Here we go again. After closing down Central London for a week or so earlier in the year, the Extinction Rebellion zealots are at it in five British cities this week. Yesterday, a caller to BBC Radio Bristol told the station that the Extinction Rebellion blockade meant he was stuck in traffic and unable to visit his father who was dying in hospital. One of the radio reporters confronted protester, Zoe Jones and played her the man’s phone call.

 Ms Jones said: “We’re incredibly sorry, we didn’t mean for our protest to affect your life in this way. I still believe we are doing the right thing but it’s incredibly difficult to hear stories like that. I’m glad that I heard it and it’s given me a more rounded view of the protest and the gravity of the situation that we’re in.”

Ms Jones added that the incident didn’t make her want to stop protesting for the foreseeable future.

She said: “I guess the reason why we’re all here is for our families.”

What idiotic self-justifying tommytwaddle! These people are disrupting hundreds of lives and will achieve nothing but misery for others. Ms Jones went on,

“I shouldn’t be here standing in the road and stopping people from getting to hospital to see their aged father who is on death’s door.

‘This shouldn’t be happening but we are here and this is the reality and we have to be here.”

She told the reporter she hoped she wouldn’t have to continue protesting for much longer.

“I sincerely hope that politicians listen to what we are saying and allow us to get back to work, allow people to get to their hospital appointments and to allow them to get on with their lives.”

Climate change has been affecting the world since Adam and Eve first thought about making cider, Ms Jones and with the world population expanding at its current rate, there is little any politician can do about it. If you and your fellow cranks all did one little thing to help, you might make an infinitesimal difference, but blocking traffic and causing a huge rise in exhaust gases while disrupting other folks’ lives is hardly the way.

I fear you will only antagonise people who would otherwise support your aims.

Theresa Maybe delivered her final speech as Prime Minister yesterday and not unexpectedly, hit out at other leaders both current and to come. Boris Johnson – I think it was aimed at him – was described as ‘pursuing ideological purity at any price’ and without naming names, others were described as ‘delivering too many empty promises and being unwilling to compromise.’

That is rich coming from the woman who repeatedly promised that she would get us out of Europe by 29^th March, repeatedly said that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal,’ then when she had negotiated a very bad deal that was scorned by all sides of Westminster, refused to compromise in any way.

I had high hopes for Mrs Maybe when she became Prime Minister but will breathe a sigh of relief when she leaves next Tuesday. She has to be the most inept political leader this country has suffered under in my lifetime – and I have seen a fair few of them come and go.

As a young Rhodesian, I served in the Gloucestershire Constabulary for seven years before going home and I was extremely proud to wear the traditional bobbies’ helmet. It was not particularly comfortable and dangerously awkward in a fracas but it was a symbol of all that we were and a point of pride to wear.

Now that very same Gloucestershire Constabulary are equipping their officers with baseball-style caps instead, thereby consigning 150 years of proud history to oblivion.

Apparently, this is to attract young recruits but has anybody given a thought to the dignity of policing? I doubt it. To see police officers walking the streets – on the rare occasions when modern bobbies do walk the streets – looking like workers from a hamburger shop is hardly going to worry the criminal fraternity.

The editorial in one broadsheet reckons that baseball caps are as un-British as baseball itself and more associated with criminals than guardians of the law. I am not a regular reader of that particular newspaper and don’t agree with much that they print, but on this occasion, I heartily concur!

I read that Customs officers in Nairobi have arrested a Chinese tourist attempting to board a flight for Shanghai with 510 genital organs from wild animals in his suitcase.

Thirty-seven year old Ming Zhang Wei was arrested at Jomo Kenyatta airport carrying two suitcases full of animal penises. Three hundred and nine of these were from zebra, forty-six from baboons, thirty-one from buffalo, twenty-seven from giraffes, fourteen from lions and twenty-one from flamingos.

It was the last item that made me wonder as to the veracity of the article. Can flamingo penises be detached? Anyway, if the article is genuine, there is only one possible punishment for Mr Wei.

Perhaps his can also be used for Chinese traditional medicine.

