Ramblings and Rumblings

It is a balmy afternoon in mid November in the redundant South African province of the Eastern Cape. The distant rumblings of thunderheads can be heard in the far North. They gradually become louder as the storm moves towards the farm, away from the Drakensberg and towards the sea. As it does so the wind starts to pick up ahead of the approaching roll cloud, and the first drops of rain can be heard hitting the tin roof of the room that serves as my office.

Just a few days ago I completed exactly forty years in southern Africa, years that have shaped much of my life. The approaching storm is typical of the summer storms that frequent the region. The rain becomes harder, louder. Soon it will be too loud to stay down in this end of the house and I will soon be forced to move to the lounge, to work from an armchair. This room I am in now is known as the lighthouse room, named so by Liz on account of the drapes and artifacts that depict so many of those phallic edifices. The rain is steadier now, and is accompanied by that fragrance that is so often found when the first of the rains meet the oh-so-dry ground.  

I move to the lounge and, by Murphy’s Law, the storm peters out, as so often happens with storms that come from that direction. Our two summer residents returned from their European home a few weeks ago – coincident with the equinox. This is their fourth visit, and is usually accompanied by a complete makeover of last year’s home. This year, as yet anyway, they seem to have decided not to rebuild. This pair of Lesser Striped Swallows chat to each other from a perch I made for them just outside out front door. On previous years they have had to rebuild their home, but this year they just seem to be spring cleaning the old one and using the two tunnels that serve as both entrance and exit. I am expecting that the female will soon be sitting on eggs – last year there were two fledglings. The male will spend most of his day catching insects and bringing them home.

The summer temperatures have kicked in – the other day it hit 95 in the shade, and at nearly 10.00 p.m. it is still in the high 70’s. We have had 170 ml of rain in the last few weeks – that’s 4 inches - much needed here in the Eastern Cape, where there has been a winter drought lasting several months. As a result, what was a parched and sun-burned lawn has suddenly burst into life, the kikuyu grass six inches high in places and a brilliant dark green. My gardener is a local man called Headman – a retired railway worker I believe. He rents a house from the railways at the old Martindale station and tells me he pays just R10 a month. He recently bought himself a Isuzu bakkie or truck and has been using it as an illegal taxi. I get the impression that this new role has made him too important to cut grass for the likes of me. However I understand that his truck is undergoing repairs in Port Elizabeth, so maybe I can get him to come and cut the lawn next week.

I have decided to start selling off some of the larger items of furniture that remain in the house – after all there is no way they are going overseas once it is sold. I have dropped the asking price on the house as far as I can. Now that Liz has a job and a car, there is no longer anything to keep me in this country. Much of the house is already boxed up and awaiting the freight company. I can’t wait for the day when I can say “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Kapriviersberge hills”. Whoever buys will be getting the bargain of the Century.

Is SEO dead? – A new look at Content writing.

Last night I had a dream – in it I was working for an IT company as a Content Writer, and was severely admonished for leaving work before the CEO, who just happened to be a self-made and self-proclaimed SEO expert. After the dream, and when I arose from my comfortable bed, I got to thinking – most so-called SEO experts probably have their own fixed idea of what a content writer is, namely a writer (often an Intern) with limited experience, but one who can turn out a pretty turn of phrase in exactly the way the SEO wants it. In addition it is interspersed with the right percentage of keywords and so on. I’m sure that is the way that they look at me.

However, what they do not know is that in my case I wrote my first program (remember Fortran?) when most of these upstarts were still in diapers – and in some cases before they were even a twinkling thought in their parents’ heads. Even before attending that long-ago Computer Studies course at the North London Polytechnic, I was flying around the sky with some of the then most sophisticated and highly secret analogue computer equipment available. Before the Internet caught on and during a brief sojourn to the Middle East, I designed a database for all air traffic passing through the region. A few years later was in charge of three computer networks comprising no less than 70 or 80 PCs, and I remember the excitement when the networks first went ‘live’ on the Internet. I am not bragging, but merely trying to put everything into perspective.

What I am trying to get across is that Content Writers are not necessarily interns straight out of college. Many of us are widely traveled and have had a great deal of experience of worldly affairs. I personally have traveled through or to every continent, have had well in excess of 6,000 articles published on the Internet, and have six of my own websites. Of course SEO is not yet dead – just dying maybe. It is no secret that, as search engines introduce new algorithms they prefer more and more good content that is well written, free of spelling and grammatical errors, valid and to the point.

I am enjoying my last few months in South Africa before relocating to the colder climes of New England. South African SEOs in particular should start examining the content they have used in their websites in the past. There is nothing worse than coming across a website in which the content is badly written. South Africa, with its eleven official languages, is particularly prone to this. In many cases the content is exacerbated where the webmaster or SEO, wishing to save a few dollars, has outsourced content to countries such as India, Pakistan, the Philippines and China. Get your act together guys – let’s start seeing some high-quality content – you’ll find it pays in the long run.

RETR command failed - 4 billion emails in inbox

I always seem to get the interesting ones - sometimes I put this down to the abysmal Internet speed provided by my ISP, but this time I cannot. I use Thunderbird as my email client, and it has served me well over the years. However a few days back I started getting this message:

After carrying out some research through Google it became apparent that the problem was not a Thunderbird one, but the mail server, in my case hosted through GoDaddy. Several individuals had reported through various forums that they had solved the problem by logging into the mail server and clearing out junk files. In my case I found about 400 files in my inbox but the other boxes were empty. Anyway, I deleted all but one message, which would not delete.  I tried moving the message to the trash box - it would not move. Naturally I assumed this file to be the cause of the problem - not so.

