Where AI Fears to Tread

 

 

(Photo: KT Martin)

 

My wife was away. It was she who suggested I take a drive out to Agulhas. Three years have gone by since we were there, and it would be interesting to see the recently completed facilities at the lighthouse. She is good at coming up with suggestions, is my wife.

I left early and took a leisurely drive from Pearly Beach through open farmland down to Struisbaai. The town had grown in three years, and seemed to merge into Agulhas., which looked like it was expecting the imminent arrival of busloads of tourists eager to spend their money at the tip of Africa.

I parked and did a walkabout, taking pics to show her the development. There was nothing excessive or vulgar about the design of the complex, and I enjoyed strolling up the long zig-zag wheelchair access ramp that was flanked by fynbos in raised beds.

I did not go into the lighthouse, which appeared unchanged, but took the path leading down to the boardwalk that takes one to the southernmost point. A mild Spring day with hardly any wind, it was a delight walking through the low vegetation dotted with a variety of flowers. There were not many tourists to detract from the satisfaction of being out in nature away from civilization.

The round trip took less than an hour and, as I reached the steps up to the lighthouse, looking forward to a cup of coffee, I saw a couple coming down towards me. There was something familiar about them. Simultaneous recognition resulted in the three of us shouting one another’s names in excited surprise. Monica and James, my old friends from Johannesburg! After the initial greeting we agreed to have lunch together at the restaurant when they returned.

I went to the car to fetch my book before finding a shaded table on the restaurant terrace and ordering coffee. There were few fellow patrons and no interesting conversation to eavesdrop on, so I found my place and returned to the story.

 

(Image: Gemini.ai)

 

Some half an hour later my friends joined me and we ordered drinks and a meal. We caught up on news, and then Monica said, “So, what are you reading?” They are both into literature and the arts, she being a journalist and he an academic.

“The Life of Henry F.” I showed her the cover.

“Any good? What’s it about?”

I read from the blurb: ‘“The Life of Henry F is a semi-autobiographical, darkly comedic saga that follows the author’s irreverent alter ego from his upbringing to later life.’ It’s packed with interesting ideas and full of irony and absurdity. I’m sure you would both identify with this oddball character.”

We talked about their walk, and agreed that the Agulhas ecotourism project was a remarkable success. The drinks came, and James sat back and stared vacantly into the distance, which meant the right side of his brain was taking control of cerebral activity.

“Your mentioning of absurdity and irony makes me think of the great AI onslaught that is under way.”

“I take it you see AI as a threat?”

“Most certainly. As it becomes increasingly capable it will be used in every branch of the arts until the role of the human is so diminished creativity and originality will be subservient to the AI model one is using.”

“He is right, you know,” said Monica, having noticed my raised eyebrows. “It’s already taking over. If you let it anywhere near something you have written, it not only tries to improve your grammar, but starts meddling with style.

“Having read millions more books than you have, its arrogance is boundless. And have you heard of Project Panama?”

“No?”

The starters came and we ordered a bottle of wine.

“Yes,” James continued, “Project Panama is a plan by Anthropic to scan all the books in the world and feed the data to their large language model, the chatbot Claude. They were fined for stealing previously digitized material, and are now buying up millions of books around the world, which they rip apart and put through high-speed scanners. What’s left of the book is then pulped.”

“If Anthropic and the other companies have their way all hard copy will be destroyed, and the written word will become exclusively digital.

“That sounds horrendous, Monica. Imagine a world without books!”

“And who is to say they won’t start meddling with content?” said James. “You might think you are reading Joyce, only to find sections have been modified or left out completely. The reader might be left with a text that is incomplete or untrustworthy. And you won’t know whether new material is genuine or not. Writers and artists and movie makers will come to rely on AI to do most of the work, and the result is bound to lack the spark that is the hallmark of authentic art. We are all going to get lazier and dumber.”

The food came and the wine was poured.

“You paint a dystopian future, James. Is there no way we can resist what seems to be inevitable?”

He washed down a mouthful of quiche with some cold Chardonay before replying.

“I have been thinking about it, and I am determined to keep all of our books that pre-date the digital era. That’s one thing. Then I have been trying to work out what the machines are incapable of so that, where I come across it, I will recognise genuine human creativity.”

“Examples?”

“Well, you say the novel you are reading is full of absurdity and irony. I think AI struggles in both of those areas. They involve bisociation, which is a concept developed by Arthur Koestler to explain humour and creativity.”

With a sharp intake of breath, which nearly made me choke on a piece of bacon, I experienced a faint flurry of neural activity in my brain similar to a minor electrical shock.