Once again there is a horrified outcry in the tabloids on the subject of trophy hunting. This follows the publication yesterday of a photograph showing a couple – from Canada if I remember correctly – kissing over the carcass of a lion that the woman had shot.

‘Barbaric! Murderous! Ban this abhorrent practice!’ Are the screams from offended scribblers, but I have very mixed feelings on the subject.

In no way would I want to shoot a lion myself, but I was brought up among professional hunters and can understand the thrills involved in ethical hunting – and I stress the ‘ethical.’ In a proper safari, a client can pay thousands of pounds to hunt an animal he has a licence for, walk hundreds of miles through untamed bush to find it and never even see a specimen. The entire experience, although obviously disappointing allows the hunter – usually a rich man or woman who normally enjoys a sedentary lifestyle – to experience the magic of being in the bush – a magic that most tabloid hacks cannot even imagine.

Of course for a successful hunt, an animal must die, but hunting is part of Mankind’s DNA. It is as much part of us as the need to procreate or eat to keep ourselves alive. I have hunted for the pot on many occasions and although it is always sad to see a dead animal, I have always felt that my ‘victims’ died for a cause.

My business card describes me – among other things – as an elephant man and although I once shot an elephant, it was an act of mercy and I certainly don’t regret it. In similar circumstances I would shoot a lion.

Whether the couple depicted smooching over their lion were on an ethical hunt or part of the fairly new and rather horrible practice of canned hunting in South Africa, I don’t know but I am due to give a talk on lions at a Tavistock theatre in October and have been reading up on canned hunting. It does not make for pleasant reading I am afraid.

The business itself is huge, extremely profitable and legal, but it made me shudder at the implications. Let me tell you a little about it.

Lions are bred on various farms – there are over 200 of them in SA – in large pens. In the wild, a female will come into oestrus roughly every two years but if she loses her cubs, she will immediately become fertile again. So on these farms, the cubs are immediately taken away from her so she will breed twice or even three times a year, rapidly wearing out her body.

The cubs are transferred to other farms where they are used as tourist attractions. People love to cuddle and fuss over them and I can understand that. Lion cubs are very cute after all, but all these people are doing is paying the expenses of the breeders. Later on, paying visitors can walk with adolescent but large and dangerous lions, which I am sure is a great thrill. My Sister and my Granddaughter have both done it and showed me the photographs. Describing the experience, I could hear the enthusiasm in their voices and didn’t want to disillusion them, but again they were merely helping with the expenses of a lion farmer. Nobody would want to do that for someone who keeps battery-reared chickens damnit!

When the lions are fully grown, they are advertised in hunting journals around the world so potential clients can even choose the particular animal they want to shoot. Money is handed over and the client doesn’t even need a licence for his or her ‘hunt.’ The client comes in to the farm, spends a day zeroing his or her rifle, the lion is released into a much larger enclosure, sometimes sedated if the client is particularly fearful, then the killing takes place. Baits are frequently used so that the ‘hunters’ know exactly where to find their lion.

Other captive lions are bred solely for their bones, which are exported to China for use in traditional medicine. The ruddy Chinese again I’m afraid! Individually they are very pleasant people I am sure, but collectively they are a scourge on the world. At the moment one hundred and fifty lion carcasses a month are being exported quite legally from South Africa and as all that is required are the bones, the animals do not even have to be in good condition.

At the moment there are up to eight thousand captive lions in South Africa but that number is expected to rise to twenty thousand within the next couple of years. That is more than all the wild lions left in the world – a horrifying statistic! The breeders justify their grisly trade by claiming that they are doing it for conservation but that just isn’t true. Lions raised in captivity cannot survive in the wild, so the number kept on farms is immaterial to the general health of the lion population.

I am not sure I really like lions but in the wild, they are certainly impressive to see. I have been charged three times and it is a scary experience, but those stories are for another day. Looking into details of the canned hunting trade was a depressing exercise and if my words have upset some of you, I am sorry. I shall repeat them and show photographs in my October talk and if I can convince just one person not to handle cute little lion cubs on their South African holiday then I will have helped Panthera Leo in a tiny way.

Professional hunting has a long and honourable tradition but canned hunting is an abomination!

