IWH All Non-fiction Articles

2008-10-30T08:06:00.014+02:00

From start to finish, Black Diamond is a profound and often hilarious satirical rollercoaster ride around the heart of Johannesburg and the South African psyche... Read More

Book Review: Amelia's Inheritance - Sarudzai Mubvakure

Sarudzai Mubvakure’s Amelia's Inheritance is a powerful heartfelt tale of family intrigue and its devastating long term effects. Set in a troubled colonial Rhodesia in the late sixties and early seventies as seen through the eyes of one Amelia Gruber. Though born into a wealthy family with all the privileges that money and her race bestow, when we first meet Amelia she is a somewhat awkward adolescent. This soon changes as she is flung into an uncertain future when her father is bankrupted and dies shortly after... Read More

Book Review: From Cave of Rotten Teeth - A. Igoni Barret

There is a wonderful quality to Barrett’s style of writing evident in From Caves of Rotten Teeth, from vivid descriptions and dialogue, to heart wrenching circumstance and fiendish plots. It is I feel written with a bold and noble spirit, one that shines to illuminate the good, bad, beautiful, grotesque, brave, cowardly, happy and insane. In this Barrett almost leaves no stone unturned, no matter what may crawl out into the light... Full Review at African Writer

How Alchemy changed the World #3

Part Three: As one star of Alchemy was fading another rose to the sky during Europe's High Middle Ages. Fuelled by incoming Greek texts not seen since Roman times, and astounded by advanced Islamic texts, the Renaissance of the 12th century had begun. Kick started at the end of the Early Middle Ages by a Frenchman called Gerbert d'Aurillac, who under Roman Catholic monastic orders went to study mathematics in Spain. Once there, he was introduced to not only to the new Arabic mathematics but a far larger tree of knowledge of which mathematics was but a single branch, that of Alchemy itself. Read More

How Alchemy changed the World #2

Part Two: The Spagyric Arts reborn as Al-kimia. 130 years after the fall of Roman Alexandria in 772CE, with Europe deep into the Dark Ages, one Abu Musa Jābir ibn Hayyān, more commonly known as Geber or Jabir, was born in Tus, Khorasan (present day Iran). As Hermes was the father of Alchemy, Jabir would become known as the Father of Chemistry, and this is where we can find the root of the word Alchemy, in the Arabic, al-kimia - the art of transformation, which up until then had been called the Spagyric Arts, to separate and to join together, by the Greeks. Read More

How Alchemy changed the World #1

Part One: The Ancients. Back in the millennia between 5000BCE - 400BCE there arose in Ancient Egypt spearheaded by their living gods and presided over by the priestly orders, a new way of looking at and understanding the world. It was the first known catalogued studies focusing not only on the composition of the world around us, but also how that knowledge could be both, utilised and preserved. Shrouded in mystery, allegoric encryption, and ritual, held forth as decrees from the gods, Alchemy was born. Read More

Self-assembled Nano-circuit boards with DNA Origami and Carbon Nanotubes

Just when Moore’s Law seemed to be hitting a sponge wall of 45nm, IBM inconjunction with Paul Rothemund have paved the way right down to a possible 2nm or 2 billionths of a meter. Now if that wasn’t enough to have even the mildest of technophile’s wonder at the possible increase in processing speed and power that could ensue. There’s something for the SF enthusiast too, because this avenue of research could lead to the first commercial organically self-assembled nano circuit boards. Read More

Cloud Computing: A perfect storm gathering

There is a perfect storm gathering in the computing world, a storm that is set to scour present day computing into a strange and foreign landscape. One that could potentially see everyday home and business computing become a virtually inescapable cloud utility service like electricity or water. Except this utility service would be global and ultimately run by giants like Google, Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, Amazon etc. Read More

