Monthly Archives: May 2009

Lost Computers And Conferences

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My most recent travels were marked by a minor disaster. On the 15th July I headed for a Cape Town for a week for the Fifth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention. I was there for a week and then on Friday 24th I headed for Swaziland via Johannesburg.

I got to Cape Town airport early, checking in, went to the lounge and sat and wrote about the conference, what I had been doing, who I had met and what I had learnt. The writing flowed, which is something one should never take for granted. Once on the plane I sat and typed away. I was in a seat by the bulkhead and had nowhere to put my computer other than behind my knees, which would not have been approved of by the cabin crew if they had seen this. In Johannesburg I got my carry-on bag from the overhead luggage bin and walked off the plane. At the security screen for international departures I opened my bag to take my laptop out and put it through the machine. It was not there; as you can imagine there was a sense of absolute panic. My heart leapt and I actually shivered with concern, or something similar.

What can one do? I went back to the South African Airways lost property desk in the International Arrivals section. There I shamefully told them what had happened. They were extremely helpful, phoning through to the ramp agent and the cleaners. But it was gone! I left my number and a few prayers!

None-the-less I had to fly on to Swaziland where I spent the next two days. On the Sunday I returned to Durban via Johannesburg. Again I went to the Lost Property section to see if by any chance it had been found. The same lady kindly told me that in all likelihood it was gone forever. So the next step was to go to the police station at Oliver Tambo International Airport report it lost/stolen. Here was an interesting clash of technology: the police sergeant who took my statement wrote it out in laborious longhand but told me I would get the notification of the case number by SMS to my mobile phone. This happened within hours, and was followed up by a phone call and SMS from the detective in charge of the case! I wonder how one can combine technology with procedures to make life easier. Of course not having to take statements at all would be the ideal world.

It could have been worse. I had backed up everything two days before I left the UK so all I lost was the material in Cape Town, and I, in fact, did little additional work mainly downloading documents which should be accessible in other ways. It was an old computer that I had just purchased from HEARD for R500 as it was being written off so there was not a financial loss. Finally, and fortunately, I had a new work computer waiting, indeed it had been in Durban for four months, I had not picked it up because the old one was still working and I was rather fond of it. The really pain is the writing I did, four good hours of work gone. And I think it was good writing with lots of soul! But maybe that is just hindsite.

Travelling to Cape Town was long. With all the conference attendees the international flights were full so I had to go via Joburg. My brother is immigrating to South Africa and had given me a suitcase to carry as there are five of them and they will have a mountain of luggage. Although I took the train to London, there was no way I could travel across the city on the tube to get the Heathrow express with all the luggage. I needed a taxi.

I walked from the train to the rank at Liverpool Street Station with my carry-on bag precariously balanced on the handle of one of the large suitcases. It is possible to negotiate fares and with traffic it could have been very expensive to get across London to the airport. I asked the first driver on the rank if he was prepared to agree a fixed price from Liverpool Street to Heathrow.

“No way” he said, “It has to be on the meter, mate”.

I asked approximately what he thought it would cost and was told £70. Experience is that it can be cheaper. I asked the next cabbie if he would give me a price.

“Yeah,” he said, ” I’ll do it for £50 mate, hop in. “

In fact the journey took an hour and the amount on the meter was £74. I told the cabbie that I was quite happy to pay £55, as that is what I had budgeted for and felt was an appropriate fare. He would not accept it. What a nice man. Mind you by the end of the journey I knew quite a lot about him, his wife, children, dog, goldfish and where he was taking everyone for supper that evening.

On the whole the trip over was good as I was able to read all the papers, chapters, theses, inputs etc that I had in my folder and in addition to that watched the film “He’s just not that into you”. This is a fairly light, but nonetheless thought provoking insight to behaviors among men and women in the dating game and beyond. Apart from Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck it was really nice to see Kris Kristofferson on the screen. The other film I have seen recently was “Sunshine Cleaning”, the story of a single mother who takes on cleaning up after crime scenes and biohazards as a way of making a living. It was astutely observed and very funny. I believe it is by the same team as made “Little Miss Sunshine”.