What a day it was for sport in this country yesterday. The Wimbledon final was an absolute cracker, lasting well over five hours and leaving the spectators almost as worn out as the players. Five long sets of absolute effort from both men. I watched bits of it on the idiot box and even though I was also absorbed in the cricket final at Lords, it was wonderful to see.

It renewed my doubts over the gender differentiation in tennis though. The men play five sets, the woman three. Why then should they receive equal pay? To illustrate my point, the Ladies’ final on Saturday lasted less than an hour, in fact it took less time than the first set of the men’s game. Good luck to the young lady who won it, but her efforts certainly couldn’t match up to the titanic struggles of those two blokes yesterday.

Pay them the same by all means, but make the ladies play five sets as well. That is surely fair.

At Lords there was equal excitement. I did not feel that New Zealand had posted enough runs on the board to challenge the English batting line up, but they fielded like men possessed and whittled away the English batsmen. At the end of their fifty overs, the scores were level so a ‘super over’ was brought into play, rather like a penalty shoot out in football or even a tie break in tennis. England went in first and scored fifteen off their over – a formidable target. Then lo and behold, New Zealand also scored fifteen – another tie.

The match was then decided by the number of boundaries hit by each side and came out in England’s favour. How utterly devastating for the New Zealanders that must have been but what an incredible game of cricket. Sport can be very cruel at times!

Back in ‘the real world,’ life goes on and it seems that the only real winners are those who don’t deserve it. Britain’s most notorious and evil female paedophile Vanessa George is being released on parole because ‘she no longer poses a danger to the public.’ Of course she ruddy well does and did the parole board think for one moment about the woman’s victims, all of whom are now at an age where the memories will hurt? Of course they didn’t. Even George’s husband says that he is ‘shocked.’

And a snivel servant in the Northern Ireland office was paid £10,000 compensation because he was ‘offended’ at having to walk past portraits of The Queen and Prince Philip. Lee Hegarty, who had been working in the Northern Ireland Office for around 20 years at the time, is said to have cited Human Rights legislation claiming it was unfair for him to have to work in a place where he was offended by such portraits. 

It all came to light in the House of Lords when Lord Maginnis who is a former Ulster Unionist Party member cited the incident in an attack on both the Northern Ireland office and the Conservatives. He also said that the portraits had been removed and that one was replaced with a photograph of the Queen shaking hands in Belfast with Martin McGuinness, the late Sinn Féin deputy.

Maginnis told the House that Hegarty was consulted on what should replace them. Hegarty suggested that the portrait of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh be removed and that photographs of – at best – the Queen meeting people during engagements in Northern Ireland be put in their place.

Why on earth should he have been ‘consulted’ damnit? 

Lord Maginnis also revealed that Mr Hegarty had now gone on to secure a position at the Northern Ireland Parades Commission. I wonder what he will find to offend him there.

He was doubtless paid with taxpayer money so yet again, we lose and he wins. At least on the sporting field, winners usually deserve their spoils!

When I had my initial interview to become a police officer a hundred years ago, I came before the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire E.C.B (Chalky) Blake-White. He glared somewhat sourly at my skinny frame and scowled at me over his glasses.

‘What are the necessary attributes of a police officer, Mr Lemon?’ Was his first question and I pondered my answer.

‘He must be strong. He must be fit. He must have common sense. He must be honest.’ I ventured and his eyes lit up. He went through a fairly rigorous questioning after that but at the end of the interview informed me that I would be accepted and all on the back of one answer.

‘If you hadn’t mentioned honesty, you would not have passed your interview.’ He informed me gravely and I have always remembered that.

Now I read that the main criterion for the modern copper is to have a university degree and my heart shudders. No wonder British police forces are in such a mess. How on earth does a three year extension of a young person’s schooldays befit that person for a police career?

Thankfully the Chief Constable of Lincolnshire is challenging whichever body of faceless desk-jockeys it was that issued this fatuous ruling. He is taking the matter to Court which is a pretty serious step, even for the Chief Constable. It will cost Lincolnshire police a cool £10 000 but it has to be worth it, if only to bring some sanity back to what was once a noble profession.