Dr. Valter Longo Vs Death: Biogerontology ups the ante for Immortality

The Tree of Life, the Philosopher’s Stone, the Holy Grail; throughout human history the myth and legend of immortality and extended life has been a common cross cultural theme. Yet one that has always stayed obscured mysterious and decidedly out of reach, that is until now and the advent of genetic Biogerontology. At the University of Southern California, Dr Valter Longo not only looks Death in the eyes daily but they play high stakes poker together. And on the line is nothing else but the extension of human life itself and the good doctor is beginning to win. Read More

Organic Gardening: Crop Rotation

The concept and practise of crop rotation is not a new one there are ancient Roman, African and Asian archaeological references to its practice and theory. But it was not until 8 - 13 CE during the global Muslim Agricultural Revolution (MAR), that it became well known and widely introduced into global farming practises. It is only with the fairly new advent of inorganic pesticides and fertilisers that crop rotation lost favour and was mistakenly replaced. There is however a return to or innovation of these old practices through the systems of sustainable farming as seen in organic farming, permaculture, polyculture etc. It is becoming undeniably self-evident that modern petro-chemical reliant commercial farming is not only un-sustainable but increasingly damaging to the environment. Read More

Evolution in Action

The general theory that humans have essentially stopped evolving has never sat well with me. For why should that be the case, what could have told our DNA to stop adapting to its situation, like it has been doing since the first strand of DNA ever evolved in the first place? From the University of Utah comes a study which not only suggests that humans are indeed still evolving, but have actually been doing so at an accelerated rate since the advent of farming and the end of the ice age some 10,000 years ago. Read More

Human Biogas a solution whose time has arrived

The average human body produces .696 kilograms of solid waste every day, that’s 248 kilograms a year and 18,626 kilograms a lifetime (75). The city of Johannesburg in South Africa was home to 3,225,812 people in 2001, which would mean Joburgers on average produce over 2,245,165 kilograms of solid human waste every day. Waste being the operative word here because that’s what we do with it, we waste what is potentially a huge amount of energy and add to global warming at the same time by doing so. To understand how much potential energy is being wasted we must go to prison in Rwanda. Read More

I'll see you in Budapest

First named Aquincum, Budapest has been long been a Capital. One that has flourished through adversity with diversity, blossoming over 2300 years into a thriving metropolis embodying the rich mettle of community and family, tied intrinsically to one another. They have together weathered and prospered through the long tides of history and remained triumphant in spirit, demeanour and action becoming paramount symbols for the country that encloses them in its affectionate embrace. Read More

SuperBugs Vs Michael McArthur

The village of Colney just outside Norwich City, in Norfolk England is home to the John Innes Centre (JIC), and the JIC is home to Dr. Michael McArthur and Professor Mervyn Bibb head of the JIC Department of Molecular Biology. Together they have achieved a possible solution to the rise in SuperBugs or super germs that are increasingly fatally resistant to current antibiotics. But not only that, as if that wasn’t good news enough the actual application could be the world’s first approved and consistently effective gene therapy. To understand the dual significance of this achievement it is necessary to know why the rising resistance of certain bacterium to antibiotics is a really big problem, and how Michael McArthur has come up with a probable resolution. Read More

Skin Deep: a breakthrough for Pluripotent stem cells

In 1998 James Thomson produced the world’s first human stem cell line, which is a single stem cell that is manipulated to divide into new stem cell clones producing a stem cell line. Whilst this opened up a whole new very promising area in genetic research it came under heavy criticism because it required embryonic stem cells. Read More

Lao tzu Tao Te Ching

An excellent translation by Lin Yutang of the classic Lao tzu personal guide to perceiving, recognising, and realising your way through the universe in a powerfully impeccable manner. Read More

Yvonne Vera The Fearless Taboo Queen

"I am against silence, the books I write try to undo the silent posture African women have endured over so many decades...” -Yvonne Vera. Yvonne was born in 1964 and raised in Zimbabwe’s second largest city Bulawayo during British colonial and then Rhodesian minority oppression. Though Yvonne was somewhat graced by her families prominent status, her father was prosperous well connected businessman and her uncle a former local football star and manager of a top hotel. Read More

