Leadership
As I get older I feel the world is becoming crazier and crazier by the day. Just look at works of art being sprayed with tomato soup. Milk poured out in stores in the hope of us giving up animal products in our diet and people glueing themselves to the roads demanding we abandon fossil fuels not tomorrow, but today. All of which is faithfully shown on prime time television or available on the net on all the mainstream social platforms.
Everyone wants to do things without considering the implications, much of it based on the perception: it will benefit us in a yet unknown future. One that does not include animal products nor fossil fuels and in which you can be whatever you want gender-wise depending on your mood that day. Politicians seem to have bought into this madness, they want to be seen at the forefront of these poorly conceived changes mainly for their own political aspirations rather than for the benefit of the nation or its people. This is not new, what is new is the childish manner they go about it, in a charade of fairness on selection of their irresponsible leaders.
“I imagine in days gone by if you had not collected enough firewood for the winter, your neighbours' would have shown you no sympathy labelling you as a fool allowing you to freeze to death. The fools are now our governments; they are the custodians of our energy supplies.” - Peter McSporran
Certainly, the recently resigned Prime Minister was such in name, only not appearing in charge even though for want of retaining the title was happy to blame everyone but herself.
It would seem professional advice not only on energy but also finance must be ignored. The new plan is just to put unproven theories into practice. If it does not work, scramble to fix it. You are even allowed to look bemused in parliament when questioned on your actions. Britain is not unique in this, much of Europe and America is the same. The rest of the world is led by people just waiting to jump on the carcass.
“Following the purchase of a new appliance, we as individuals often only refer to the instructions once we are stymied for ideas in its assembly. In government, advice from your professional advisors should be a priority, policy is not an appliance.” - Peter McSporran
If we look at what is going on in Britain at present, from a distance it looks like a nation in self-destruct mode. It is leaderless except in title alone. The press tells us every day in their contribution to emphasise this.
I have noticed for a number of years if you are in a national team, be it football, rugby or cricket in the UK, one slight falter and the press will crucify you with little thought of the individual's hours of sacrifice in training, getting fit while honing his or her undeniable talent. Even if they are better than most, there will be some game where they will meet someone better. Yet the UK press and sports pundits expect their sportsmen and women to perform better than all others at all times.
“Have we forgotten sport is a competition which some may excel in, but at some stage, they will always come across their better.” - Peter McSporran
We can be disappointed and whinge about our team's performance to friends in the pub. To crucify them in the national press is a true way to undermine confidence and lower morale leading to probable failure in their next outing. It is no better than bullying. One mistake can become such an issue that due to the publicity can impact the individual's life forever, professional or not. Great teams are not made by one individual, only a group and to be cohesive they need strong and fair leadership both in management and captaincy.
Management hones skills by providing the information needed on the opposition and helps formulate tactics while leadership on the field of play is captaincy by action as circumstances change. It requires quick and sensible decision-making, the ability to lift the team when things are tough and applying the correct amount of whip without demoralising the team. Politics is no different. The wrong captain or leader can destroy a team or government.
“Poor leaders blame their team, not themselves. To retain some semblance of pride even poor teams need leadership to lose well.” - Peter McSporran
Now it seems the Conservatives as a party have collapsed in the face of the media, endless bickering while losing any semblance of being a team. This is likely to destroy any leader before she or he even gets on the field of play. This is to such an extent any sensible leader will excuse themselves from the thankless job allowing a swirling mass of chancers supported by self-interest backers to drown in their own self-made quagmire. The outcome of this is they may well be replaced by equally poor leadership as it looks any fool will be better than the present in the voters’ eyes. The losers all around here and for the foreseeable future will be their constituents.
Worse are the decisions they are making in the meantime, when they are not squabbling amongst themselves, in regard to energy, food production and something that should be very simple, gender matters. Yes, we need to clean up our act, but we need to plan it. The loonies of this world now seem to be driving all these decisions with the aid of the press. How? I fear mainly because they attract so much publicity, when did we see any positive news? People sticking themselves on highways, blocking ambulances on the way to the hospital, others, destroying paintings and service stations and others, pouring milk away wastefully will appear in the headlines rather than appearing in court. We must all know that nothing will be gained by their antics except a short window of public exposure yet the press treats them as if they lead mainstream opinion. How guilty are they? The press, almost as much as the perpetrators I believe. After all, streaking at sporting events is almost unknown now that the cameras avoid them.
I may be wrong but these same loonies seem to have more sway over our present leadership than good sage advisers.
What was nice about Rozanne driving me through Spain was that I could window farm. When I am driving she is always appealing to me to stop farming. From the window of my car, especially on these more recent trips, I have seen the huge diversity of the terrain and agricultural production in Spain. We, of British descent, seem to recognise our own diversity with pride while when we talk about other nations including the Spanish or Portuguese, even the Americans as just that. Spain is twice the size of the UK, has vast plains, not unlike Africa except, only less wildlife. Forests as large as those found in Northern Europe and its highest mountain is three times taller than Ben Nevis and the Tagus River is three times longer than any in the UK. All this research came about when we stopped overnight in a town called Talavera de la Reina in central Spain where we were surprised to find a large river. In looking it up we found it was the Tagus River which we knew entered the sea at Lisbon. How long is that? Over a thousand kilometres and it was a large river there some four hundred kilometres from the sea as the crow flies. Of course, the Romans had been here before us and their bridge is still standing there, where have they not been in Europe?