Cape Town was beautiful especially since the weather was superb nearly every day. On the Friday we had the IAS Governing Council Meetings, a Finance Subcommittee and then the Executive Committee (for additional information see www.iasociety.org). (We had hoped that our web address could be http://www.ias.org but that had been taken the International Association of Sufism. There was a preconference meeting on “Accelerating the Impact of HIV Programming on Health Systems Strengthening” for Health Systems Experts, HIV Researchers and Implementers. This was on 17th and 18th July organized by Jac Jacqueline Bataringaya the IAS Senior Policy Advisor ably assisted by Jennifer Knoester . The opening evening consisted of a presentation by Debrawok Zwedie of the World Bank and a reception. This was notable because the wine ran out before I had had more than a couple of mouthfuls. We went to the bar and ordered a bottle of Beyerskloof Pinotage, an excellent wine, of which I am increasingly fond (although not to excess).

On the Friday I moderated the first session of the meeting for two hours in a draconian protestant manner! I dashed to the IAS Governing Council meeting to give my treasurer’s report, caught a taxi to the Radisson Hotel to give a presentation for Tibotec to a group of German doctors, arriving with 30 seconds to spare, and dashed back to the Health Systems meeting to give my keynote address. This was the last presentation of the evening and turned out to be challenging as the technology failed. I had to begin without a PowerPoint and then discovered I was talking to old slide set. It was a lesson about the need to check and then recheck.

On the Sunday I went to visit my uncle and aunt and leave the suitcase for my brother to pick-up in due course. I went to lunch in Hout Bay, and confirmed that Atlantic ocean is freezing, a little wave broke behind my back and drenched my shoes! In the evening we watched the opening ceremony and had a late dinner.

The Monday was hectic because I had IAS things to do and then in the evening was a panelist for Merck. This was great fun. We sat on a couch in a full room and answered questions! It was good to meet up with old friends. It was followed by a dinner. I did not get to bed until after 12.00, having excused myself before everybody else had finished eating because there was so much to do.

On the Tuesday things began easing down a bit although I was on a panel in the evening presenting the outcomes of our pre-conference meeting. This session was chaired by Debrawok and was rather poorly attended. As she pointed out this was due to the fact that the events we were competing with were offering wine and snacks where we just had intellectual input.

As I got up to speak I said “This is not surprising but as you all know the only way to get a drink out of an economist is to stick your finger down this throat”.

An adaption of a rather good line from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

After this we all went to an excellent Ethiopian restaurant called ‘Addis in the Cape’ where we were joined by Debra’s husband and her daughter, who has just completed Medical School. Again it was a very late night, in fact I think I crawled into bed at 2 am and had to be up at 7am to be at the conference by 7.30.

Wednesday saw the end of the conference with an excellent closing session, thoroughly enjoyed by all. I sat through the track summaries, a really good way of hearing about everything that I had missed. Thursday was a series of post-conference meetings and generally having a chance to relax and on Friday I headed for Durban and as I said as I began this letter, lost my computer.

The Waterford Governing council meeting (www.waterford.sz) on Saturday was smooth sailing, always a relief. The school is in a strong position, numbers are high and funding is flowing. It was extremely cold in Mbabane and I watched the Boks beat New Zealand in the tri-nations game, sitting in my hotel room, heater on and wrapped in a blanket.

It also seems as though the pace of death has slowed down a little, the grave yard at the foot of the Waterford hill had no services going on when I drove up, in the past there have been three or four groups of mourners huddled round the open scars of graves. But the graveyard now has a name, “The Mbabane Resting Place’.

Books

The Comfort of Men by Dennis Altman (William Heinemann Australia (1993) 247 pages).

Dennis is one of the IAS Governing Council members and a pioneers in HIV. He’s at Latrobe University in the Australia and is a noted political scientist. When I sent out an e-mail some time ago talking about the fact I was going to write a novel, Dennis responded very kindly and said he thought it was a great idea and he had written one. He then brought it to the conference. It is a thought provoking, interesting and well-written novel, which talks about what it is like to be gay in Australia in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. It begins with the independence of Tasmania from the Commonwealth of Australia and the story is built around two ‘comings out’., that of the main character and also of Tasmanian and Australian nationhood.