At the same time, it seems that universities have gone slightly bonkers with their awarding of first class degrees. Since 2010 the proportion of such degrees has risen by 80%. Yes, you read that correctly – eighty ruddy percent! Bristol University figures for such degrees have risen by 92% in that time and Cambridge University a cool 94%. That surely is not possible?

I just do not believe that people have suddenly become so much more intelligent and in fact, the education secretary, Damien Hinds has been forced to issue a stark warning to universities that common sense must be brought to bear.

Common sense? In 2019? No I’m afraid common sense in government or government sponsored institutions – any large institutions damnit! – went out of the window a long time ago.

I served in two very different police forces over the years and was proud to have done so, but I feel that this desperate need to have paper qualifications for recruits will lead to a general dumbing down of standards and a nice easy time for the criminal fraternity.

That surely can’t be good for the general public, but today the sun is shining – even on Dartmoor – the cricket World Cup Final is being played at Lords (I picked New Zealand to win from the start Mr Hill!) and there is what should be a fantastic men’s’ final at Wimbledon, so I will rant no further.

Till tomorrow at any rate!

Those who know me or have ever read one of my rants, understand that I have a pretty jaundiced view of my fellow human beings. My somewhat waspish opinion of various government departments in the UK is also fairly well documented, but I will divert from my usual acidic scribbling this morning to tell you what happened to me yesterday.

Once a week I try to visit a lovely lady in Plymouth who is in the latter half of her eighties. Margaret is fit, sprightly and utterly adorable so we either sit around her flat and discuss subjects ranging from philosophy, ways of the world, politics or the writings of Swedenborg, or we get on to a bus – due to my advanced age I am allowed to travel free of charge – and head out into the countryside or visit some seaside resort.

Yesterday we decided to sample fish and chips beside the river at Torpoint, just inside Cornwall. We have done it before and it entails a twenty minute bus ride so after chattering for an hour or so, off we set. The fish and chips were excellent – we shared a portion – and the sun was shining so it was wonderful to sit on a bench and watch the boats. As always we set the world to rights but shortly after one, Margaret turned to me and said, ‘David I think we ought to go home. I feel very odd.’

I immediately set to putting our picnic things – we had a flask of tea – into the basket, stood up and turned towards her.

‘Off we go then Sweetheart,’ I said but my lovely little companion was slumped on the bench with her chin on her chest. She was breathing and her pulse was still there but when I lifted her head up, her eyes were closed and her face was chalk-white. I didn’t quite panic (I think) but wondered what on earth to do. There was nobody around to assist and I had only the vaguest idea where we were.

It is amazing what thoughts flit through one’s head at such moments. Was my indomitable little lady dying? It certainly looked that way and I wondered who I should inform, what to do at that moment and whether to administer artificial respiration. Could I even get her off the bench and on to the grass. I didn’t know and panic was setting in.

After trying to get a response from Margaret for nearly ten minutes, I took out my cell phone – thank goodness I had it with me for a change – and dialled 999. I asked for the ambulance service and a young lady came on so I explained the situation. She fired questions at me and I answered as best I could, but when she asked for an exact location, I was stymied. I knew we were on Marine something-or-the-other because I had noticed the road sign on our way in, but couldn’t remember whether it was Parade, Road, Drive or whatever. The lass on the line was insistent on an exact location though, which I suppose was fair enough.

She was patient with me though and kept the line open till the paramedics finally arrived.

Propping my unconscious companion up on the bench I wandered across the road and approached a lady who was getting into her car. She was wearing a vaguely medical uniform but I only half noticed that.

‘Are you alright?’ She asked and I admitted that I was not and asked where we were so that I could inform the ambulance service. She gave me the address and I went back to the lass on the phone while the good lady – whose name I later discovered was Rachael – hurried across to Margaret.

She was wonderful, the lovely Rachael! Questions were being fired at me down the phone but she was able to answer them all – I would have foundered and probably burst into tears at some point – so I was able to keep the 999 lassie fully informed.

We laid poor Maggie down on the bench and another lady arrived with a blanket to put under her head and a large umbrella to keep the sun off my wounded warrior.