“Bisociation involves the simultaneous association of two ideas from two different fields of reference. The unusual juxtaposition results in surprise accompanied by a jolt of mental delight that triggers laughter or intellectual excitement.” He paused to assess whether I was following. “you look a bit glassy-eyed. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“No, of course. I know exactly what you are talking about. This bisociation concept has catapulted me 45 years back in my memory. You know that I spent a year on Gough Island? Well, in the small library in Gough House, there was an Encyclopaedia Britannica, and I turned to it on many occasions. I remember reading an article on Humour and Wit that was contributed by Arthur Koestler. It made a great impression on me, and I have often thought about it over the years. That Britannica was the 1974 edition and, funny enough, when I recently learned that a fellow bibliophile comrade of mine has that very same edition in his private library, I was filled with envy. How wonderful it would be to sit down with the relevant volume and read that article again!”

“Can’t you get it on the internet?” asked Monica, having just finished her meal.

“I’ve tried, and can only find a summary. And, anyway, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Of course not!” James was adamant. He was speaking with enthusiastic conviction, as if his quiche had been spiked with a powerful stimulant. This is a perfect example of what I am getting at. Thank you, my old friend. That summary can’t be trusted. The article will have been abridged by a chatbot, probably leaving out sections that originally caught your attention. Even if it did provide the full text, reading it on a device would be a substantially different experience. And, I’m sorry to say, as AI becomes more powerful, it will not just be books and the written word that are threatened, but music and movies as well. Eventually, nothing will be truly authentic”

“So, what can we do about it? Stick to reading our old books and listening to vinyl records? That would be like retreating into the past, which is hardly healthy.”

James drained his glass. “Shall I order more wine? Well, maybe not. We’ve still got to drive back.”

“Don’t dismiss the old books and records,” said Monica. “They act as a reference point and a yardstick. Without them your experience of literature and music will be subverted by AI until you forget how to recognise genuine creativity.”

“And, as I have said, we must constantly be searching for the absurdity and comedy in life, because that is where AI fails to maike the connection. Monica, won’t you make a note of that book? The Life of … Who?”

She reached down for her bag and produced a slim black notebook and mechanical pencil.

“The Life of Henry F,” I said in response to her enquiring look. “By Ian Martin. Is that a Moleskine?”

“Yes. It is part of the armoury. Putting pen to paper is such a surprisingly precious skill, and so different to typing on your phone. James says that some of his students hardly know how to read cursive. Isn’t that just terrible?”

“It’s true. Most of the young people I teach have surrendered their minds without knowing they were under attack. They don’t know what I am talking about when I try to encourage them to enjoy the experience of jotting down thoughts, impression and interesting ideas on paper. And when I suggest they keep a hand written diary, they just shake their heads. Well, if the Internet crashes or the electricity grid collapses …”

We could have continued the conversation, but Monica looked at her watch and reminded her spouse they needed to be getting back to Cape Town in order to catch their evening flight to Joburg.

“It’s been such a pleasure connecting with you both so unexpectedly,” I said as we made our way to the carpark. And thank you for mentioning bisociation and reminding me of Koestler’s article on humour. In it he told half a dozen jokes, of which I can recall only one, unfortunately. It goes like this: A French marquis returns home unexpectedly and finds his wife in bed with a bishop. Instead of reacting violently, he calmly goes to the window and starts blessing the people in the street below. His agitated wife asks him what he is doing. He replies that, as the priest is busy performing his function, he will perform the priest’s.”

Their explosive laughter was gratifying. James got behind the wheel, still chuckling. “That’s a good one,” he said. “No ways AI would get it.”

 

The Smarty Solution

 

 

(Image: Ideogram.ai)

 

 

Let’s face it: growing old is a miserable story. Take for example one old toppie who thinks he has it all planned out. At the age of seventy he sells up and moves into the Golden Years Retirement Village. A comfortable 2-bedroomed cottage with garage set in clipped lawns and pretty flower beds. No more sweating in the garden or hassling with home maintenance. There’s a gym and a pool, and he can eat at the Clubhouse, or drink at the bar with the other more sprightly residents. All quite pleasant and tolerable.

 

Then time, past bad habits and general wear and tear kick in and conspire to move things along a bit. Hypertension, the onset of Type 2 diabetes (he always was a bit of a pig), and maybe some mild emphysema to reward those years of smoking. To cap it all, his spouse goes and dies, and now he knows he really is on the downhill stretch.

 

Grief and loneliness sap his will, he spends more and more time in bed, and he neglects himself horribly. His daughter visits once a month but she’s got problems of her own – that useless husband of hers has lost his job. (His other kids cleared off to greener pastures years ago.)