The Northern Clemency Phillip Hensher (HarperPerennial (2009) 736 pages).

Based in Sheffield in England it is a good family saga, which I thoroughly enjoyed and would strongly recommend. Ironically it turns out that Phillip Henshaw is also gay, he appeared on the The Sunday Independent pink list as one of the more influential gay people in the UK. From Amazon: ‘A tremendous book. Against an unfashionable 1970s background Philip Hensher has composed not so much a condition-of-England as a condition-of-humanity novel, which is gripping and surprising and shocking in all kinds of unpredictable ways, and enormously wide in psychological and moral scope. What a writer he is!’ Philip Pullman ‘Wise and strong and unputdownable.’ A.S. Byatt, Financial Times (Book of the Year)

Being a Distinguished Visiting Fellow And Freezing In Ottawa

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I am now back in Norwich having completed the visit as Distinguished Visiting Fellowship in Ottawa. Here is my plane letter/diary, which I kept while I was there and finished on the way back to the UK.

The visit was hectic. On my first Friday I gave the Founders Seminar at Carleton which was reasonably well attended. I spoke on HIV/AIDS and social justice, not something I knew a great deal about so it was good to have the chance to get my head round the issue. The following Monday I gave a seminar which was attended by a crowd of two people, a third put their head round the door and fled. Fortunately, for my ego, on Tuesday I gave a class which the students were expected to attend so it was full. This was organised by Chris Brown a Professor in the Department of Politics. He came to get me to walk across the campus. I recognised him. I had met him in Botswana where he had been a District Officer “Development” based in Molepolole in Kwaneng district.

The first weekend was not active, mostly sorting out my work and actually writing a bit. The week had passed so quickly that I was feeling a little panicked at how much I had to do and how much had not been done. I was invited out on Saturday by Carolyn McMaster, a friend of long standing. She was in Pretoria in the early 1980s, handling the CIDA support to Botswana, when I was an ODI Fellow there. She invited two couples who had been posted in South Africa by the Canadian Foreign Ministry. We had a fun evening, mainly talking about things Southern African. I had asked directions to bottle store at the hotel and ended up in one that sold only Ontario wine. I got the most expensive, which was $29-00 a bottle. The fact that this was the most one could spend on a bottle is telling. It was a Syrah, and to be honest it was not too bad. Somehow the words Ontario and wine don”t go together in my mind.

I subsequently had an interesting interaction with the shop assistant at that store. There was a sign saying that they do not take $100 bills. I asked if this were legal. “Yes”, she said, “we don’t keep change”. I thought about this and it seemed a little illogical. “OK”, I asked, “If I buy $96 worth of wine then you will accept the $100”. “No”. “Then this does not make sense”. She agreed but was most upset that I had called her on it.

The 17th March was St Patrick”s day, not marked in the UK or South Africa, but very different here. The streets were full of people wearing green, with shamrocks inked on their faces (and possibly other body parts), and silly little hats. Either there is an Irish community in this city or any excuse for a party.

I usually took the bus from Ottawa University to Carleton. It is the large yellow American school bus. I have always wanted to be on one of those. However, interestingly the seats were really uncomfortable and there were no seat belts. Sitting at the back was quite unpleasant and made me feel ill. So the commute was 12 minutes fast walk to the bus, a 15 minute journey and then five minutes in the “tunnels” at Carleton. The tunnels are amazing, they join all the buildings. It is possible to walk from one end of the campus to the other without going outside. They are populated by people who drive “the carts”, which are sort of golf carts that scoot through the tunnels to do, who knows what missions. I wonder if there is a sub-culture developing, “sub” in both senses of the word.

The hotel room I was in had a small kitchen (it was really an apartment) and there was a laundry on my floor, which was good. Having washed shirts during my first week I set about ironing them. It was a very long time since I had done this, and the iron turned itself off every 15 minutes as a safety feature. So frustrating. I then discovered a laundry across the street that would do all this for $1-49 per shirt. My basic philosophy when travelling is to try to avoid have laundry done when the cost is greater than the price paid for the garment originally, but this was well below that and such a saving on time.