On logging out of the server I sent a test file to myself and tried to download it - to no avail, and when I tried to log back into the mail server again I got this message:

Clearly this was going to be a case of summoning the technicians at GoDaddy, and I had Liz (now in New Hampshire while I am stuck back here in South Africa trying to sell the farm) contact the GoDaddy team to attempt to resolve the problem - and they did. They had Liz log into the mail server from the back end, and here's what she found in my inbox:

Yes, you saw it right - more than 4 billion files in my inbox !  4,294,967,295 files to be precise! Well to cut a long story short, they deleted the files - but I guess down in Phoenix they're still talking about how they got in there in the first place. My immediate thought was in the direction of a virus or similar. I would appreciate comments in this regard.

Anyway, the problem has now been solved and I am once more able to download my email messages and to log on to the mail server if needs be.

Please contact me for Internet content of any kind - you will not find better!

New New Hampshire website

It has been a while since I last posted here, mostly because I have been kept busy writing for clients here in South Africa and in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Most of my regular readers will know of my plans to relocate to North Carolina, and of how my wife Liz flew back to the States more than a year ago while I stayed behind in the Eastern Cape to finalize the sale of our smallholding. After spending a year staying with her daughter, circumstances forced Liz to move on from Louisiana, supposedly to NC. However, things have changed. I was not happy about Liz arriving in NC under the conditions that were forced upon her, and so I asked my daughter Julie in New England if she wouldn't mind Liz staying with her for a while, and this is why Liz is now firmly ensconced in the Granite State with Julie and my three grandchildren.

To cut a long story short, Liz is so happy in her new home that we have decided that it is to be our final relocation destination, and I can't wait to get there. These new circumstances have led me to creating a new website, which, at the time of writing is just partly finished, although coming along in leaps and bounds. The design is all there, and it is now just a matter of populating it with good content and then marketing it. We have based the design on our info-nc and info-sc websites, which have proved so popular in the past, and the pic for the header was taken by Liz a week or so ago.

There seems to be no shortage of writing work on the other side of The Pond, unlike here in darkest Africa. Many of the domains ending with .co.za have been populated with content that leaves much to be desired, clearly having been written by someone not fluent in the English language, and of its subtle nuances and many idioms. This is just another sign of the times in South Africa, and is something that goes hand in hand with the neo-apartheid policies of the present government. The new upper class in South Africa is the reason for many of the setbacks experienced in the country. Much of the government and industry is corrupt, and the new leaders are filling their pockets at the expense of the poor. Why, only last week a local government official here in the Eastern Cape, after resigning from her position after only 5 months, was given a handshake of R2.5 million!  Only in Africa!

I will not miss this country one iota. I'm ready to leave - just need to sell the farm. Which brings me to one final point. A couple of days ago I received an email from some asinine idiot offering me R200,000 cash for the farm (I have just dropped the asking price to below R1 million). With the Rand crashing the way it is, I will consider any sensible offer, but I have only one reply to sheer stupidity - kma.

Slowly Roasted Shoulder of Lamb

There seems to have been considerable interest in some of my recipes that I have published on this blog, especially the one for Hungarian Goulash, which I make using Rump Steak. With this in mind I have resolved to include more of my favorite recipes in the future. Today’s recipe is for a slowly roasted shoulder of lamb. You’ll need a roasting pan large enough to take the meat and about 2 to 3 inches deep, and some aluminum foil to cover it. The shoulder will serve about 4 people, so for larger table settings you’ll need to adapt where necessary.

Ingredients

One shoulder of lamb – about 2 Kgs – on the bone

A dozen 5” sprigs of rosemary

A bunch of fresh mint, finely chopped

A whole bulb of garlic split into cloves, no need to peel them

Olive oil

Sea salt

Ground black pepper

1 tbsp of plain flour

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

500ml Lamb Stock

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to as high as it will go.

With a sharp knife, score the layer of fat on the meat in 2 directions into 1” diamonds.

Pour some olive oil into the bottom of the roasting dish and scatter half of the rosemary and garlic cloves into it. Place the lamb, scored side uppermost, in the dish and rub more olive oil into the scored surface. Sprinkle sea salt and ground black pepper onto the lamb and rub into the surface. Scatter the remainder of the rosemary and garlic cloves over the lamb. Cover the roasting dish tightly with aluminium foil, making sure it is sealed well. Place the dish in the center of the pre-heated oven, and immediately turn down the heat to 160°C (320°F). Cook for 4 hours.

Using a couple of forks pull the meat away from the bones (actually it should fall away) and place on a heated serving dish, cover and keep warm. Discard the bones and all of the sprigs of rosemary. Pour off almost all of the olive oil, leaving about a tablespoon. Remove the garlic cloves and allow them to cool. Pop them out of their skins and return to the roasting dish, crushing them with a suitable utensil.

Place the roasting dish on the top of the stove at a medium heat. Stir in the flour and the lamb stock (a suitably flavored thickening agent may be used instead of flour), bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring. Add the chopped mint and vinegar, and bring to the boil again. Transfer the sauce to a suitable vessel.

Suggested vegetables: New potatoes, minted peas, French or sliced runner beans