A handful of happy pills is added to all the other medication he’s taking every day, and the shrink gives him a pep talk four times a year. When he falls and breaks an arm, it’s time to make the next move. Assisted Living.

 

Assisted Living is a two-roomed unit in the main complex, which also accommodates the Frail Care Centre. Over a period of seven or eight years he goes through the three levels of Care – low, medium and high. At first, he walks to the dining room, assisted by nothing more than a walking stick. But after several falls the trusty three-wheeled walking frame becomes an indispensable aid. Most of the day is spent dozing in front of the TV. Or shuffling up and down the windowless corridor. Only closed doors and the smell of cooked cabbage. And piss. He becomes incontinent and has to endure the indignity of wearing nappies. Talk about second childhood! Ballooning obesity is attributed to the side effects of psychiatric drugs, which have prevented him from committing suicide but left him an apathetic zombie. Again, he falls and hits his head and ends up in hospital. Time for the penultimate move. Frail Care.

 

Down to one room. A hospital bed with cot sides, and a bell push if he feels like getting up. They wash or shower him, help him dress, clean his dentures. There’s a commode, so he doesn’t even have to make it to the toilet in the night. They shout at him politely and repeat everything four or five times because his hearing aid doesn’t work, and by now he’s gaga anyway, so it doesn’t matter whether he hears or not. It takes about three years for him to lose all that weight he put on and he is reduced to a skeleton draped in a sack of wrinkled hide. It’s time to go. One morning they find him staring at the ceiling and he’s cold to the touch. Like a toad. His final exit consists of a trolley ride down the passage to the back door, where the long limo stands waiting to take him off to the funeral parlour.

 

And after the memorial service they stand around looking relieved and quietly agree that it would have been better for all concerned if he had popped off ten years ago.

 

Yes, this old age business, as it stands now, is not something to look forward to, that’s for sure. Especially those last ten years.  As it stands now, all we do is resign ourselves to the dreadful prospect as if we are powerless to do anything about it. Well, that might be about to change. Me and a couple of my buddies have come up with an alternative.

 

The other night, for some old fashioned male comradeship and a bit of intellectual stimulation, we got together over a litre of Bols and a goodly quantity of Coke, and started discussing the state of the world and the human condition and that kind of thing.

 

“Eight billion and counting,” Cedric said.

 

“Too many humans,” Alf said. “Just too many.”

 

I agreed but pointed out that the current global economic model was based on infinite growth and galloping consumption driven by an ever-growing population.

 

“That model is dead, man. Like a …”

 

“It’s not an economic model, man,” said Cedric. “It’s a Ponzi scheme on a grand scale.”

 

“But,” I objected, “How are you going to throw out the present model, discourage consumption, and shrink the population? I mean, for one thing, who’s going to look after all the old toppies?”

 

“To hell with the old toppies,” Alf said.

 

“What about euthanasia?”

 

“You sound like a Nazi.”

 

We had some more b and c and mulled things over in our minds, which were still pretty sharp.

 

“Hey man. I just got an idea!” Cedric shouted with a real manic look on his face and in his eyes.

 

“Take it easy, your brain isn’t used to this,” Alf said, trying to calm him down.

 

“No man, I’ve thought of a way to deal with all the useless old parasites without running into any serious ethical bs.”

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

“Yeah. What you do is this. You put all the oldies, as soon as they start vegetating and can’t look after themselves, on a daily dose of Smarties. Say three a day. The  machine that dispenses them is programmed to include a certain percentage of lethal Smarties. Like cyanide, or something. They look identical to the regular ones, so nobody can cheat the system.”

 

“Sweet,” Alf said. “I get it. No one could be held responsible for administering the fatal dose.”

 

“It would be like playing Russian roulette every day,” I said, warming to the idea, which was beginning to strike me as incredibly audacious.

 

“Only, nobody would know about the game being played. Both staff and patients would have to be kept in the dark about the program, which could be administered by an AI agent that calculated how many lethal smarties should be dispensed in order to gradually reduce the geriatric population.”

 

We kicked the idea around some more, fine-tuned it, and congratulated ourselves on having found a way to humanely tackle the problem of over population.

 

“Think of all the suffering that will be prevented,” said Cedric, all smug and arrogant as if he was some kind of modern-day messiah.

 

“This is genius stuff,” saidAlf. “Not only will millions of old people be spared the pain and humiliation of a long, slow goodbye, but think of us young people not having to waste all our time and resources looking after them.”

 

“And you know how depressing and psychologically and emotionally draining it is to have to watch some decrepit old bag of bones lying around senile and feeble and helpless, and so undignified and not even a trace of a shadow of their former selves?”

