A Table Mountain Sunset

The very tip of Africa under your feet, you sense the full weight
of a dark continent at your back.

Looking down at the waves below, you trace a line to the horizon,
where two oceans collide.

Past that point, no further land just water, ice, and the bottom of the world.

Close your eyes, feel the warmth of a setting sun on your face. Waves crash from a sea of gold on the rocks of Camps Bay.

And blue shadows creep across the landscape,
encasing the continent in the soft stillness of night.

Facelift for MkII

Uncle Ken's Ford Escort MkII needed pretty significant reconstructive surgery, courtesy of Mike, to make it road worthy for me to use at Leeds Uni. As it happened, I didn't pass my test until after graduating, and ended up taking it to Herts Uni for my Masters, where it lost a back wheel in St Albans, sparks flying from the axle, me parking on the pavement to find a slightly confused pedestian, carrying said wheel, "excuse me, but is this your wheel?" (errr, let me check...).



Ant Attack & Two Tribes - Annihilation

Flippin' eck. Just found the 12" version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes" on YouTube, and heard it for the first time since, what, 1983? Jeez, that's 26 years ago! I remember, vividly, playing "Ant Attack" on my ZX Spectrum, taping a copy from James Prosser, and being utterly absorbed in a virtual world. Playing TT on a little mono panasonic cassette player, having loaded AA for 5 minutes, settling down and immersing myself in that different world. A virtual world where nuclear war had caused these dastardly ants to grow... far-fetched maybe, but we lived in a world where a full-scale nuclear attack was a reality. It's amazing to look back on those days now...



A world of possibilities described at school in Z for Zachariah, on TV with Threads..., and the rather more sensational movie The Day After. But what I remember most vividly was the disaster at Chernobyl, the last nail in the coffin of a nuclear future - or so it seemed.