Right next door was a gym. I had originally chosen this hotel, (www.suitedreams.com) because it had the best exercise room of all the ones suggested, but then I spotted the gym. They charged $65 a month ($70 with the tax), so I joined. I figured if I went 10 times it would be worth it and was full of good intentions of going in the morning and evening! Hah! But I did manage 20 visits ($3-50 per visit says the economist in me) and also got a great deal of reading done on the bicycle and cross trainer so was pleased with myself.

Ottawa is an interesting little city. I soon developed a feel for the area round the hotel and the Universities. The weather was kind over the month I was there. There was snow on the ground when I arrived and the canal was frozen. By the time I left the canal was mostly thawed and almost all the snow melted. I got down to a vest, shirt and fleece by the end of the visit, which meant that some of the locals were going round in shirts with the sleeves rolled up. At the beginning my dress was vest, t-shirt, shirt, fleece and coat!

As the 18th was my birthday I decided to go to a “Comedy Club” round the corner, “Yuk Yuks” on Elgin. It was the fourth round of the Canadian stand up comedy championships. The club had an empty bar upstairs, with a faint sour smell of puke, and a packed basement. Some of it was very funny, some was not! Then I had a MacDonald”s vanilla shake as a special treat. I think what I particularly like is the chemical additive taste.

My second weekend was rather fun. On the Friday I was invited to the annual Royal Commonwealth Society Humanitarian dinner. It was attended by the great and the good of Ottawa and I think the average age was 60+. I was the only male present who was not wearing a tie (I simply don”t have one). It was rather like being one of the characters in a Robertson Davies novel. The people were nice and very earnest. The guest of honour had been Canadian High Commissioner in South Africa, where he was mugged rather badly. He spoke from the heart about his impoverished childhood and upbringing, and then went on to describe the despair felt by aboriginal children, who have an alarmingly high suicide rate. He is engaged in trying to improve their lives through literacy.

On the second Saturday I went out to the University and worked all day. I got a great deal done and felt very pleased with myself. My host here, is Michael Brklacich, Chair of the Geography and Environmental Studies Department (to see who he is and information about the department see http://www.carleton.ca/geography/faculty/brklacich.html ), was given tickets for an ice hockey game. His neighbour has season tickets and could not go. These were excellent tickets as well, costing $190 each, and about six rows away from the ice. Mike very kindly invited me to go with him. It was deeply interesting and a lot of fun. I ate the most unhealthy meal I have had for ages, a steak sandwich with fries. I avoided the beer and had a glass of red wine instead. The game was fast and furious and in the end the Ottawa Senators (our team) won by four goals to one.

Sunday I tried working, not very successfully I am afraid. In the evening I went and had dinner with Peter Henshaw who works for the Privy Council as an advisor. He is also an expert on post world war two history of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland. I filled about four pages of my notebook which was really interesting (a small but select group of people share this enthusiasm).

The third week had to be one of writing, and it was. I decided, after the discussion with Pete to try “pitch” an op-ed proposal to the Globe and Mail published in Toronto. They showed interest and so that was an additional small task, altogether about a day of drafting, getting comments and submitting it. It was run on the 2nd April the day of the public lecture. An op-ed is only 700 words, so they have to be carefully chosen, see The Globe and Mail.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I wrote. On the Wednesday evening I gave a presentation to the Africa interest group, made up of past diplomats and are an interesting group of people trying to influence Canadian foreign policy. I then had dinner with Stephen Lewis, who is an iconic Canadian public figure. He is also a thoroughly decent person with a sense of humour, I came away having changed my mind on some things.

Thursday was a pain because I had to travel to New York, and that meant catching the 06h15 plane. It seemed to me, that, as I already had a boarding pass, getting to the airport an hour before departure would be ample time. Wrong! There is a US immigration office at Ottawa and this took for ever, indeed I resorted to asking people in the queue if they would mind me going ahead of them. It was ok but a bit stressful.