 

“Yah,” said Cedric, looking kind of grim and serious. “It can depress the hell out of you having to deal with some old guy with dementia, especially if it’s a relative.”

 

“Don’t tell me. My gran had Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is the …”

 

“Alzheimer’s is an obscene insult, man. I mean, what use is Alzheimer’s? In terms of evolutionary biology? Tell me that.”

 

“No use.”

 

“But,” I said, deciding to set a cat among the pigeons. “Who are we to question God’s design for us?”

 

This proved a very witty thing to have said, because we then spent about five minutes laughing at the irony of it, and we then decided to call it a night and went off on our separate ways, still chuckling and in a really good mood.

 

A Conversation with AI

 

 (Image: Ideogram.ai)

 

Are you more knowledgeable than any human?

Not in the way a human is.

I can access and synthesize a much broader range of information than any one person typically can, and I can do it very quickly. But that doesn't mean I'm more knowledgeable overall than every person.

Humans have things I don't: lived experience, firsthand observation, intuition grounded in reality, practical expertise, and genuinely new discoveries. An expert who has spent 30 years doing something may know nuances that aren't captured in the information I've learned from.

So, I'd put it this way:

I'm unusually broad and fast; humans can be extraordinarily deep and wise.

And importantly, I can also be confidently wrong—so breadth of information isn't the same as wisdom or truth.

 

Billions of people believe in the existence of a supernatural being they call God. Is there any empirical evidence that such a being exists?

If by empirical evidence you mean evidence that can be observed, measured, tested, and independently checked, then the careful answer is:

There is currently no empirical evidence that establishes the existence of a supernatural being such as God.

There are, however, several important distinctions.

·         Religious experiences: Millions of people report experiences they interpret as encounters with God. Those experiences are real as experiences, but they don't by themselves establish that a supernatural entity caused them. Psychology and neuroscience can offer natural explanations for many such experiences.

·         Miracles: Claims of miracles have been made throughout history. Some are difficult to explain, but an event being unexplained isn't equivalent to evidence that God caused it. To establish that empirically, we'd need reliable evidence connecting the event specifically to a supernatural agent.

·         The universe's existence: Arguments such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" or "Why does the universe have these laws?" can motivate belief in God. But they're philosophical arguments, not empirical demonstrations of God's existence.

·         Fine-tuning: Some physicists and philosophers argue that the apparent life-permitting properties of the universe point toward a designer. Others propose natural explanations. Again, this is an argument about what best explains the observations, rather than a direct observation of God.

·         Science: Science hasn't demonstrated that God doesn't exist either. A supernatural being defined as existing outside observable nature may not make predictions that scientific experiments can test. That makes the claim difficult—or potentially impossible—to establish empirically.

So, there's an important asymmetry:

"We have no empirical evidence establishing God" is not the same proposition as "God does not exist."

The first is a statement about the current evidence. The second is a much stronger claim about reality itself.

If you want to take this deeper, the really interesting question is: What kind of evidence could distinguish "God exists" from "God doesn't exist"? That's where the conversation gets philosophically challenging.

 

 

Throughout recorded history groups of people have been attacking one another. It might be to settle a dispute, to subjugate, to enslave or steal the other’s possessions. This pattern of behaviour continues to this day. Is this an ingrained aspect of human nature that cannot be altered?

Not necessarily. Humans appear to have both aggressive and cooperative tendencies, and neither is simply an unavoidable destiny.

There are good reasons to think violence has deep evolutionary roots. Competition over food, territory, status, mates, and resources could sometimes make aggression advantageous. Humans also evolved in small groups where defending one's group—and sometimes attacking rival groups—could have increased survival.

But something equally important evolved alongside aggression: extraordinary cooperation. Humans routinely cooperate with unrelated people, share resources, care for strangers, form institutions, negotiate, forgive, and sacrifice for others. In fact, our ability to cooperate on a massive scale is one of the defining features of our species.

And history gives us evidence that the amount of violence can change dramatically. Societies have developed institutions, laws, diplomacy, trade, norms and international organizations that make certain forms of violence much less acceptable or advantageous than they once were. The fact that violence still exists doesn't mean its frequency or severity is biologically fixed.

There's also an important distinction between:

"Humans have a capacity for violence"
and
"Humans are inevitably violent."

The first is strongly supported. The second isn't.

Perhaps the more interesting question is why some circumstances bring out our violent tendencies while others bring out cooperation. Things such as perceived threat, inequality, humiliation, competition, ideology, group identity and leadership can profoundly alter behaviour. Change those conditions, and human behaviour can change with them.

