Footsteps In The Museum

I've met all the people named below, though not in the Natural History Museum of Pietermaritzburg with those giant beetles, ants, praying mantes and that truly disturbing spider on the roof. One of them (the people, not the goggas) told me about the ghostly footsteps in an old building late at night. The rest is not his story -- but a ghost story of mine.

Pay attention to the timeline, the plot thickens around the fatefull day of 2 February 2022.

28Feb2023	2Feb2022	29Feb2023	2Feb2022
29Feb2023	5Sept2023	8Nov2023	9Nov2023

They all know me at the museum. 

“They” being the card-carrying members of the Night Shifters – the security staff; the cleaners; the odd student reading actual books in the musty back rooms to research a thesis. 

People who work nights at the museum are my type of people. We are a tribe of reclusive weirdos who do not judge each other. Not like the people you meet outside. That is why I only go outside when I am low on coffee beans.

The Turtle Still Moves

 

April 28 was when Terry Pratchett got born, which explains the date of this entry. Sir Terry then went on to spiral around our sun 66 times, shedding wisdom in the second half of his life like a dandelion exploding into wishes when a child blows on it. 

In his last decade Alzheimer's ate holes in his memories, his stories stopped and the world mostly moved on. 

"Mostly", because every so often, a new curious mind gets sucked into the wake of A'tuin -- or something cosmically and no doubt comically similar -- and these new fans then make wry posts trying to describe the magic that is in every Pratchett story, complain about the movie adaptions, or totally geek out on Fandom, the Wiki Lspace, or the OG Lspace.

What follows below is none of those. Instead, it is a little Disk World story that came to me in the middle of the night. 

About those beached whales…

Mystery surrounds the beaching of 11 long-finned pilot whales at Farewell Spit beach in New Zealand on February 11, 2017. Photo: Marty Melville.

Dear you,

I’m writing to explain about whales and zombies, the breathers and non-breathers, as it were.

About us zombies, you got three things right. Actually, make that three and a half things.

First, you are right that there are zombies. Yes, for realsies. 

How To Steal a City - review

Published in 2017 by Johathan Ball Publishers

Durban-born government fixer and author Crispian Olver is the kind of guy that does the right thing, even if it hurts.

He qualified as a medical doctor in South Africa before joining government in 1994 to help implement the ambitious aims of the Reconstruction and Development Programme as Manager Developing in the Office of then President Nelson Mandela.

Zuma's MK party dead by 2026?

In Africa, only the group survives through constant co-operation. Any planner needs to know Africa's law: Loners Get Eaten. 

Daimler electrics now in South Africa

Daimler's battery powered trucks have already impressed Australian fleet buyers with a 300 km range. 

Daimler is the latest company to launch electric trucks in South Africa.

The eCanter and eActros rigid have already impressed fleet buyers with their 300 km of "realistic range" in Australia, which has very similar road conditions to South Africa.

Daimler has been testing these trucks in South Africa since last year and now aims to sell these small electric trucks to companies who plan to balance the much higher upfront cost of an electric truck by paying a lot less for solar power than for diesel. 

Africa's race towards e-mobility

Africa's many entrepreneurs stand to benefit most from China's excesses. (Photo: Newslex Media).

Africa’s transport sector will be the main beneficiary of America’s aim to replace the paper oil-dollar with a digital carbon-dollar under the “zero emissions” drive. (Read more on this big lie here.)

This drive has led to Western governments diverting taxes to subsidise anything that claims not to emit smoke and is also behind China’s excess stock of dirt-cheap solar panels and electric vehicles.

Thanks to China’s subsidy-based economy, there are a lot of these excess vehicles. Shanghai-based consultancy, Automobility, estimates China’s excess capacity to be between five and 10 million vehicles per year.