The radio wave Wizard John Kanzius

When John Kanzius a retired radio station owner and self taught radio and TV engineer developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2004, he underwent the traditional chemotherapy sessions. “I noticed young kids losing their smiles, losing their hair, and I said to myself: today's chemotherapy is cruel. There's gotta be a better way to cure cancer.” -John Kanzius. Read More

The Great Learning by Confucius

The way of great learning consists in manifesting one's bright virtue, consists in loving the people, and consists in stopping in perfect goodness. When you know where to stop, you have stability. When you have stability, you can be tranquil. Read More

Organic Gardening: System Design

“In human systems, we have confused the order of hierarchical function with status and power, as though a tree stem were less important than the leaves in total” - Bill Mollison. In this series I have talked about various elements of an organic garden like, compost, pests, companion planting etc. But it is how we place these elements that determine their effectiveness within your garden system and this is called System Design. Read More

100% Solid State Computing

In 1953 Jay Forrester created the world’s first solid state memory chip, a magnetic core memory that enabled unprecedented speed and reliability in computing. He used it to hold data as a Prime storage (Main memory) on the circuit board (motherboard) for the processing unit, to enable stored complex instructions. But on the motherboard is just where solid state data/memory storage would stay for another 31 years. Read More

Since 161993 BCE Pinnacle Point (SA) Home to Fine Seafood Dining

Amidst the echo of crashing waves in a cave on Pinnacle Point, Mossel Bay, South Africa, anthropologist Curtis Marean co-director of a team of archaeologists stares outward to the deep swells of the Indian Ocean. Perhaps in a brief quiet contemplation that this same view was experienced by our modern sapient ancestors over 164,000 years ago. What started out as an investigation to develop paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental records in geologically unique series of cave sites on the South African coastline, soon developed into a 39,000 year jump in actual archaeological evidence. Read More

Sun Tzu The Art of War

The little that is known about Sun Tzu primarily comes from a biography written by Sima Qian in 200 BCE. Sun Tzu was born Sun Wu a member of the Shi, who were aristocrats descended from royalty that had lost their lands in through territorial consolidation. Sun Wu unlike most of his fellow landless scholar peers was a mercenary military advisor. His military prowess became renown, but it was when he wrote it down that he truly passed into the hallowed halls. Upon its release Sun Wu was bestowed the title Sun Tzu or Master of the Sun. King Helu of Wu hired Sun Tzu as a general shortly thereafter and together they brought peace to the Kingdom of Wu. When the last major enemy was conquered in Wu, true to his life and works he disappeared when he was no longer needed by the Kingdom, leaving only his astute observations behind for future generations. Read More

Dying to Look Good: Are you dying to see me or is that lead in your lipstick?

22 out of the 33 brand name lipsticks tested by an advocacy group recently were above the limits set for lead content in sweets by the FDA. Why was lipstick judged by the sweet limits? Well because in fact there are no limits set for lead content in lipsticks. Scary stuff, this means that your lipstick could practically be a soft bar of coloured lead. As a matter interest, when was the last time you saw a list of ingredients and concentrations on any lipstick, ever? From 0.03 parts per million or ppm to 0.65 ppm was the range of levels of Lead found in those 22 brand name lipsticks. Now this might not sound like much, but let me ask you, for how long and how often have you been using lipstick throughout your lifetime? Read More

Organic Gardening: Companion Planting

In the estimated 10 000 years modern man has been cultivating, through a practical empirical understanding, relationships between plants were recognised, utilised and extended in our cultivation techniques. This relationship knowledge has come to be known Companion Planting. One of the oldest known companion planting techniques comes from the Native Americans and is called the Three Sisters. This technique comprises three staple foods maize (corn), beans and pumpkin that are planted together in a companion plant group. Read More

Hunter S. Thompson: Hell's Cartographer

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt" -Hunter S. Thompson (HST) 16^th Feb 2005