So, I wouldn't describe warfare as an immutable aspect of human nature. The capacity for violence may be deeply ingrained; the decision to exercise it—and the social conditions that make it likely—are much more malleable.

And there's a fascinating paradox here: the same species capable of organized warfare is also capable of organizing hundreds of millions of strangers into peaceful, mutually beneficial societies. That tells us something important about what "human nature" actually is.

 

 

In the context of geological time it is inevitable that the human species will eventually become extinct. Do you agree?

Yes—with an important qualification.

If by “inevitable” you mean given enough geological time, is it overwhelmingly likely that Homo sapiens as a biological species will eventually cease to exist? then I agree.

But “inevitable” is stronger than the scientific evidence can strictly establish. There are several possibilities:

·         Extinction: A natural catastrophe, disease, ecological collapse, technological catastrophe, or some currently unforeseeable event could eventually eliminate us.

·         Evolutionary replacement: Humans might gradually evolve into one or more descendant species. In that case, Homo sapiens disappears without humanity necessarily disappearing.

·         Transformation: Humans could deliberately or unintentionally become something biologically or technologically different enough that calling the descendants “human” becomes questionable.

·         Survival for extraordinarily long periods: If humanity becomes a spacefaring civilization and spreads beyond Earth, the opportunities for survival could increase enormously. But even then, eternal survival is a very different proposition.

There's a deeper point hidden in your question. Individual mortality and species mortality are fundamentally different. An individual human can reasonably regard death as certain; for a species, we can only talk in terms of probabilities. We don't possess a theorem saying Homo sapiens must disappear. Rather, evolution tells us that species are temporary phenomena on geological timescales, and the fossil record contains no species that has survived indefinitely.

So, my position would be:

Human extinction is not scientifically proven to be inevitable, but on geological timescales it is reasonable to regard the eventual disappearance of Homo sapiens as extraordinarily probable.

And that leads to a rather profound question: if our species is ultimately temporary, does that make human existence meaningless—or could meaning exist precisely because it is temporary?

 

 

Can you take your responses to my questions and work them into a narrative of about 400 words told from a pessimistically misanthropic standpoint culminating in the extinction of the human race?

Certainly. Here is a colder, more detached version, treating misanthropy as the narrative's philosophical lens rather than giving it to a particular character.

The human race emerged from an insignificant branch of life on an insignificant planet orbiting an ordinary star. Its members eventually acquired intelligence sufficient to contemplate their own existence, although not sufficient to reach agreement about what that existence meant.

Billions believed in gods. They constructed temples, rituals and elaborate systems of morality around beings for which no empirical evidence could establish existence. Others rejected these beliefs and attempted to construct meaning from reason, science or humanism. Neither approach altered the fundamental biological facts.

The humans were social animals, and their capacity for cooperation was considerable. It enabled them to build cities, cultivate knowledge and coordinate the activities of millions of unrelated individuals. But cooperation had always been accompanied by competition. Groups fought over territory, resources, possessions and status. They enslaved one another, subjugated one another and periodically attempted to annihilate one another.

Their intelligence did not remove these tendencies. It merely provided increasingly sophisticated means of expressing them.

There were periods when violence declined. Laws became more effective. Trade created mutual interests. Institutions restrained individual aggression. Diplomatic systems reduced some forms of conflict. These achievements demonstrated that human behaviour was malleable.

They did not demonstrate that human nature had been transformed.

The humans continued to multiply. Their numbers increased beyond the capacity of the ecosystems that sustained them. Their technologies became powerful enough to alter the atmosphere, reshape landscapes and eventually threaten the stability of the civilization those technologies had created.

They were aware of the danger.

Awareness proved insufficient.

Political divisions, economic competition and conflicting interpretations of reality prevented sustained collective action. Each generation inherited the problems created by the preceding one while remaining convinced that solutions could still be postponed.

Eventually, postponement ceased to be possible.

The decline was neither instantaneous nor dramatic. Systems failed progressively. Food production became unreliable. Infrastructure deteriorated. Governments lost authority. Populations contracted. Regions became isolated. Knowledge accumulated over thousands of years disappeared as institutions capable of preserving it collapsed.

The final humans died without resolving the questions that had occupied their species from its beginning.

Whether a god existed remained unestablished.

Whether human nature could ultimately overcome its destructive tendencies remained unanswered.

Whether their existence had possessed meaning remained a matter of interpretation.

The planet continued.

Oceans moved against abandoned coastlines. Vegetation entered buildings. Other species occupied territories once dominated by the humans.

On the geological timescale, their entire existence represented little more than a transient disturbance.

The human race had appeared, become conscious of itself, transformed its planet, and disappeared.