The cab ride in from La Guardia was simple and quick. The two day meeting was held at the Desmond Tutu Centre. This is a former seminary with outstanding 19th-century Gothic architecture. The dinning area or refectory was super with stained glass windows and wood panelling. It has been wonderfully developed and the bed was the most comfortable I have slept in for a very long time. The desk and chair were, on the other hand, totally inadequate. It is worth looking at http://www.ahl-tutucenter.com

In addition to the meeting I was able to see the multi-media show that was unveiled in Durban on 2nd April as part of the South African AIDS conference. This is based on the HEARD project on female truck drivers and was shot by Liz Rubincam. The pictures are on her website http://www.lizrubincam.com under “truck drivers”, and I expect both will soon be on ours http://www.heard.org.za.

It was a busy couple of days and I was quite pleased to get on the plane to Ottawa on Saturday afternoon. Both ways the planes were quite empty and so I was able to stretch out and work, although the flight is short, only 55 minutes in the air. That Saturday was apparently the nicest in Ottawa for months but in New York it was grey and rather miserable. On the Sunday it was pouring with rain but Mike very kindly took me to the Gatineau park outside Ottawa for lunch, it is not far, a 20 minute drive. It was amazing to see the amount of snow on the ground as one left the city and headed for the hills. There must be micro-climates. It was good to get out of the city and be reminded that there is countryside. It would, I think, be spectacular in autumn

By my last week the temperature had risen and there were joggers running wearing just shorts and t-shirts. One measure of temperature would be the number of people outside and what they are wearing. It still seems cold but there are chairs outside restaurants and a few hardy souls are using them. Before it was just the smokers! There was one day when walking to the bus I thought my ears were going to fall off!

The last week was really busy. On the Monday I gave a talk in the morning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a lunch presentation at the IDRC, and then had a meeting and gave a seminar at the University of Ottawa (the other university in the city and quite different, it is French and English medium and much more part of the city whereas Carleton is suburban).

On the Tuesday I talked at the Canadian development agency, CIDA. The finale of my visit was a public lecture on Thursday. This was at Carleton and was, sadly not very well attended, hindsight tells us that it was right at the end of the term and so was a time when most students were either gone or rushing to hand in overdue essays. I began with a joke, well actually I began by saying I was going to tell a joke because “Canadians are terribly serious and you need to know that this is a joke”.

On my final night we organised a dinner at Thai restaurant. It was great. There were 12 of us including people I had not seen for a very long time including Chris Brown”s wife who I had known in Botswana. Jonty Crush (a friend from Waterford days – 37 years ago) was there along with his wife. The last week also saw a number of dinners.
It was a really good four weeks and although not as much was accomplished as I should have liked, it was intense and busy. There was not really a spare moment and looking back there were a number of unexpected achievements. It was a window into Canada and Canadians (they are quite serious and apologise a lot, but on the other recognise they are a favoured nation and take global responsibilities to heart).

I am going to end this letter here because for those people to whom it is being posted it in now four pages long any more words and I will have to either reduce the type size or go on for another two pages. Smaller type is hard to read and I want to watch a movie on the plane so two more pages is not going to happen either. It is also over 2000 words long, which is half the length of the article I wrote and more than three times op-ed.

Travel To The USA

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When I travel I write a letter at the end of the journey for three reasons. First it helps we think about what I have done; second it is a diary; thirdly I want to write and this is a way of getting practice. You may enjoy it, I believe it is a sort of “blog”.

This is the bank holiday weekend in the UK. I have just returned after two weeks in the USA. I went over on Sunday 19th April to Washington. The queue in the US immigration was the longest, but not the slowest, I have ever been in. It took nearly 90 minutes to get through. Once one entered the end there was no way out if you needed to visit the toilet, faint or generally change your mind. I suppose though, in fairness it, was an orderly, regimented queue (the Americans are surprisingly conformist for a nation that boasts of freedom, getting on the train from New York to Washington involves entering a ‘holding pen’ and then queuing with ID on display). Also it beats the scrums of airports like Kiev where the fittest beat their way to the front.