Hunter Stockton Thompson four days later whilst seated behind his typewriter on the phone to his wife and with his son, his son’s wife and his grandchild on the next room blew his brains out. The last word he ever typed “Counselor” dead center on a clean page. Thus ending the life of a giant amongst men one of the last in his line of giants to be born of the crucible 60’s in America. For HST stands forever together with the likes of William Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac, who collectively made America take a long hard look at itself and pointed to the storm clouds gathering. Read More

Health Effects of Popular Herbs

I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the most popular culinary herbs produced commercially and consumed world wide. With a focus on their medical effects on the human body as understood so far. These are herbs that are ingested on an almost daily basis by a large percentage of the world population; Basil, Chives, Dill, Mint, Oregano, Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme. Read More

Vectors:The dilemma in Gene Therapy

Vectors in the field of gene therapy is the name given to the carrier used to either deliver specifically altered DNA into a patients body through a number of methods or to engineer a control over existing DNA expression. At present Viral Vectors are predominate in the gene therapy field for a number of reasons, but primarily because this is what viruses do best. They are the Uber hackers of the biological world in their highly effective methods of individual cell penetration, and the re-writing of its DNA code within. In this regard they are a logical choice as a Vector in gene therapy, but there are many pitfalls and obstructions that have yet to be overcome in their use first. Read More

Roald Dahl the King of Darkly

Although Roald is most celebrated for his children’s books I only read them when in my twenties (and enjoyed them immensely). No, I was introduced at the age of ten to the strange and wonderful world of My Uncle Oswald. One of the first books I took out with my new hard earned Adult library card. In those pages I was carried to the Desert Mountains and the legendary scarab beetle, and met the legendary Uncle Oswald and his somewhat lecherous leanings. This was a theme that would continue in Switch Bitch and an elusive discovery of a perfume scent to end all scents. In these short stories collections including Kiss Kiss and The wonderful story of Henry Sugar amongst others I met an author who revealed something quite different. Read More

The Solanaceae’s the Mafia family of the Plant world

Love ‘em or hate them, the Solanaceae family is an integral part of global human society. If you haven’t heard of the Solanaceae’s you might be surprised at how big the family tree is and how connected and interesting they are. The head of this large sprawling family is undoubtedly Solanum Tuberosum or Potato. It is consumed as a daily starch the world round at number four behind rice wheat and maize, with over 330 million tons of this tuber grown annually. From its origins in South America it has spread throughout the world, but you can still find over 3000 varieties today in Peru. As the potato blight of 1845 showed, reliance on large scale mono-cropping is never a good idea. Though the Great Irish Famine was also a result of English oppression that had taxed and taken everything else that the land and people had, and so the potato blight destroyed the little they had left. Read More

Sergei Lukyanenko : The Night Watch

Like a gust of fresh cold winter’s air on a midsummer's day Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko steps up and revitalises a favourite fantasy world and presents an eternal struggle between good and evil in a new and blinding light. With not a damn cloak, cape, count or coffin to be seen in a modern vivid urban Russia, replete with echoes of communism and the impact of free trade and the Mafia. Sergei pulls no punches and drags you mercilessly into a world of gritty realism where there is a price to be paid for every thought, word and deed. With no fanfare or velvet build up, the unseen world of Twilight, inhabited by dark ones and light ones or known collectively as “others” is revealed. Read More

Mapungubwe: Southern Africa’s oldest discovered Kingdom

In early 1932 in Apartheid South Africa, Mr van Graan and his son were out hunting for game near their farm in the Limpopo Valley, at the confluence area of South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. In the scorching heat of the day Mr van Graan passed by an old man sitting outside his hut. Thirsty he stopped to ask the old man for a drink of water, what happened next would forever change the scope of Southern African history. The old man obliged van Graan and brought him water in a most unusual beautiful ceramic bowl marked with a fine design. Van Graan immediately noticed its strangeness in comparison to the standard bowls of the area, but when he asked about it, the old man vehemently refused to answer his questions, so eventually they left. Read More