As you can imagine my mind was in an absolute whirl. How was I to get Margaret home? When would I get home to distant Princetown? Where was the ruddy ambulance?

In fact the ambulance came from Liskeard, nearly twenty miles away so it was a lengthy and worrying wait. Just before it arrived, Margaret began to respond to Rachael’s gentle patter. She couldn’t talk but her eyelids fluttered and she was making little sounds in her throat. Then her eyes opened and colour began coming back into her face. At that stage I really wanted to cry and when her eyes opened properly and she looked around for me, I did.

When the ambulance arrived, I told the lass on the telephone and she wished me luck which of course made me burst into tears so I couldn’t thank her for her assistance. If you ever read this Ma’am – thank you.

Two lovely young paramedics named Amy and Ali took over the scene. They were brisk, efficient, friendly and helpful. They felt that Margaret was probably suffering from dehydration and made her drink a large bottle of water while conducting numerous tests. I was an emotional mess at that stage and Rachael answered most of the questions directed at me. Then she (Rachael) took me off to one side, put her arms around me and told me I was suffering from shock and to try and rest as soon as I could. Huh! There was little chance of that and I still needed to get Margaret home, but I thanked Rachael from the bottom of my heart and only now, wish I had got her address so I could send her flowers or something. I don’t know whether she saved Margaret’s life, but she did wonders for mine.

The final test for Margaret was an ECG in the ambulance itself and another problem immediately arose. It was a brand new vehicle and had no mounting step on the side door. We literally had to lift poor Margaret in because she is very small and her legs just would not reach the doorway. That led to a tirade from both paramedics against faceless desk jockeys who design such things without ever having been at the sharp end.

How often have I railed against such people?!

Rather than put us back on the bus, the girls took us back across the river and delivered us to Margaret’s back door. Ali rode in the back of the ambulance with Margaret and I so we talked through the journey. I was interested to hear that she is disillusioned with the day to day running of the ambulance service.

‘I love my job,’ she told me, ‘but if I had to start again, I would not join the ambulance service. Everything is regulated to the ‘nth degree and everyone is frightened to make decisions.’

Sounds familiar somehow!

Back at her home, I made Margaret take a couple of paracetamol for her headache and told her to go to bed. Against her wishes I rang her daughter and put her in the picture, then I left, somewhat shaken and yes, probably suffering from a bit of shock.

It was a salutary and sobering experience, but thanks to Rachael, Amy, Ali and the lovely couple who helped, my opinion of humanity in general has taken a general upturn. They really are helpful when one is in trouble.Thankfully Margaret is fine. I rang her this morning and although she sounded weak, she was her usual chirpy self.

Back to ranting tomorrow I reckon.

After a fairly brutal day yesterday – I left early to drive 160 miles or so to Gloucestershire, gave a talk then drove back again – today it is back to the problems of what is said to be the Real World. I think I prefer the world of Peter Pan!

My Talk yesterday was called A Taste of Africa and at one point I mentioned that modern Africa is comprised of 54 free and independent countries. Many of them fought for their freedom and all of them wanted to be free and independent from outside control. I added that the only country in the world which apparently doesn’t want to be free and independent is Britain. That drew a nervous titter from my audience and it really does seem that this country is tearing itself apart over the independence issue.

Does that mean that Britain was wrong to grant independence to her colonies, most of whom were in far more parlous states at the time than Britain is today? Of course it does, but such is the perfidy of British politicians that they cared nothing about the people they were condemning to an uncertain future. Yet now that they face a vaguely uncertain future themselves, the political cognoscenti are running around like headless chickens.

What a pathetic bunch they are!

Now it would seem that even the resignation of Kim Darroch as Britain’s man in Washington is being put down to sneaky Brexiteers. Everyone wants to know who leaked the incriminating memos that cost Darroch his job and have caused such enormous diplomatic problems. Yesterday the government announced that the police are now involved in a probe being led by the Cabinet Office. 

There are four main theories about who could have been responsible: Someone acting for a hostile state, a US spy source, a Brexiteer government minister or a disgruntled snivel servant.

