Alphabet For Oldies!

Judy in Aus can always make you feel older than you already feel!
Here’s her ‘alphabet for oldies’!

A’s  for arthritis
B’s  the bad back
C’s  the chest pains, perhaps car-di-ac?

D  is for dental decay and decline,
E   is for eyesight, can’t read that top line!
F  is for farting and fluid retention
G  is for gut droop, which I’d rather not mention

H  high blood pressure – I’d rather it low;
I   for incisions with scars you can show.
J   is for joints, out of socket, won’t mend
K  is for knees that crack when they bend.

L’s   for libido, what happened to sex?
M    is for memory, I forget what comes next.
N    is neuralgia, in nerves way down low;
O    is for osteo, bones that don’t grow!

P   for prescriptions, I have quite a few,
just give me a pill and I’ll be good as new!
Q   is for queasy, is it fatal or flu?
R    is for reflux, one meal turns to two.

S   is for sleepless nights, counting my fears,
T   is for Tinnitus; bells in my ears!
U   is for urinary; troubles with flow;
V  for vertigo, that’s ‘dizzy,’ you know.

W   for worry, now what’s going ’round?
X   is for X ray, and what might be found.
Y   for another year I’m left here behind,
Z    is for zest I still have – in my mind!

I’ve survived all the symptoms,
my body’s deployed – And I’m keeping twenty-six doctors fully employed!

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Retardment

This classic from Judy in Australia!
After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:
“We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Bateman’s Bay where everyone lives in nice little houses, and so they don’t have to mow the grass anymore! They ride around on their bicycles and scooters and wear name tags because they don’t know who they are anymore.

They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now. They do exercises there, but they don’t do them very well.  There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on.

At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts! Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night – early birds.

Some of the people can’t get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck. My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too.

When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.!

Awwwww!

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Klout

My Klout score was 64 the last time I checked and I am apparently rated as a ‘top influencer’ for Zambia, as well as having a high score for tourism. Do you know your score – if not it would be a good idea to log on and find out! It matters. Check what the influential Forbes has to say about it.

“It’s fashionable to feign indifference to your Klout score, which measures online influence. Some professionals think it’s uncool to seem too interested in their rankings; others believe all you need to worry about is creating good content. Not so fast, says Alex Lightman, author of Brave New Unwired World: The Digital Big Bang and the Infinite Internet. Klout, he argues, is an indispensable way to showcase your expertise in a fast-changing marketplace – and a powerful egalitarian force that privileges know-how over who you know.

Thanks to Klout, says Lightman, “We don’t have to use the logical fallacy of deferring to authority. Just because someone’s from MIT doesn’t mean they know something up-to-date on a particular subject.” Instead, there’s now another option – to reward people based on demonstrated expertise: “Now we have a fair and objective way to see who gets a shot.”

Lightman – who has an impressive Klout score of 81 out of 100 and is considered the #1 authority on topics such as the singularity and the future – has worked hard at building his network and his score. That effort is valuable, he says, because Klout measures and encourages the right things online – whether you’re engaging with your network and producing quality content. “If you just go and add a bunch of people on Twitter or Facebook but you’re not conversing or interacting, that will kill your Klout score,” he says.

Lightman’s posts often have a scientific bent, but he focuses on generating high-quality conversations about topics as eclectic as government in ancient Rome and optimal exercise techniques. “I have intelligent people listening and participating in the conversation,” he says. Spending time developing your network, says Lightman, can improve your access to new ideas, capital, potential collaborators, and publicity opportunities. Most importantly, it might change your mind: “One of the things about having a high Klout score is I don’t have to know everything,” he says. “I can now just host conversations, as opposed to having to know it all. I don’t constantly have to be Mr. Science News; I can post a cat picture…People don’t feel a need to argue me to the ground, and I’m not as wedded to an absolute position as I used to be, because there’s always somebody who can come up with new evidence.”

So how can you improve your own Klout score? Lightman has three tips to share.

Don’t be formulaic. It’s not about posting X many times a day, or only on certain topics. “I feel sorry for people who think they have to follow a formula,” he says. “They miss the coolness of it. What you ate for dinner is not novel, not a surprise. You want things to emerge out of your life – so you have to live a life full of surprises. If you’re surprised and delighted with your own life, other people will be excited, too.”

Pictures tell the best stories. Lightman collects interesting photos and then – instead of regular, descriptive captions – will come up with funny alternative scenarios. He’s constantly brainstorming ways to inform and entertain his network: “If they go to my [Facebook] wall, they’re going to see something new.”

Give back. One of Lightman’s most popular innovations is his pledge to spend 40 hours per year helping others by answering questions. His periodic “Ask Me Anything” sessions on Facebook have produced thoughtful dialogues on world population, artificial intelligence, and alternative energy.