Chocolate, Aids, Ageing and Stress

From its origins in South America, cocoa is the sweet tooth that could save your life. Studies have confirmed cocoa powder and cocoa butter has significantly high levels of phenols, which are known anti-oxidants. Phenols are present in all plants, but have been found in higher concentrations in wine, fruit, tea, vegetables and cocoa (Theobroma cacao). One of the things phenols do as an anti-oxidant is to inhibit the oxidation of LDL cholesterol within the body, and this is how cocoa was tested in 1996 by Andrew Waterhouse and colleagues at the University of California. What Andrew found was that one 43 gram milk chocolate bar had the same benefit as 150 Millilitres of red wine. Of the types of cocoa, cocoa powder was the highest in phenols followed by cooking chocolate and then milk chocolate. Whilst there are definite benefits to cocoa, a candy bar a day is no substitute for a good green veggie like spinach, but it does mean that you can feel less guilty it. Read More

Wormholes and FTL Travel; Sci-Fi and Science edge closer together

In 1935 Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen using the General Theory of Relativity as their base united two theories; that of black holes and white holes, together they created a theoretical Einstein-Rosen bridge that linked two parts of space or even two universes through a tunnel. They showed that if one could traverse such a tunnel you would effectively be travelling faster than light, as you would arrive before a beam of light sent through normal space at the same time. This would include light inside the tunnel also going faster relative to the light in normal space, though it would still only be travelling at the speed of light within the tunnel. Read More

The Manicure Salon: Disease, Disfigurement and possibly Death

When going to get a manicure the last thing on your mind is the risk of major infection, permanent disfigurement, miscarriage, cancer or even death. Yet for clients and workers in manicure salons these risks are a real threat. I have often been assailed by that permanent reek of hardcore chemicals when walking past any manicure salon. This made me wonder at the health implications for the clients and more especially the workers, confined for 4hrs a stretch, year after year, in an obviously chemically hazardous environment. So it turns out after a bit of research that there are two key ongoing global health concerns with manicure salons. The first was the verification the chemical exposure for the workers; the second was a more insidious client risk from incorrectly or non-sanitised instruments. Read More

Psychology and Buddhism Today

In a little over 997 years or 128 years if you count Wilhelm Wundt as the original father, modern psychology has grown from a branch of philosophy into a discipline with over 30 distinct yet overlapping specialisations. Combined, it is on a quest to fully understand the human mind and its complete relation to the physical organ of the brain. The word psychology stems from the Greek “psyche” or soul and -ology from “logos” or knowledge, knowledge of the soul. This is the perhaps the deeper undercurrent of psychology, to understand the very soul of a being and thereby the universe which reflects psychology’s philosophical beginnings. In recent times there has been an investigation into possibly one of the oldest known but rarely acknowledged systems of psychology, Buddhism, specifically Tibetan Buddhism with its highly precise well developed methods of self analysis and meditation techniques. Read More

Affordable individual DNA sequencing, what will it mean?

April 14th 2003 marked the end of the first Human Genome project, at a cost of 2.7 Billion US dollars, and for the first time completely transcribed a whole human DNA code. In 2007 it can be officially achieved for 1 million as it was earlier this year for Jim Watson, (of the original Crick and Watson team that constructed the first precise structure of DNA in 1953), by the 454 Life Sciences group. On 15th August this year the National Human Genome Institute of Health (NHGRI) assigned over 15 million in research grants. Their goal; to achieve complete individual DNA sequencing for under $1000 a pop, and that means DNA sequencing for all. A long imagined genetic revolution is irrevocably upon us and DNA sequencing will bring widespread change to the very fabric of our global society. Read More

The Virus: Biggest Order on Planet Earth.