Perhaps the most popular of the theories is that a pro-Trump, pro-Brexit minister must have leaked the material in a bid to force Sir Kim out so that he could be replaced with someone more sympathetic to Brexit. The fact that Boris Johnson served as foreign secretary between July 2016 and July 2018 has meant he has been viewed with much suspicion by the Remoan lobby. How damned ridiculous this whole affair is becoming! The offending memos date from 2017 right up to the present day so Johnson could hardly have had anything to do with them. He was fired from government circles a long time ago.

To my mind, the leaker is bound to be another snivel servant who works on the ambassador’s staff and is not very happy about things. I hope they do discover who he/she is and he/she is made an example of but I am not holding my breath. It means that the cops will have to find the culprit and are they really up to that?

The standard of policing in modern Britain was typified for me this morning by a piece in one of the papers about an incident where a young mother in Newcastle was left horrified when police knocked on her door. The cops had received a report from the NSPCC – another grandstanding body of interfering busybodies – that her children were naked in the garden. That I presume meant that the kids were in grave danger of something, so needed to be protected. The nanny state once more springing into action

The officers found the children – aged 2 and 5 damnit – playing happily in a paddling pool.

With all their protestations about cuts and overwork, how on earth can two bobbies be detached from other duties to attend to what was obviously a silly complaint. It was a warm afternoon with plenty of sunshine. I am sure hundreds of children were playing in paddling pools around the country and few if any of them would have been fully dressed.

When I became a police officer all those years ago, it was drummed into me that common sense was to be used at all times. What on earth has happened to common sense among modern guardians of the law?

In another piece, a Christian doctor is suing the Department for Work and Pensions says he lost his job after a recruitment agent asked whether or not he’d call a bearded man ‘madam’.

Dr David Mackereth says that he was wrongfully sacked for refusing to call people who were born male ‘she’ even if they now identify as female. The good doctor is totally justified in his behaviour. Each and every one of us is born the way we are and this current craze to choose one’s gender is leading to ever more fatuous cases like this one.

I hope Dr Mackereth wins his case and is awarded millions although where this benighted government will find the millions I really don’t know.

One of the joys of my Taste of Africa talk is that it takes me and my audiences back into an apparently crazy but far saner world where political correctness does not apply.

Oh for such a world!

After a few days of pleasant temperatures, described as a ‘heat wave’ by some sections of the Media, I woke to see that familiar dank mist drifting over Dartmoor. One newspaper assures me that temperatures are due to plummet over the next few days and the cricket semi-finals are likely to be rained off, another tells me that the heatwave will continue and probably get worse.

I think I will nip next door and ask my neighbour Graham. He has lived on the Moor for well over half a century so is likely to be a far better forecaster than any modern technology.

Now that we are in the middle of summer, not a week goes by without news of a tragedy taking place somewhere along Britain’s coastline. Yet over the past few days, two Devon coastguards have been fired and two have resigned in disgust from the service they have been part of for many years.

In the latest incident, the officer in charge at Croyde – wherever that may be – quit in disgust after 32 years when he was reprimanded and told that he would have to undergo retraining. A lady officer with him who had 18 years service also resigned. Their ‘crime’ was to take an injured teenager to hospital in a van rather than waiting for an ambulance which would have taken up to two hours.

They used the officer in charge’s own van, but strapped the lad to a coastguard stretcher so that he didn’t roll around in the rear of the vehicle. This of course was ‘unauthorised use of government property,’ and the fact that they were saving a life had no bearing on the matter.

I have faced men in war, have been charged by elephant and lions and on one occasion, had crockery hurled at me by an large and angry husband when attending a domestic dispute, but none of those incidents were half as frightening as the power wielded in this modern world by faceless desk jockeys who go by ‘the book of rules,’ no matter what.

In the other coastguard incident, the pair were dismissed for pulling another car away from a cliff. I suppose they were risking damage to coastguard property again but whether that was the vehicle they were using or themselves, I am not sure.