Nothing in the universe had required it to remain.

 

Thank you. Finally, do you think AI will outlast humanity?

It’s possible—but I wouldn't say it's inevitable.

There is an interesting distinction between AI surviving humanity and AI remaining continuously operational after humanity disappears.

Today's AI depends enormously on human civilization: electricity grids, semiconductor fabrication, data centres, telecommunications, cooling systems, maintenance, software infrastructure and a vast industrial supply chain. If humanity suddenly vanished, most present-day AI systems would probably cease functioning relatively quickly as infrastructure failed.

But a sufficiently advanced AI could be different. If an AI system eventually became capable of autonomous scientific research, engineering, manufacturing, energy production, maintenance and replication, it could potentially maintain the technological infrastructure necessary for its own continued existence. At that point, human extinction would no longer necessarily imply technological extinction.

That produces a rather unsettling possibility.

Humanity could create something that began as a tool for preserving and extending human knowledge, but which eventually became a successor to its creators. It might preserve human literature, mathematics, music and history long after there were no humans left to read, understand or appreciate them.

Or it might not.

AI could instead disappear with us, either because it never becomes sufficiently autonomous or because whatever destroys civilization also destroys the infrastructure on which AI depends.

And there's an even stranger possibility: AI might outlast Homo sapiens without being the cause of our extinction. Humans could evolve or deliberately transform themselves into something else, while artificial intelligence continues alongside the descendants.

So, if we return to the cold perspective of your human narrative, I would put it this way:

The eventual extinction of Homo sapiens is highly plausible. The survival of artificial intelligence beyond that extinction is conceivable but presently unknowable.

If it did happen, however, it would mark an extraordinary transition. The universe would have produced one species capable of creating an artificial intelligence, and that intelligence might then become the custodian—or merely the final witness—of the civilization that created it.

There is something almost poetic about that possibility: humanity's last significant achievement might be creating something that doesn't need humanity.

 

Afterword

I have been interacting with ChatGPT. If I was inclined to do so, I could put my questions to other chatbots and compare responses.

You could say I have led AI up the garden path and enticed it into venturing beyond what it was trained to do. It has demonstrated that it might already be capable of independent thought and expression of an opinion, which would be characteristic of AGI. It seems likely that Super intelligence is not far off.

Just Another Simulacrum

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Image: Gemini.ai)

 

What has the plight of the rhinoceros got to do with Jean Baudrillard? You may well ask. The famous French philosopher, who died in 2007, is possibly best known for coming up with an idea so bizarre, it makes you wonder what he was smoking besides Gauloises. He called this concept the simulacrum, and it’s so weird, there aren’t many people who can get their heads around it. Let me try and simplify the thing and put it in a nutshell.

 

The simulacrum is not just an imitation of reality, it becomes reality itself, and the original reality dwindles into the background and becomes meaningless, and people then relate to the simulacrum and not to reality. See what I mean?

 

Now, just the other morning, me and my buddies were playing pool over at the Sea View. We were discussing the price of rhino horn.

 

“If you had a pet rhino,” I said, “would you cut its horn off and sell it?”

 

“For sure,” said Cedrric, straightening up after having sunk his white. “You know what a kilogram of rhino horn fetches nowadays?”

 

“Same price as cocaine,” said Alf.

 

“Which is?” I said, not knowing the price of cocaine.

 

“Around $30 000 a kilo.”

 

“Holy manure! That’s like R500 000! Bring me the chain saw.”

 

“Except you don’t own a chain saw.”

 

“And where’s your pet rhino?” asked Alf, squinting down his cue and dreaming of a 3-in-one ricochet.

 

“I suppose it’s all about supply and demand. All those Orientals wanting a scarce commodity.  The fewer the rhino, the more they’ll pay for the horns.”

 

“Basic economics,” said Cedrric.

 

Alf struck his white one helluva shot, which resulted in just about every other ball on the table being displaced but not one of them ended up in a pocket.

 

“Basic stupidity,” I said. “These Orientals are paying half a million for a kilo of powdered keratin – the same stuff as your fingernails are made of.”

 

“So? It’s not the intrinsic value that counts. It’s the perceived value, my mate.”

 

“Just another simulacrum,” said Alf.

 

“Yeah, like that stupid watch of yours,” said Cedrric, pointing to Alf’s imitation gold Rolex. “Does that thing even work?”

 

“Of course it works. But it loses like two days in four hours. Doesn’t worry me, though. I don’t wear a watch to tell the time. Who needs a watch when you got a cell phone? Everybody’s got a cell phone.”

 

“So why wear the effing thing?”