Viruses from the Latin “virus” meaning poison undoubtedly occupy a crucial role in the earth’s biosphere. Yet they defy solid explanation by modern science and there is some question as to whether they are living organisms at all. Viruses exhibit characteristics of both organic life and inorganic, living and non-living. All viruses are capable of self replication, but so are crystals estimated to have been the first non-biological self-replicators. All viruses are parasites, they do not create their own cellular structures and are wholly dependant on host cells for normal cellular function; a cellular structure is one of the pre-requisites for organic life. Read More

Hello Ginette 35 meet Risma 17 You are going to make her Blind

In Roodepoort, South Africa this year 2007, a pretty 17 year old girl, Risma du Toit with a mild case of acne began taking Ginette 35 (Generic of Diane 35). It was prescribed by her family doctor as an oral contraceptive that was dually touted to prevent conception and cure acne, it also happened to be the only option available under her mothers medical aid scheme. Within five months and 10 days of regular intake of Ginette 35, Risma had a bad case of acne, was chronically depressed, and totally blind. Read More

Organic Gardening: Pest Control

Key to a healthy garden system is soil biomass, or vegetation in various states of decomposition within the soil. I have seen soil in the Namibian desert turned from beach sand to thick fertile soils by simply increasing the biomass of the soil. With increased biomass comes a corresponding rise in soil life, resulting in a stable balance between pest and predator underneath the ground. This can be achieved by; composting the soil; letting the roots and bottom leaves of your garden plants decompose in situ; consistent mulching or sheet mulching of the garden surface. Read More

Organic Gardening: Compost

The wonderful world of decomposition, nature’s waste transformational system can be yours too, with a little healthy effort. I have been lucky enough to create and enjoy the benefits of composting in a wide range of locations; from the small compost heap in an urban backyard, to a single heap bigger than that entire backyard on a commercial organic farm. There is one main reason to create and maintain a compost heap and that is humus or biomass content addition to your soil. You can never have too much biomass it engenders life in the most degraded of soils. I have seen good compost turn a literal desert into a healthy rich and productive garden. It is nature who makes the compost, we just put the right ingredients together, and nature does the rest. This makes it easy with a few simple guidelines to have your own compost heap down and decaying in as little as a day. Read More

Buddhism: A beginners guide

Prince Siddhartha Gautama is the one man responsible for the creation of the teachings and systems of Buddhism, and he is estimated to have lived around 500 BCE. Siddhartha was born the only son of the King of Kapliavastu, and was unknowingly imprisoned in the palace by his father, to misguidedly protect him from the horrors and evil of the world outside. Pampered and given every luxury the mind could comprehend, he wanted for nothing and remained completely unaware of the world outside the palace until he was twenty. Read More

Karoshi: Death From Overwork

'2,000,000 people die from work related causes every year, 6,000/day… 350,000/year from work accidents… 1,650,000/year due to work related illness. 160,000,000 reported cases of work-related diseases recorded worldwide... Work kills more people than Wars' -ILO. International Labour Organisation 2007.

In 1969 Mr. Miyazaki, who worked a large printing company in Tokyo for 4320 hours a year, including night and day shift work, died from stroke at the age of 58. Posthumously he was awarded the dubious honour of being the first medical documented case of Karoshi, literally translated from Japanese as “death from overwork". Read More

Organic gardening: Weed control

“If it aint what I’m eating it’s a weed” is a popular gardening myth and it is just that, a myth. Personally I think it is another convenient broad generalisation that encompasses any plant that is not fully understood or highly cultivated. Yes, there certainly are particular plants to watch out for, which given the slightest chance will envelope your garden. But there are also plenty of other useful plants to have in your garden that are not such bullies. What I want to concentrate on is some of the more general, helpful and unhelpful wild plants and how to deal with them organically. Read More

Legends of the Sun

“If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware... I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sunrise” -Vincent Van Gough

The Sun creates the visible world around us, without its light there is darkness, coldness and death. It is no wonder our first mythological God/Goddess was The Sun, praised and worshiped in various forms, from the moment we could first cogitate about the apparent death and rebirth of the sun and therefore ourselves. Read More

Wernher Von Braun and the V2 (A4) Rocket

“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.” Wernher Von Braun (WVB)

There is one man upon whom the history of space exploration pivots, Wernher Von Braun, and he was the force behind the construction of the V2 or as he called it the A4 rocket. With his lifetime of dedicated devotion to rocket science, he pushed its understanding and practical application further than any one before him. Read More

The King of Sci-Fi Frank Herbert

“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.”-Frank Herbert (FH)

Frank Herbert Jr. was born 1920 in Tacoma, Washington, USA, only son to Frank Herbert Sr. an auto-bus line operator between Tacoma and Aberdeen. When Frank was eight his family moved to a small farm in Burley, this grounded him in a rural childhood freedom that would birth his passion for the environment and societies, their politics, and their relationships to their environment. Frank was drawn to writing like a moth to the flame and began his writing career as a journalist for the Glendale Star at nineteen, fresh out of high school, determined and impatient to get started. Read More

Can you garden without commercial inorganic pesticides?