In the city of Barcelona, we were in awe of some of the buildings. In particular, those designed by the architectural genius Antoni Gaudí, probably the best known and still not complete La Sagrada Família. It is now in some one hundred and forty years of building with its completion now planned by 2027, costing hundreds of millions. The outstanding council taxes are forty-one million Euros alone. In Scotland, we would call a folly, needless to say, it is revered in the Catholic Church and Spain. It is certainly a must-see building if you visit Barcelona.
Another death notice this week, Dr Jerry Grant this time. Jerry was a mombie fundi and was the Deputy Director of the CFU during my time as President. Very straight guy who was a strong advocate of conservation spending most of his free time in the bush with his wife and two daughters. Yet another goodbye. This morning, Wednesday, we just watched Joan Craft’s funeral on the internet. Of interest, we were reminded she made underwear for most of the men in our farming district. That is; she knew what we had under our trousers, not many women could say that.
Life-Changing Friendships
Towards the end of the war and early into independence there were some changes taking place in regard to characters in the district. I may get the order of their arrival slightly wrong but they all arrived in 1979 and 1980 at the end of the war. While most of the farmers decided to remain at independence, some decided to leave. Louw Coetzee decided that he was sick of being shot at and packed up and left, selling his farm, Marievale to Henry Bezuidenhout who had been farming in Norton district. In 1979 Henry, his wife Tinks and his young family arrived in our district to change it forever. Henry was a renowned character known far and wide for his exploits, some better unrecorded. He was always up for fun while proving that you did not need a large farm to be a successful farmer. He educated his children at the best private schools in the country before obtaining university degrees in South Africa. Henry introduced me to gambling and ‘extended boys fishing trips’ to the Zambezi. This was now possible as we had spare time on our hands as call-ups were a thing of the past.
Kariba trips, we did with family on houseboats, river trips at that time were for the boys. One of the very first trips we did to the river was early in 1980, shortly after independence, with the owner of Ashbrittle Service Station. His first name was Pete and I think, his second was Roché, I stand to be corrected. We travelled there in Pete’s old Land Rover which was slow requiring refuelling for both man and vehicle at Banket, Sinoia, Karoi, Mkutu before arriving in the evening just making sundowners after booking into the Chirundu Hotel which at that time was a group of rondavel huts with a common lounge and bar. It did have a swimming pool, after all, the temperatures there often exceeded 40°C.
The next day we hired a boat from Willie Reid, his business was being looked after by the late Charles Godley who had at one time been my Company Sargent Major in the army. Like many who left the army or rather were dropped by their country at independence, he was struggling with living in the new peace. It was sad to see him living out the back of a pick-up, there being no buildings at Willie’s boat launching site in those days. So many old soldiers found themselves lost after the war.
We had a wonderful two days fishing, catching good Tigerfish and Chesa. Henry introduced us to his proven Chesa and Inkupe catching system. Drive in amongst the hippo pods, chasing them away he advised. Sure enough we caught fish. At that time hippos were not used to boats so generally retreated on our arrival until one old bull decided enough was enough and took a chunk out of our boat. We immediately changed fishing tactics. Moving onto bank fishing one evening, we would fish for Tiger in the rapids, we found ourselves between a herd of elephants and the river. “No worry!”, said Henry, just tap on something metal as they used to do in the army and the elephants will move on. Pete was in front. I was taking up the rear with Henry in the middle. Henry started tapping a knife against his metal fishing reel. The outcome was one young male elephant charging with full trumpets blaring only stopping at the edge of the river with Henry now being swept downstream in the current having plunged into the river to avoid certain death. He could swim but swimming was not the problem in the Zambezi, it was the crocodiles. Off we set in pursuit trying to grab the tip of his rod which he pointed towards us as he swept by. Luckily we managed to get him out before he reached a more languid pool where crocodiles were abundant.
Our nights were not peaceful. In those early days after the war in Chirundu, lions and elephants were frequent visitors. The hotel’s cook had been crushed to death only recently by an elephant on his way home. Naturally, after fishing in the heat all day beers were required to rehydrate which would lead to frequent trips in the night from the rondavel to the communal toilets. Fine if there were no lions around which was not the case. We knew we could not outrun a lion, this did not stop us from dashing across the intervening space hoping surprise would confuse them. We survived the ordeal. Of interest, the hotel cook could make an excellent smoked Vundu dish. I had never considered eating fish from the Barbel family, it was to become a favourite choice when on the menu. Wives were never keen to cook these ugly fish. They all had heard the story of the time John Gordon brought one to his camp asking his wife Sheila to cook it for dinner, only for her to get shocked when she touched it as it was an electrical barbel.
On our last morning, after a couple of hours of early morning fishing, we set off for home to stop for a lunchtime drink after an hour's driving at the Mkuti Hotel despite it only being eleven in the morning. By three that afternoon, having had a number of beers, Henry convinced Pete and I, it was too late to leave for home some three hundred kilometres away and rather, why not go to Kariba for the evening to spend the night at Caribbea Bay Casino. After all, this was only seventy kilometres away in the opposite direction to home. To cut a long story short, I was introduced to gambling with all three of us waking on the lawn outside the casino the next day despite having paid for a room. Henry had introduced me to his fun-filled, if somewhat, irresponsible lifestyle.
The other two new neighbours who arrived shortly after Henry I will talk about next week, they being Bill Rae and the late, but legendary Joe Whaley and his wife, Wendy.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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