakhall.co.uk

WHY I NEVER GOT TO DUBROVNIK

I have always suspected that the Zimbabwe passport is a red rag to immigration officers the world over. Today I got further evidence to corroborate that theory. The coach rode off into the Croatian sunrise without me. 

Fortunately it was only a proposed day excursion into Croatia. I still had a hotel to go back to in Montenegro. 

To traverse the "no man's land" between the Croatian and 

Montenegro border posts, I was escorted by four police officers. As I clambered up into the back of their Land Rover, I realized or rather hoped I may never have another privilege to repeat the experience. So I proffered my camera to one of the police officers to capture the moment for me. He certainly wasn't amused! After a flurry of consultations among them in Croatian, he eventually turned to me and said, "Why you want picture?"(sic). It was my assumption that that was a rhetorical question. So I did not answer. 

There was an awkward heavy silence in the Land Rover until one of the officers asked whether it was hot in Zimbabwe. Then we talked about the weather for the rest of the ride. The form they completed cited lack of a Schengen visa as the reason for declining entry into Croatia. Paradoxically, I am not aware of anyone on that coach who had a Schengen visa.

At the end of the ride I was handed over to  Montenegro Police who showed me to the ATM while they phoned for a taxi on my behalf.  

The taxi had no meter so I asked the driver how he determines the fare. He mumbled unintelligibly for a considerable length of time. Somewhere in the course of his mumble I heard "twenty Euro." That is what I paid at the end of the trip and he seemed to accept it. Then I descended to the Herceg Novi marina where I relaxed for the rest of the day watching barely-clad bodies worshipping the sun. 

There was a touch of déjà vu in today's experience. I have had more unjustified uphill with immigration officers than I care to remember.  Two years ago at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel I was on a similar package holiday and was singled out for interrogation.

Ten years ago I was proceeding from Cyprus to Athens when I ran into an impossible immigration officer at Larnaca Airport. On that occasion I had a perfectly valid Schengen visa for Greece but even that did not seem to help me. The immigration officer would not let me onto the plane because my South African visa was going to expire during my proposed stay in Athens. When the immigration officers' supervisor found out what was going on he blew his top and told off the officer right there before us. He was speaking in Greek and all I could make out was Athena!...........Athena!.............Athena! Decoding the body language, I inferred he was saying something along the lines, "that is Athens' problem and none of your business! If he has a valid visa for Greece let him go....." I was eventually allowed through and managed to catch the plane. 

Back in my student days at the University of Surrey in the UK I spent a few hours in a cell at Surrey Constabulary headquarters in Guildford for overstaying my visa. Fortunately I had a superb personal tutor in Dr Brian Stace. While I sat in the cell, I took comfort in the knowledge that Dr Stace and Lorna Egan-Andrew (the student counsellor) were working very hard behind the scenes to secure my release. They did their work so well that I was released the same evening and was not even charged.

It was midwinter and the silver lining was that the cell was warmer than my room in res. The grub wasn't too bad either. I had sausage and chips and it was all room-service of course.  They must have realized one sausage and chips was not enough for a voracious student because they slapped two slices of bread and butter on top.

Even though the cell episode had a happy ending, it nevertheless calcified my resolve never to allow myself into situations where I would be exposed to similar humiliation ever again. In practice that means living on my own turf at all costs. That is why I did not emigrate when Zimbabwe went through that dreadful meltdown in the year 2008. Today's episode vindicated that resolve. 

Mana Pools 2013

Last month I gatecrashed a men's fellowship breakfast at Chisipite Bible Baptist Church.  Even though I was there primarily for the food, I also discovered that they were organizing a camping weekend at Mana Pools.

I had never been to Mana. So I found a first trip with a Christian crowd irresistible.

Turned out to be a fabulous trip, and great value too! I've been back  for 48 hours already  yet I still feel refreshed! Not many holidays manage that. 

We were privileged to have Gordon and Debbie Putterill

of Bally Vaughn fame as camp directors plus two more professional safari guides. They gave us sound advice but whether we heeded it is another matter. On one occasion Gordon gave a safety talk on the importance of staying together and not running in case of danger. Less than an hour later, we were charged by an elephant and you should have seen the guys scattering in all directions! Fortunately the ele had better things to do and did not sustain the charge.  (Video: http://youtu.be/BaTwWef4w7I) Apart from that the elephants were generally well behaved and frequented the campsite a lot, probably too often. Hyenas, hippos baboons and monkeys were all over the campsite too. There were grunting, whining and crunching choruses all night. Some were sounds I had never heard before. It remains a mystery what animals they were coming from! The trick was to not take any fluids after 3:00pm.  Far better to be dehydrated than run the gauntlet to the ablution block in the middle of the night!

We had our tents right on the banks of the Zambezi at Nyamepi Camp.

Theoretically gale force winds could have easily blown some of the tents into the crocodile infested waters! Fortunately we only had light breezes. 

As I lay in my tent I wondered whether some bright hyenas would eventually discover that there was only a piece of canvas between them and easy tender meat. Their powerful jaws can munch through the thickest of bones. So a piece of canvas would be a piece of cake!

Talking of cakes, we even had cake in the wilderness. Debbie Putterill and Louise Pascoe were amazing caterers       .

They created wonders in the wilderness with the most basic of equipment.  Wonders that many would struggle to match with fully equipped kitchens. Watching them I learnt how to make great toast on a boerwors banjo! The food was so good I put on 1 kg in 4 days! I had packed some emergency snacks but brought them back untouched since I never had any peckish intervals. 

Being a predominantly Baptist crowd, full immersion baptisms in the Zambezi were inevitable. When we arrived

 at the Baptismal site, there were crocodiles basking in the afternoon sun on a sandbank. They promptly slithered into the water when they saw us. So I kept well away from the water. I also took photos that I thought might help any resulting inquest. As it happens, there were more than fifty people wading in the river

 which probably traumatized the poor crocodiles! 

Mana Pools is an extensive flood plain in the lower Zambezi River. With the construction of  Kariba Dam upstream 56 years ago there hasn't been that  much flooding. So some ecologists expect Mana Pools to evolve beyond recognition in time. The dearth of tree saplings

 is considered to be testimony to that theory although excessive elephant numbers are believed to play a role too. 

Whatever the prognosis, for now Mana Polls remains a place of breathtaking natural beauty and tranquility before sunset. Immediately after sunset Messrs Hippo and friends commence their grunting choruses.