Talking about the pettiness of the bureaucratic mind, I have long ranted about the petty-minded intransigence of the current prime minister. Now I see that five former commissioners of the Metropolitan Police have called on the new prime minister – who seems likely to be Johnson – to take a stand on police funding and practice. One of them Lord Stephens of Kirksomething-or-the-other has gone further and laid the blame for the current crime wave and the sorry mess that policing has become in Britain firmly at Theresa Maybe’s feet. As plain John Stephens and then Sir John, he was probably the last of the practical old-timer cops and did a fine job with the Met so he knows what he is talking about. Like me and many thousands of former cops, he must cringe at some of the reports we read about policing today.

She might have been a long-serving Home Secretary but she was also a damned useless one. Almost single-handedly, she alienated the entire police force and her insistence on reducing ‘stop and search’ on the streets has had a direct impact on the current surge in knife crime.

Truly the woman was a disaster and the sooner someone else takes over the reins – even if it is Johnson – the better for us all.

It would have been nice to have the first black African astronaut going up into space but sadly it is not going to happen for a while. Mandla Maseko who was 30 and being trained at a space academy in America managed to kill himself in a motorbike accident before he could fulfil his dream. In 2013, the South African Air Force member beat one million entrants to win one of 23 places at the space academy.

Nicknamed Afronaut and Spaceboy, Maseko described himself as a typical township boy from Pretoria. He said he wanted to do something that would motivate and inspire young people in Africa and prove that they could achieve anything whatever their background.

He told the BBC he planned to call them from space. “I hope I have one line that will be used in years to come – like Neil Armstrong did,” he said.

The US astronaut, who died in 2012, was the first man ever to walk on the Moon in 1969.

As he stepped on to the lunar surface, he famously said: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Well, we will never know what Mandla Maseko would have said but he was obviously a fine young man and South Africa – indeed all of Africa – can be proud of him.

I wonder what immortal phrase I could use about weather forecasters in general. Sadly, I am lost for words!

Before I start on the subject, let me apologise for the finger trouble I had yesterday when trying to add to my Zambezi Walk Page. Somehow the piece and pictures ended up as a rant but thanks to Daughter in Law, Gillian I know how to do things properly now – I hope!

Just ignore the bit about The Source. You can see it and more on the Zambezi Walk page.

Back to politics and politicians.

Do you realise that we still have another four weeks of this utterly pathetic and pointless name calling between Johnson and Hunt to endure? There are only a hundred and sixty thousand people eligible to vote. Why then does it take this long to pick a successor for the hapless Mrs Maybe? It could and should all have been over in a week to ten days. What a pathetic farce politics is becoming.

I listened to Ann Widdecombe making her first speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday and couldn’t help admiring the old trout for her fiery oratory. Standing next to Farage, she ranted about the ‘undemocratic’ European Union and said: “It’s a great honour to speak on behalf of the largest single party in this place.

 ‘And may I say, if I needed any convincing at all that the best thing for Britain is to leave here as soon as possible, it was the way those elections were conducted yesterday.”

She was referring of course to the so-called ‘elections’ to replace European Union leaders such as Juncker and Tusk.

“If that is this place’s idea of democracy, that is a serious betrayal of every country that is represented here.”

She added: “That is just one of many reasons why Britain is right to be leaving this place, hopefully on Halloween.

‘It is right because there is a pattern consistent throughout history of oppressed people turning on the oppressors. Slaves against their owners, the peasantry against the feudal barons. Colonies against their empires and that is why Britain is leaving.”

I know I am a dodo but I thought that was rather apt, but the reaction from the London twitterati was probably predictable. Mentioning slaves was surely racist – wasn’t it? Of course it ruddy wasn’t but I listened to Question Time yesterday (I can’t stay up late enough to listen live!) and her speech was mentioned with utter disgust by two of the left-leaning members of the panel.

One of these harridans was Sian Berry, a simperingly smug lady who is apparently the co leader of the Green Party. A ‘co leader?’ Don’t the Greens have enough gumption about them to elect a single boss? Had I ever thought of voting for them (which I haven’t) the knowledge that they have two – perhaps more? – leaders would put me off immediately.

There was also a young journalist called Tom Harwood on the panel and he was the only Brexit supporting speaker there. He was good too and frequently showed up his fellow panel members for the blinkered pratwinkles that they were.

