The Idler, Tuesday, July 18, 2016

St Lucia parallel IT'S disturbing, to say the least, that Sanral should be pressing ahead with plans to build a coastal toll road along the environmentally sensitive Wild Coast, putting "mega bridges" across some stunningly beautiful river gorges. I myself am a fan of Sanral. They've done some wonderful work providing a national infrastructure of world class roads. But there comes a time when engineering has to step back from desecration of our natural heritage. The Wild Coast is an absolute gem – forests, gorges, cliffs, lagoons, wonderful beaches. It ought to be a World Heritage site, not a six-lane highway. It ought to be carefully developed into the kind of unobtrusive eco-tourism attraction that would draw the wealthy from the developed world and be self-sustaining. But it could very easily be permanently wrecked. There's a strong parallel with Lake St Lucia and Isimangaliso Wetland Park. There was a strong, government-supported drive in the early 1990s to allow dune mining on the Eastern Shores of Lake St Lucia. The mining option would have brought instant billions. But it would also have been a desecration. The new government in 1994 opted for eco-tourism. The Wetland Park became a World Heritage site. Elephant herds and other game now roam the shores of Lake St Lucia the way they did a century ago. Eco-tourism is building up. The titanium would have run out by now. But, carefully managed, eco-tourism will be here in perpetuity. The late Ian Player used to talk about the "sense of place" of the Eastern Shores. Exactly the same is true of the Wild Coast, with its cliffs, waterfalls dropping direct into the sea; its sheer scenic grandeur. People from around the world would pay for the experience. They wouldn't want to get there on a six-lane highway. They say the point of the proposed highway is to efficiently connect Durban and East London. If they're talking about shifting freight, Durban and East London are already very efficiently connected by sea – much cheaper, much more efficient. Benefit for local communities? Yeah, giant lorries thundering across their ancestral lands between Durban and East London. Some benefit!   Gurkhas (1) LOCAL historian and writer Peter Quantrill, a former officer in the British Gurkha regiment, contributes the occasional snippet. His name registered with reader Richard Armstrong when a neighbour gave him what appeared to be a wartime diary of the Burma campaign against the Japanese during World War II. I put him in touch with Peter, and it turns out that the diary of Oz Lovett, an officer in the Second Gorkha Regiment (that's how they spelled it then) of the Indian Army is absolutely fascinating. It is lodged now with the Gurkha Museum, in Winchester, England. After Indian independence, four of the 11 Gurkha regiments raised by the British for service in the Indian Army were transferred to the British Army. The remainder still exist as part of the Indian Army.   Gurkhas (2) THE Gurkhas, of course, are tough little soldiers recruited from Nepal. A few years ago I was in Dubai, where most of the taxi drivers are from Kerala, in India. One morning I hailed a cab and got chatting to the driver, a small, tough-looking fellow. "You're from Kerala?" "No, Nepal." "Ah, then you're a Gurkha." The little guy beamed, put his foot down and started driving with great elan, swerving, taking gaps. He was like Stirling Moss on steroids. I'd brought out the Gurkha in him. We reached the destination in record time.   Talking turkey   HOWICK theoretical physicist Rob Nicolai says President Zuma should go to Turkey to give advice on the situation.   While he has no direct experience of Turkey coups, he did make Nkandla safer with secure chicken coups.   Tailpiece   THIS fellow is sitting in a dark bar. He leans over to a large lady sitting near him and says: "You wanna hear the latest blonde joke?" "Listen mister, I'm blonde. I'm 2m tall and a professional triathlete and bodybuilder. The gal next to me is blonde. She's even taller and she was a professional wrestler. The one next to her is also blonde. She's a kickboxer. You still want to tell that joke?" "Not if I've got to explain it three times."   Last word The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. James Branch Cabell,