Do you think Klout score matters? What are your strategies for engaging with your online network and creating great content?

Well?
 
 
 
 
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Pistol With A Bullet!

 George da Soulchild Kaufela, co-presenter of our regular Sunday night radio show on Zambezi 107.7 fm recently interviewed Zambian singing sensation JK about his hot new single ‘Pistol’ which we aired on last week’s show!

 New JK video featuring Ethiopian singer Hanni gets lots of praise!
JK has released his latest video for his song “Pistol” . This song features Ethiopian singer Hanni, who was a participant in last years ‘Big Brother Africa’. JK is known for making great videos and this one is no exception. The concept, dances, lighting and the costumes are all top quality!
The song is mostly in English and it will surely be all over Africa and beyond as soon as it is on Channel O and MTV Base. It is one of the best Zambian videos of the year so far.
       
Wonder boy Jordan Katembula, popularly known as JK, has said that his main focus now is to produce music and videos that will be accepted internationally. JK who is one of the pioneers of contemporary Zambian music has ‘also released a new single dubbed Pistol to accompany the video. The single comes with the high definition quality video produced by Ground Zero. The high quality video has already attracted many likes and praises on social network sites.

The singer, who stormed the scene over 13 years ago as a solo artist, has recorded five albums with three of them going platinum.

On Tuesday Zambezi FM breakfast show presenters George & E-Vibes spoke to JK via phone and asked him about his forthcoming album and when it may be released. JK in reply said it would be in about 2 months’ time just after his Atlanta tour. He also said he hah decided to work with African artistes like Fally Ipupa, Navio and Hanni just to mention a few, while locally with B-flow, Raydo and PJ on his new project.

No 1 with a bullet we suspect!

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Musical Instruments from Vancouver to Lusaka

This piece from the Vancouver Sun caught my eye – more especially as I have a sister and niece in Vancouver and family in other parts of Canada too! It’s a great story!

As you read this, there’s a ship bound for Africa with 126 musical instruments on board. They’re all from Greater Vancouver save for one, a double bass, that was trucked here from Toronto. There are violins, guitars, drums, clarinets, trumpets, trombones, cellos, a euphonium, recorders, tubas, that double bass and three pianos, including an old, elegant, and lovingly restored upright that once adorned the hallway of a 100-plus-year-old house on Kits Point.

The ship left Vancouver on Boxing Day for Italy, Oman and ultimately Tanzania, where the instruments will be unloaded and trucked to their final destination, the Ngomo Dolce Music Academy in Lusaka, Zambia and the 100 or so students who study there.

At least if everything goes according to plan, they will. It is Africa, after all, and as Heidi Krutzen (above), the Vancouver harpist who organized the expedition knows, things don’t always run smoothly. Nevertheless, she hopes they’ll arrive in March. And she intends to be there when they do — she left Vancouver Sunday, headed for Zambia by way of Scotland. “I get a lot out of this. I love seeing the smiles on the children’s faces and knowing I’ve made a difference to them. And I learn a lot whenever I’m there.”

It was on a 2011 visit to Zambia that Krutzen learned about the Ngomo Academy. She and a colleague, Jocelyn Banyard, were there working on behalf of Malambo Grassroots, a society they’d created to foster education, village health and income generation for women, when she heard about the stifling three-room schoolhouse and its struggling staff of four full-time and two part-time teachers endeavouring to teach western music to about 100 eager students using a few electric keyboards, drums and, bizarrely, a harpsichord. They even had a small collection of handmade instruments.

“I thought it was wonderful what they were trying to do there,” Krutzen recalls, “but Africa wasn’t supposed to be about music for me. It’s what I do all the time, so I didn’t want to get involved. But when I got home, the wheels started spinning.”

An email to colleagues at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra about the school resulted in a violin, a violin case and a piece of music. The next day it brought a piano. After that, a deluge “from the opera, the freelance music community, music schools, music businesses, the jazz community, the world music community”.

But before it could be sent anywhere, it all had to be recorded, stored, wrapped and boxed, a task that took Krutzen hundreds and hundreds — and hundreds — of hours to accomplish.

No wonder she wants to see it arrive.

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Scott Taylor & Aimee Aspinall Drop Kick ‘The Experience’

Milli Jam, co-host of our regular Sunday night radio show, The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild, was quick to ask our guests last Sunday “which country do you come from?” Scott and Aimee, pictured above, told listeners that they were from New Zealand, Scott from Auckland and Aimee from Dunedin. “That’s a small country near Australia that recently won the Rugby World Cup” Scott continued. Talk about getting it in early! “Where were you when that happened?” We asked this engaging couple. “Well actually I was there!” Replied Scott proudly, “and I was in London on the phone trying to make sense of what he was drunkenly trying to tell me!” Quipped Aimee. We laughed.