To often do I hear the words eliminate, squash, battle, stamp, spray and kill, when people dole out seemingly age old, sage gardening wisdom. Well in fact we have only been using inorganic pesticides for the last 4 decades, and the first one DDT, was only discovered in 1948 by Paul Muller a Swiss chemist. Now you might remember what a miracle and then fiasco DDT was and still is. To put this in perspective modern man has been successfully cultivating crops since 8000 BC, that’s 9,955 years before Paul Heller’s discovery. So what happened when the world was willingly force-fed a line of ill-researched industrial advertising? Read More

Zealotry or Zeal, when will we see a New Zimbabwe?

“We will proceed with current land reform with or without sanctions, ... Let that position be known here and abroad and let the commercial farmers tell that to their constituency or constituencies overseas.” -Robert Gabriel Mugabe (RGM)

In 2000 a campaign of violence and terror rocked the entire Zimbabwe nation to its core. Led by the “Heroes of the Revolution” the Zimbabwe War Veterans Association (WVA), all over the country groups of squatters ran riot, invading and forcibly occupying large tracts of working farmlands and evicting the resident owners. Read More

The Healing Power of Tea

Camellia Sinensis more commonly known as traditional Black tea, Green, Oolong, White, Darjeeling, Pu-erh and Lapsung Souchong etc, is the single species plant for all these popular teas. It is the variety of species and how the leaf and budding tips are processed that makes the difference between properties and flavours. The Latin name Sinensis means Chinese and China is where the cultivation and use of the evergreen shrub was first discovered by European explorers. The first recorded evidence of cultivation is from the T'ang dynasty in 650 AD, although it is generally believed that it started nearer 2000 BC or even earlier, near its original indigenous homelands that stretched from Burma to Southern China. Read More

Healing qualities of the Fever Tree

Acacia xanthophloea the genus name Acacia is derived from the Greek word acantha meaning spine, thorn or prickle and the species name xanthophloea is derived from the Greek words xanthos meaning yellow and phloios (phloea) meaning bark. Indigenous to southern Africa it primarily grows in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It favours low lying areas where annual rains accumulate, this trait in combination with its distinctive yellow bark convinced early explorers that it was the cause of their malarial fevers. Hence it’s English name Fever Tree. Read More

The Inexorable Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Together his father, a headmaster and Anglican cannon, his mother an esteemed political activist and market stall owner, and his very conventional Egba, Yoruba grandparents, taught Wole at an early age the balance between western education, local politics, religion and his ancestral heritage of values, beliefs, and mythologies. Read More

The Magic of Ben Okri

“I was told stories; we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren't allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones.”

Ben Okri was born in Ughelli, Nigeria but left in 1961 after when his father Silver Okri, who had gone ahead to study law, called for his mother Grace Okri to bring the family to join him in England. They lived in North Peckham, South London until 1965, when Silver graduated and returned to Lagos, Nigeria, much too young Ben’s perhaps in hindsight, justified horror. Read More

Who's afraid of Dambudzo Marechera?

Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1997) Novelist, Playwright and Poet. In Dambudzo’s brief life, he died in Zimbabwe an aged 35; he achieved fame in 1979 when his first book The House of Hunger jointly won The Guardian Fiction Prize. He had gained some infamy before that, when asked to join a certain society during their annual dinner, he stood up on the table and urinated on it, that being his answer.

“My mother presented education to us as the gateway out of poverty” Read More

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