Flying High

Okay it wasn’t ‘crack. It was acid. And the thing is that we had just been talking about Mandrax... I best be a little bit clearer.

Last weekend my friend and I were yakking away. She turns 90 in September and wants to go white water rafting. (She also wouldn’t mind going for a spin in a race car at Silverstone if you’re offering... she was one speedy driver pre the whole bindness/ageness malarkey.) She was annoyed that now there were things her body just couldn’t do anymore...wished she had taken more risks earlier.
So we were discussing thrills we had missed in our youth and I remembered that as a teenager on parole from various ghastly UK boarding schools, I would head back to Zambia where the ultimate 80’s thrill was rumoured to be the ‘Mandrax Run’

Methaqualone is a sedative-hypnotic drug that is similar in effect to barbiturates, a general central nervous system depressant. Its use peaked in the 1960s and 1970s as a hypnotic, for the treatment of insomnia, and as a sedative and muscle relaxant. It has also been used illegally as a recreational drug, commonly known as Quaaludes (pronounced /ˈkweɪluːdz/ KWAY-loodz) or Sopors (particularly in the 1970s in North America) depending on the manufacturer. Since at least 2001, it has been widely used in South Africa,[1] where it is commonly referred to as "smarties" or "geluk-tablette" (meaning happy tablets).

One established contact with a shadowy figure in a bar who would tell you to pick up an old rust-bucket car from a special location and drive it across two boarders and down to Johannesburg. The thrill was in ignoring the fact that the rust-bucket was lined with Mandrax tablets en route to what was then the biggest market – the South African Army. The game was to bluff your way through civil war encrusted Southern Africa, loaded with illicit drugs, and your reward...a wodge of cash and a shiny new cube of a GTI Golf to drive home with. That was if you hadn’t been arrested or shot. It was popular too. There were plenty of teenagers driving spanking new GTI’s in Lusaka. We don’t talk about the ones who didn’t make it back...

My friend found this fascinating. She said as a mother and a teacher, she seemed to have missed the entire 60’s drug revolution and wasn’t sure quite how. ‘How do they make you feel?’ she asked.
‘Well, it’s your birthday,’ I had said. ‘I could score you a tab of acid!’ We laughed uproariously but I had temporarily forgotten who I was dealing with and there was something in her eye that made me a little nervous... Actually I wouldn’t know how to score a Red Bull and vodka in a Red Bull and vodka bar and have always been a hopeless prissy wuss when it comes to anything more mind altering than Bacardi. But it did strike me that if you made it to 90 years old in vaguely one piece, you really should be entitled to any drug you want on the NHS. ( Perhaps not meth amphetamine..I watch a lot of CSI and I wouldn’t want her wandering the streets looking for a good time with a sawn off shotgun under her dressing gown... )

There was good news too this week. Dad few back to Zambia from hospital and by the time I had made contact to see if he had recovered from the flight, he had ALREADY done a sneaky farm clinic and been driving himself around Lusaka. Pretty phenomenal considering the doctors reckoned on 6 months to a year of slow recovery. He is loving being home too after months of anxiety, pain and hospital food. Hooray!!!

Then yesterday, after several weeks facing potential downsizing to Big Issue Seller due to an administrative error by my local Job Centre Plus, I was told with a muttered apology that my benefits had been reinstated. I am not going to be homeless after all!

This made me so happy I decided to teach Grace to fly. I use a ancient martial art technique called simply ‘Inflated Breast ‘which is crude but effective and hugely fun.

Once Grace figures it out we’ll be a lot safer....I do have a tendency to fly into trees.....

Flat and Twitchy.

Thank you all of you for your thoughts and support! I actually enjoyed the interview although, having prepared for ethical, political debate and searching questions about my personal experiences in the field, I felt slightly deflated by a more surface, quick fire Q and A. I don’t know if they got the key of me so to speak.
However, it was great fun and no matter what I think I now have to wait for a couple of weeks. I will let you know in October when I hear.

And so after all that hype and nervous tension, I am here- flump, bump sat back on my bum in my flat, wading without enthusiasm through Guardian-Jobs-On-Line again just in case. 'Flat and yet twitchy', is how I described myself to a pal. It’s the feeling you get after huge amounts of adrenalin have surged through your system and yet you have not fought or fled..anywhere..

I do my laundry and mow the lawn. I cook. I then watch
a brave piece of investigative journalism on Channel 4. In Ethiopia the UN food aid is going to the wrong people. Millions starve, abused by government forces and the UN has yet to take a stand. They demanded a human rights report a year ago but its not yet appeared. The film crew walked 8 hours out into the bush to interview the dispersed and desperate villagers hounded by the government soldiers and rebels alike in this incredibly moving and powerful report. I sat with my fork half way to my mouth watching a distraught starving woman begging for help. ‘Bollocks,’ I thought putting the fork, dripping with succulent steak and organic purple sprouting broccoli down and pushing the plate to the side. ‘’ll eat it later during ‘Mock the Week’.

It’s important though that we cast a careful and continuous eye over this whole AID malarkey. The Aid business is a very, very big fat cash cow and it blatantly doesn’t work (a very few emergency scenarios asides). Where is the bloody money going year in and year out? Thousands of NGO’s in my hometown of Lusaka, upteen squillion four wheel drive vehicles with radio antennae whipping around in the wind and I still don’t see the majority of people’s living standards in any way changed. Corruption is still endemic and massive amounts of the AID money ends up firmly stuffed down the back of the wrong wallets. And what do we do? Give more money to yet another NGO to do the same shit. No joined up thinking.

OK, OK… I am just cross because someone raised my conscience during my supper. But I am not going to let it lie…. grumble...etc

RIP Levy

President Levy Mwanawasa is being buried today in Lusaka and Rupiah Banda becomes acting Head of State for the next 90 days whist everyone regroups and figures out what to do next.

Will the Cobra strike again or wil someone sensible prevail? I see Mugabe is at the funeral. Bit creepy really. If anyone sees him dance let me know.