Make the Most of Your Natural Resources

A 5 am wake up phone call was not the most welcome way to start the day but the 3 hour safari that followed made it well worthwhile. Pilanesberg Game Reserve is home to the "Big 5" our tour guide Zach told us. The elephant, the lion, the leopard, the rhino and the wildebeest, the creme de la creme of African Wildlife. The Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea et al of the mountainous plains. Later we saw a Giraffe, clearly unhappy at not being in the Big 5, Stoke City as it were, excellent under a high ball. We also saw Gazelles and Springboks, Norwich City and Swansea perhaps, nice to look at but never going to win anything. Later I encountered a cockroach in the hotel bathroom, Shamrock Rovers I assume.
The first animal we actually saw just as the sun rose from behind the Pilanesberg Mountains was the Gnu. Now I didn't know the Gnu and the Wildebeest were one and the same thing. And with a name like Gnu it's no wonder the animal adopted a much cooler sounding moniker. Apparently the first such Wildebeest opted for the more street name of "Gun" but suffering from dyslexia, he misspelled his name on Noah's manifest. Numerous legal battles and court orders ensued before the new name could be taken. Pilanesberg National Park is 57,000 hectares, slightly smaller than County Louth, but with a better looking population. Numerous buses departed with tourists from Europe and Japan. We took photographs of the animals, the Japanese took photographs of us. They seemed surprised to see us in such big numbers, after our economic woes. Perhaps Japanese TV runs ads late at night with images of miserable and lonely looking freckly faced people with appeals for donations to save us from extinction. They now have photos to share with their friends, testament to their good work. The lesser spotted Irish. All in all the whole experience was a very memorable way to watch the day begin across Southern Africa and the locals certainly know how the make the absolute most of the wonderful natural resources and native animals of their country. I got me thinking about how in Ireland we could make better use of ours.

Some of you may remember my calls for a "National Scrote Day" and I apologise if I am repeating myself here but now I believe that we could make the observation and admiration of the scrote an all year round event. Imagine the tourist dollars as busloads of foreigners set off down Talbot Street and Abbey Street to observe our scrotes in their natural habitat. The beauty of it is that the scrote can be found at any time of the day or night in a variety of different states of inebriation or sedation. They will often congregate around the local Spar or Centra, the urban equivalent of a watering hole. Extended tours could take in O'Connell Bridge and the Boardwalk, another favourite haunt of the scrote. If the tourist was lucky they might even witness the scrote feeding or taking other refreshments or better again, defecating in public. All of this entertainment right here in the main thoroughfares of our Capital city. The same ground rules would apply of course in order to ensure the safety of the tourists. Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times, do not approach a scrote and don't feed the scrotes Dutch Gold, physeptone or other similar opiates. Leo Varadkar needs to understand what our most abundant natural resources are and how to exploit them to the fullest. We don't have elephants, lions and gazelles. But we have an abundance of scrotes and they are not even close to becoming extinct.

I haven't had a chance to write much since we actually got here on Saturday but things have moved well since arriving. Thankfully the Immodium has now sorted that out.
Once again we were treated to a wonderful welcome at the school where much of the building and teaching projects are taking place in a village called Hlalele. 800 children attend this school and it seemed like every single one of them came to greet us on Monday morning. They sang their National Anthem and some other songs which were nothing short of amazing. He welcome wasn't as warm on Tuesday morning, our National Anthem mustn't have been as good.......... 
As for the work, plenty has been done. The school building continues apace. The blocks for the new teachers offices and the science block are being laid faster than Enda Kenny can renege on a promise and much of this was done on Tuesday, easily the hottest day so far where the temperature was approximately 450,000 degrees Celsius by mid afternoon (in the shade).
As I write this it is now Saturday and I bring the good news of another Irish sporting triumph as we beat the Hlalele School team on penalties after a tight one all draw after normal time. A close first half saw yours truly playing in goal with the half finishing scoreless. The highlight of the first being Ger Devine's stern but fair challenge on the Hlalele centre forward. Ger had 20 years, 10 inches and about 30kg of an advantage on the  Hlalele target man and above all else Ger was wearing a pair of shorts so tight you could tell his religion. An intimidating sight on any field of play. Hlalele took and early second half lead when a certain goalkeeper, now playing dreadfully out of place at left back, was caught napping under a high ball and the Hlalele centre forward finished well with a big toe into the top corner. Incessant pressure from the Irish eventually lead to a well worked equaliser. The game finished in a draw and the dreaded penalty shootout followed. An early miss from the Irish was soon cancelled out and the 5th penalty fell to a certain someone who floated the ball Pirlo-like into the top corner. A final miss from the locals resulted in ecstatic scenes from the triumphant Irish, gaining revenge for last year's defeat. A well deserved victory was warmly applauded by the partisan crowd of  42,403 comfortably Hlalele's biggest crowd of the season so far.
I now read news of the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank or whatever it's called now. In view of this and 5 years of economic misery in Ireland I am going to apply for financial asylum here in Lesotho. Ireland may not register high up on Amnesty Internationals hit list of countries that are abusing their citizens but I reckon I have a better chance of getting by in a country that is over 100 places lower than Ireland in terms of GDP but it is a country that appears to have a Government that is answerable to the people rather than a bunch of anonymous faceless economists. It's slightly sad that what would otherwise be considered as an impoverished nation has more genuine and viable economic policies that a supposedly modern and well developed European nation. There is a slight irony in all of this, we are working with people and in a nation that is struggling to get by at times but has a desire to succeed and grow. Yet back home we have the same people striving to make their way but we have a Government that are inept, sly and gutless.

Anyway, rant over. Today is Saturday and the clouds have arrived which in some ways are welcome to suppress the ridiculous heat that we enjoyed (endured) during the week. All is going well here, a few hiccups along the way but a wonderful bunch of students and workers have made great progress this week.

The World's Favourite Airline

British Airway's - The World's Favourite Airline. Unless that is you are the bellend that decided to check in their bags but decline to take their seat on the plane like the other 350 odd of us that patiently waited in our pews . The BA Captain in his best BBC Radio 4 accent apologised profusely for the delay while the baggage handlers attempted to retrieve the now unaccompanied baggage from the aircraft hold. "We should be under way in about 5/10 minutes" he assured on on more than once occasion but I suspect he was taking his times from his co-pilot, First Officer Alex Ferguson, because it almost 2 hours later before we finally got under way. "Not our finest hour", said the Captain. He clearly hadn't yet tasted the potato salad starter that was to accompany the main meal though.
Finally airborne I decided to sample some of the onboard entertainment entitled "High Life" and to be quite honest you would want to be high to consider some of this as entertainment. "Bob Wilson's Life and Death of Marina Abramovic" was one that immediately jumped off the screen at me. Little did I know the former Arsenal netminder with the trademark green jersey and dodgy receding curls was also an Avant-garde stage director. I didn't watch for long. (by long I mean I didn't watch at all).
I passed an hour watching 500 great goals which featured luminaries such as Maradona, Messi, Bergkamp and Paul Greene. Believe it or not the goal Paul Greene scored was better than the one they chose of Messi but there is something very very wrong in this world if Paul Greene can share any football screen time whatsoever with Lionel Messi. I felt betrayed. I did indeed need to be high.