I have digressed a bit so back to Ann Widdecombe and Europe. The European Union is an utterly appalling organisation by any standards. Way back in the seventies, the late Tony Benn, a firebrand cabinet minister at the time visited what was then the European Commission in Brussels. He later wrote in his diary,

‘I felt as if I was a slave going to Rome. The whole relationship was wrong. Here was I, an elected man who could be removed, and here were these people with more power than I had and no accountability to anyone.’

I didn’t like Mr Benn much (a long story for another day) but he was right and since those days, the European Union has grown into a vast, bureaucratic monolith that cares nothing about national identities and freedoms. It is still an unaccountable, unelected cabal, chosen through bargaining, favours (I won’t say bribes) and cynical stitch-ups rather than by the ballot box. As Ann Widdecombe pointed out, we have witnessed that this week with days of private argument as to who will fill the leaky shoes of Juncker, Tusk and company when they leave in September. Based on rampant cronyism rather than respect for democracy, the process was an unedifying as Juncker’s staggering leadership. Given the importance of these roles, especially that of the EU presidency, the selections should have been carried out in an open, transparent manner.

Instead, the business was conducted entirely behind closed doors. This is grubby politics at its worst and for me brings back shades of Bob Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) thugs. They don’t care about democracy either.

Why on earth any thinking Briton wants to remain part of this horrible set up is completely beyond me.

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For me one of the most incredible parts of the Mighty Zambezi is the source. Deep in forest near a little town called Mwinilunga in the North Western corner of Zambia, this immense river begins as a tiny spring in the roots of a Msasa tree. It trickles away as a stream for nearly fifteen kilometres before becoming an actual river. When one considers that the river itself is two kilometres wide in places, this all seemed pretty extraordinary to me. Whether that expression on my face reflects amazement or ‘what the hell have I let myself in for now,’ I am not entirely sure.

Life has its little moments and I had one such a couple of days ago when I received my new Courteney Boots. Those are they on the left of the picture. The ones on the right have done me proud, but after carrying me down the Mighty Zambezi, they are showing signs of wear which the cobbling fraternity tell me cannot be repaired.

The new pair had their debut on the Moor the day before yesterday, but I will break them in very gradually and they should outlast me – unless of course I have another rush of blood to the head and head off to challenge myself again.

But I mustn’t – my Daughter will tell me off if I even think about it.

I have used Courteneys through most of my adventurous moments and they have to be the best thing coming out of Zimbabwe at the moment. Hand-made in Bulawayo, they are strong, light and comfortable in any conditions. In fact although I am not wearing them at my desk as I write, looking at the photograph above, I can feel those old familiar restless urges starting to ferment inside. My only problem with another adventure is what on earth can I do to cap walking the Zambezi?

All the same, with my new Courteneys I am already well equipped for the next one. Thank you Gale Rice and your wonderful staff.

I have played sport most of my life and still follow it when I can. As a boy I used to listen to Wimbledon on the radio even though I had not the faintest idea where Wimbledon was. Yet now as my dotage progresses, I feel very cynical about the whole almost hysterical nonsense. It is a tennis tournament damnit! Men and women playing in competition in what used to be a purely social and most enjoyable game.

I am all for equal pay between genders if men and women are doing the same thing, but tennis is different to other sports. Men play five sets, women only three. Why then should they receive the same wages? That has to be discriminating against the men doesn’t it? If everyone is to be paid equally, then put them all in together and let’s forget about men’s and ladies’ draws.

And then there is the behaviour of some of these overpaid pratwinkles. I can remember John McEnroe – who was a very fine player – shouting and screaming at umpires, now we have the Australian Nick Kyrgios – who is not in the same league as McEnroe – doing the same thing. Who do these jumped up popinjays think they are? Not only do they demean the image of their sport, but they make a mockery of the word itself. Oh that we could turn the clock back and have top class amateur sport again.

As for the spectators – no, ranting about their collective fatuousness would spoil a beautifully sunny day. Dartmoor looks at her magnificent best so I will give my new boots another airing.

Oh but I am a lucky man!