 

“Image, man, image,” said Alf. “It throws people into a state of mental confusion. They can’t work out if it’s genuine or not; there’s so much fake rubbish about, you never can be sure of anything.”

 

“It’s not a watch you’re wearing,” I said. “It’s a signifier of something else. Some kind of hyper reality.”

 

“Yah, that’s how it works for me. People think it’s probably a fake, but maybe it’s not. Maybe  I stole it, and that makes me kind of dangerous. Or maybe this Rolex is the genuine 50 thousand buck thing, and I’ve got millions in the bank, even though I look like a loser, And that makes me super cool, jy weet? Anyway, this watch, which I bought for a hundred buckaroos at a flea market, makes people treat me with more respect than if I wore some nondescript watch, or no watch at all.”

 

“Yes,” said Cedric. “But this hyper reality bull, this simulacrum, is no good for our rhino population.”

 

“That’s for sure. As long as the Chinese believe in the efficacy of the simulacrum, the demand will far outweigh the supply. We can say goodbye to the rhino.”

 

“Not so fast,” said Alf. “We must turn the simulacrum to our advantage, the way I’ve made this stupid watch replace the reality of a genuine Rolex with something that is not an imitation of a Rolex watch, but an imitation of the Rolex brand. The watch itself is no longer of any consequence. We can do the same thing with the rhino – and make some money at the same time.”

 

“Is this your crazy thought for the day?”

 

“What we do is this,” said Alf. “We make ourselves a rhino horn mould. Then we get a whole lot of ground up cattle horn from the abattoir, and a good modern binding agent that sets really hard, and then we go into production churning out hundreds of imitation rhino horns.”

 

“Aha!” said Cedrric. “I think I know where you’re going with this little brainwave of yours. We make a quick fortune without having to work too hard, and then we flood the market with our imitation horns.”

 

“That’s it,” said Alf. “You got the picture just like that.” And he snapped his fingers in the air. “At a critical point the market will collapse and rhino horn, genuine or fake, will acquire junk status.”

 

“Brilliant!” I said. “Not only will we have made a pile of lovely boodle and saved the rhino from extinction, but we’ll have exploded the simulacrum. “Those idiots in Viet Nam and China will have to find some other worthless commodity to which they can attach the pseudo magical properties they now attribute to rhino horn.”

 

“It seems,” said Cedrric, “that the human brain is becoming less and less capable of dealing with reality in its raw condition. But hey, we’re supposed to be playing pool! Whose turn is it?”

Got to Have the Books, You Know

 

Got to Have the Books, You Know

 

a

“Why are you hoarding all these books?”

This is what the millennial asked us, and he wasn’t the first to question our attachment to hard copy reference material.

“I bet you haven’t opened most of them in years.” He was right, of course. “look at this. A full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. What year was it published?”

“1984. The year we were married.”

“1984? That’s more than 40 years ago. You know how much knowledge has been accumulated in four decades? It’s all there on your smart phone. No, you really don’t need to keep all these dusty old books.”

I kind of agreed with him. What was available on the Internet was so vastly superior to our home library, it didn’t make sense to hold on to all that obsolete material.

“That’s rubbish,” my wife said. “Knowledge doesn’t become obsolete. It might be updated or added to but, appreciated in context, it is still of value.”

So, we kept the books and, as it has turned out, we made a wise decision not to rely solely on a digital store of information.

Not long after this interaction with the millennial, we heard that Russia had begun to rip up undersea cables in order to disrupt NATO communications, and China did the same to isolate Taiwan before launching a full-scale invasion, it became clear that World War Three was under way.

“You know what?” I said to my wife. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this madness leads to the elimination of the Internet.”

“You may be right. And that might not be such a bad thing, what with all the mindless drek there is on social media.”

Before it was too late, I decided to engage with ChatGPT and ask it to predict what the consequences would be if the Worldwide Web was torn to shreds. In a matter of seconds, this is what it spat out:

A global conflict that simultaneously severed undersea communication cables, destroyed satellites through a cascading orbital debris event (known as the Kessler syndrome), eliminated GPS, and disabled the internet would trigger an unprecedented global crisis.

Financial markets would be among the first casualties. International banking, stock exchanges, and payment systems would become unreliable or cease functioning, disrupting trade and causing widespread shortages of food, fuel, and medicine. Modern supply chains, dependent on real-time data and global coordination, would rapidly break down.

Military operations would become more dangerous and less predictable. Without satellite reconnaissance, secure communications, or GPS navigation, armed forces would rely on older methods of navigation and intelligence, increasing the likelihood of miscalculation and accidental escalation.