On the Monday I went to a seminar at the World Bank and then gave a presentation at the Centre for Global Development. The Tuesday and Wednesday were spent at the World Bank for the Economic Reference Group meeting (HEARD is the secretariat). I then flew to New York, this was a mistake as it involves getting to and from airports and all the time checking in and going through security procedures. The following week I had a night in DC, but went up and back by train. One of my Ugandan colleagues was in the meeting in DC with me and was then returning to New York to go to the same meeting as me. He flew and as a result had to go to the airport in Washington at 3pm. Due to over booking and delays he did not get to the hotel until 1.30 am. I, by contrast, on the train, left at 5.15 and was at the hotel by 9.30 pm.
The Thursday and Friday were spent with UNDP and other members of the UN family talking about our work and giving them some thoughts on directions. This included a public lecture at UNICEF. It seems the audiences for these meetings have become smaller, a sign of the diminishing interest in HIV/AIDS. An alternative explanation is that it is me! I then had the week end in New York. On the Tuesday I gave a lunch time lecture at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and took the train to Washington for an AIDS2031 financing meeting, returning on the Wednesday night for the IAVI Policy Advisory Committee meeting and then flying out on Friday evening.

So some New York vignettes. – My room was on the 50th floor of the Millennium Hilton Hotel right opposite where the World Trade Centre buildings stood. This area is a building site, with almost round the clock, construction. I started in a room on the 34th floor facing the centre, due to the noise moved up and to the other side of the building. The view was spectacular, Brooklyn Bridge with its tracery of girders, perhaps a mile away, the traffic dominated by the flashes of yellow New York cabs. The Hudson river with bustling boats taking tourists up and down. In the distance Central Park a green oasis in the high rises. And despite being on the 50th floor it was still noisy: sirens, jack hammers, trucks and a throb of people.

At Penn Station I went to buy a book I have wanted to read. There in the bookshop was a stand of Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions. Yes, the VSI on HIV/AIDS was among them, and I had to tell the storekeeper that it was mine. What a nice moment!! When I see it on the stand at Schipol Airport I will know it has made it.

I went out with friends most evenings. On the Saturday we had a pizza and then went to a piano bar called Marie’s Crisis Centre in the East Village. The idea (I learnt) is that the piano player beats out music and people stand round and sing. It was great. The music tended towards Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady and old musicals. I had not realised it was a mainly gay crowd until I noticed that there were very few women and many of the men had their arms round each other.
The cab driver who took me back to the hotel one evening was Irish New York. He travels back to Ireland every two years with an organisation called ‘Sons of Cork’. His father was the last official New York cobblestone layer! He was a fireman and was one of the people called down on 9/11. This brought home to me how traumatic the event was for many people, and of course so many firemen lost their lives.

Walking back to the hotel I asked directions to the World Trade Centre because I can’t bring myself to call it ‘Ground Zero’. The hawker looked at me with disgust a pity and said. “It is not there any more”. So there!
The sunshine was amazing and it is perhaps the New York of streets in shadow that is the most evocative. The hotel was in the financial district. One evening I walked past the stock exchange, but in the side streets though were small shops and union offices. A city of contrast!

And my reading: Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Penguin 312 pages, 2008 . These professors at the University of Chicago argue that totally free markets can lead to disasters because human individuals are not actually very good decision-makers. They are pushing what they call `libertarian paternalism’. It was an interesting book and gave me food for thought. It is too long and too much is from US examples. Worth reading? Yes and 7.5 out of 10 for content; 8 of 10 for ideas and 6.5 for writing styles.

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America by Joe Bageant, Potobello books, 288 pages August 2008. I really enjoyed this book which was recommended by Lori Tarbett in Carleton. Bageant writes about class in the US and the poverty and inequality. Most striking is the lack of hope. Worth reading? Yes and 9 out of 10 for content; 8 for ideas and 8 for writing style, it does get a bit polemical at times.

The Other Side of the Bridge, Mary Lawson. This is fiction and was nominated for the Booker Prize. Published by Chatto & Windus it is 275pp, 2006. She has written one other book ‘Crow Lake’. This is fiction set in Canada at its best. It begins in the mid 1930s and ends in 1990 and is the story of love and sibling rivalry in a small town in Northern Canada. Worth reading? Absolutely! 9 out of 10 for content; 8 for perception and 9 for writing style.
Let me end there and send this off.