Our programme goes out at 18.30 hrs GMT every Sunday night on Zambezi 107.7 fm and is a cool mixture of music and chat. The show streams live on the internet too. We’re popular locally not just for the great music we play, but because we give away a dinner for two at Chanters Lodge on each show! The prize goes to the first person to text us telling us who’s singing our oldie of the week. On this particular show no-one won! Ha ha! The track I played was ‘Macarena’ by Los del Rio – everyone knew the track, no-one knew the artists. As our next show will be on Christmas Day we promised to carry forward the prize, make it easier and dinner for four people to compensate! So watch out for that one!
Scott and Aimee told listeners that they’d spent the last 7 years living in London, working but travelling whenever and wherever they could. Scott works in IT and Aimee in property management. This was their first visit to Africa and they were very much looking forward to their three week safari through Botswana, Namibia and South Africa which would start in a few days’ time ending in Cape Town. From there they would head home to New Zealand for a visit with friends and family before moving to Sydney, Australia where Scott was scheduled to take up a new appointment. “Are you married?” Milli Jam asked. “No, but he’s popped the question and I said yes!” Replied Aimee, breathless and excited!
The music on the show was cool and latest as usual. Dev featuring Enrique Iglesias with ‘Naked’ kicked off the programme back to back with Natalia Kills featuring Far East Movement and ‘Lights Out’. Local tracks were ‘My Police’ latest from Magic Links featuring K’Millian coupled with ‘Ngani i Gelo Wandi’ by Macky 2 featuring Dandy Krazy and Kanene. Milli Jam featured ‘Never Lost’ by BoB ft TI and Coldplay, back to back with Rihanna’s ‘Drunk On Love’. We wound up with T-Pain’s smash ‘5 O’Clock’ featuring Lily Allen then Sway’s ‘Still Speeding’.

Aimee told listeners about her two years working in broadcasting in New Zealand. We wanted to know how she and Scott had met and they told us it had been in a bar in Dublin where they’d both been with friends. Was it love at first sight? “Pretty much so!” They seemed to agree. They also told our listeners they were very much looking forward to having tea on Livingstone Island the following day and swimming in Devil’s Pool. They hoped it would be the highlight of their stay.

Asked where they’d like to be and what they’d like to be doing 10 years from now, this great looking, happy couple said they’d like to be back in New Zealand, running their own business and married. “Children?” We wondered. “Yeah! Why not?” Was their eventual reply! 

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President Elect of Zambia -Hon Michael C Sata

Congratulations to President Elect of Zambia Hon Michael C Sata on his victory at the polls, following tripartite elections in Zambia on my birthday 20th September! Noisy celebrations continued in Livingstone throughout last night and were still happening as we drove to work at 6.15 hrs. Appropriately it’s a warm, sunny morning in Livingstone.

Mr Sata was District Governor of Lusaka when I was General Manager of Southern Sun Ridgeway Hotel in the 80’s and his offices at the Civic Centre were opposite mine at the hotel. He occasionally used to phone saying “I can see you from here, and you’re not working!” Just imagine!

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Peter & Gill Langmead on Zambezi 107.7 fm



Meet Peter and Gill Langmead from Chisamba, north of Lusaka, who’ve been visiting Livingstone to see the lunar rainbow over Victoria Falls for the first time, even though they’ve lived in Zambia for many years. So, we took the chance of inviting them to guest on The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient, our regular Sunday night radio show airing on Zambezi fm every Sunday at 20.30 hrs Zambian time, and also streaming live on the internet. Peter and Gill own Langmead and Baker – click the link to read all about their company!

“Did the lunar rainbow live up to expectations?” Milli Jam asked our guests at the beginning of the programme. “It probably exceeded them” replied Peter “it was absolutely fantastic!” “Did you get some good photos?” We wanted to know. “Absolutely!” said Gill “in fact we’ve already posted quite a lot of them on the internet via Twitter and Facebook”. “How did you hear about Chanters Lodge?” asked Milli Jam. Our guests went on to explain that they’d first made contact with me through Twitter and everything had then fallen into place when they came to make their arrangements to visit Livingstone and see the lunar rainbow. Of course they’d found time to do other things as well, including visits to Livingstone Museum and the Railway Museum, as well as Lawrence Yombwe’s fabulous art gallery.

Peter explained that he’d first come to Zambia in the mid 80’s and that for most of his career he’d been involved in agricultural development – for much of that time with cassava. We were amazed to hear about the many uses of this shrubby plant whose starch filled roots are much in demand in Zambia for food. For some time Peter and Gill produced cassava starch commercially. They’d been involved in many other things, we heard, including but not limited to, the production of essential oils and bath soap, the publication for 5 years of Beauty Zambia magazine and handling media interests and public relations for British Airways in Zambia, amongst a load of other corporate clients!

The music on the show was great. We opened with Cher Lloyd’s ‘Swagger Jagger’ (number one last week in the UK), back to back with One Direction’s ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ – “sure fire future hit” I commented. Our Zambian tracks were ‘Vomela’ by Dalitso and ‘Nalilwala’ by Afunika. (The first track saying ‘if you’re sick, accept it’ and the second ‘I’m sick’ ….apparently!) Milli Jam also featured ‘My Life’ by DJ Khaled and Akon coupled with ‘Oleku’ by Prince ft Brymo. Our oldie of the week was ‘Dancing On The Ceiling’ by Lionel Richie and we closed with Jessie J’s ‘Sometimes Dreams Come True’. (In a disappointing number of replies Enoch won a dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge for texting us that it was Lionel Richie singing ‘Dancing’.) The Langmeads informed us that they were friendly with Hip-Hop Mr Cri$iS with whom they had been involved on the United Against Malaria campaign.

Peter and Gill told listeners that they’d been married for 11 years and had originally met in England (in a Hampshire wine bar!) They’d spent some time living in Thailand. Gill’s background was in journalism but at the moment their focus was on public relations and media matters. Peter had just returned from a trip to the far north of Zambia and when they left Livingstone the next morning they were heading for Choma to research a vitamin A enhanced maize.

Interesting, lively and nice guests? You bet!

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Fable Of The Porcupine


Thanks to Judy in Australia for this one! Love it!

The Fable Of The Porcupine

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold.

The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm.

This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions. After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen.

So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.

Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came from the others.

This way they were able to survive.

The moral of the story?: The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person’s good qualities.

The real moral of the story…..

LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE PRICKS IN YOUR LIFE OR FIND YOURSELF COLD AND ALONE!

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Gayle-Anne Drury on The Chanters Lodge Experience


There were some technical issues on the latest edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild – partly I guess because George wasn’t around this week – wearing his rapper hat George aka ‘Kaufela’ had gone to Lusaka to try and speed up the release of his forthcoming album. However it was a good show and our Guest Gayle-Anne Drury, pictured above, was a lively and interesting Guest. Our programme goes out on Zambezi 107.7 fm radio in Livingstone and streams live on the internet every Sunday night at 18.30 hrs GMT, 20.30 hrs Zambian time.

Gayle-Anne, a psycho therapist was staying at Chanters Lodge. She runs an organization in York called Baobab Centre.”The Baobab Centre provides one-to-one support through counselling, coaching and mentoring, training and consultancy to individuals and organisations. They provide the knowledge and understanding which underpins relational management and offer care, expertise, tools and strategies to individuals, teams and organisations to help maximise potential growth and development” Gayle-Anne told listeners.

Her visit to Zambia was to assist Tujatane School in Livingstone on a voluntary basis by way of training their teachers and teaching assistants to counsel, coach, mentor and build relationships. She stressed to listeners the importance of ‘listening’ to build relationships. “Yes” I said “and they should jolly well listen to the Chanters Lodge Experience every Sunday night too”! We moved on. How long had Gayle-Anne been married, Milli Jam asked. “A very, very, very long time!” She replied and refused to divulge further details! She told us of her son Adam 26 and daughter Ruth 24 living in London and doing well.

The music on the show was fine as usual apart from ‘I Wanna Go’ by Britney Spears that refused to play for some reason – perhaps she really did ‘wanna go’! Our Zambian tracks were ‘Manone’ by Chika and the catchy ‘Wa Overtime’ by Salma. “Salma’s telling her audience that she doesn’t want one night stands but something longer term” explained Milli Jam – I thought perhaps the lyrics were deeper than this, but no further explanation was forthcoming! The very latest releases from Example – ‘Stay Awake’ and Akon ‘Keep Up’ went down well, so too did Nicole Scherzinger’s ‘Right There’ and the worldwide Pitbull/Ne-Yo smash ‘Give Me Everything Tonight’ – the latter had the Chanters Girls singing along at the lodge, so I’m told!

Gayle-Anne told listeners she’d had no time for tourist acitvities while she’d been in Livingstone due to pressure of work. She further revealed that she’d actually been born in Zambia and had undergone most of her primary education here before moving to South Africa then UK. She told us she’d very much enjoyed a visit to Simonga Village the previous day where she’d been invited by friends.

We thanked the staff at the lodge for their very hard and excellent work during the first 10 days of July and gave away the usual dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge to the first person to text us Gayle-Anne’s country of residence. The response was excellent! Delvick won.

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