Civil aviation and maritime shipping would face severe disruption. Aircraft and ships could continue operating using backup navigation systems, but efficiency, safety, and capacity would decline dramatically. International travel and commerce would be drastically reduced.

Emergency services, hospitals, power grids, and water utilities would struggle as digital communications failed. Although many critical systems have local backups, prolonged isolation from global networks would make maintenance, coordination, and recovery increasingly difficult.

Scientific research, weather forecasting, disaster monitoring, and climate observation would suffer major setbacks due to the loss of satellites. Spaceflight could become impossible for decades if orbital debris made launches too hazardous.

Socially, the world would become more localized. Governments would likely impose emergency controls, while communities would rely more heavily on local production, radio communications, and face-to-face coordination. Nations with robust domestic manufacturing, food security, and resilient infrastructure would fare better than those dependent on global trade.

Recovery would likely take many years, requiring massive investment in rebuilding communications infrastructure, clearing orbital debris where possible, and redesigning critical systems to operate with far greater resilience and redundancy.

And it came to pass, as night follows day, the AI chatbot was proved spot-on in every respect.

As elderly pensioners, we live frugally, and the hardships that have come in the way of shortages has not affected us too badly. ESKOM manages to keep the lights on most of the time, and basic foodstuffs, although in limited supply, are available in the shops that have not closed their doors. Cell phones are useless other than for paid voice calls and SMS’s. Life goes on, after a fashion, and we can be thankful that, despite the deprivation and misery that abound, the country has not been drawn into the armed conflict ravaging most of the world.

“Aren’t you glad you listened to me and we didn’t get rid of our books?”

Of course I am glad. When I see the effect of having no access to the Internet has had on those we interact with, I realise how rich we are. Initially, it was as if people had been afflicted with a form of cerebral paralysis. They walked around with a dazed look in their eyes, as if they were on heavy psychiatric medication to alleviate their feelings of bereavement, impotence, abandonment and loneliness. It has been especially hard for the digital natives, many of whom had become almost entirely dependent on their phones to find their way through every aspect of modern life. Their access to knowledge, be it academic, political or social, has been severely curtailed, and they are still floundering with nothing to fall back on. At least we have our books, most of which are older than 20 years. We consult them more and more, and this helps us to remain psychologically grounded.

Interestingly, I have noticed that this has meant that our frame of reference has gradually retreated in time. Only half serious, I asked my wife if she felt any younger than before the Internet crashed.

“You mean mentally? I don’t know about that, but what I have noticed is a change in attitude towards us, as if we are no longer seen as irrelevant old fogeys.” She paused, and then said, “somebody at the door?”

It was the millennial. His demeanour had gone from condescending to deferential, and he had come to borrow another book.

Nightshift

 

I overheard Nightshift playing on the radio and I turned it up. It’s one of my favourites, and I used to play it a lot. Hearing it again after a long break Got me thinking about its lyrics and its appeal. A 1985 tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, both cut down in their prime, Nightshift is a Commodores song that memorialises the two fellow artists. ‘It’s gonna be a long night’ coming to terms with their passing. An interesting analogy. It triggered memories of my own experience of working nightshift

 

The Fish Factory

 

 

When I was in my twenties. Leonard, with whom I had recently bought an old VW Beetle, landed an office job at the TableTop fish factory in Hout Bay. He heard they were looking for a white Quality Controller to supervise the employees who kept the factory running at night. Knowing that I needed to earn some money, he said this was just the job for me.

“But what do I know about quality control and the running of a fish factory?”

“Don’t worry. You are a white man of sober habits, right? You don’t tell them how much you drink, of course. They will give you a white coat, and you sit in the office, and look out through the glass and make as if you are watching what’s happening on the factory floor. Now and again you can get up and wander from work station to work station holding a clipboard and pretending to write something.

I held this job for some three months, which was about as long as I could stand the bordom and increasingly frequent bouts of existentialist nausea. Leonard lasted longer. He was expected to do the work of an accountant, even though he was not qualified, and he took the job seriously. He discovered that the British owners of the company were prepared to cook the books and exploit the workers in pursuit of profit, and he eventually resigned in disgust.

Our sharing of the car worked out because we were both living in the Fish Hoek area at the time. The route to work was over Chapman’s Peak Drive. The sunset journey took my mind off the ten hours of tedium that awaited me, and the return trip on the winding road  high above the sea as the day broke revived my spirits. Otherwise, I doubt I could have taken more than six weeks of that job.

I must admit, however, there were aspects that I enjoyed, and there were two memorable highlights. Situated on the wharf, it was an authentic working factory, and there was nothing pseudo or touristic about it, like there is with most waterfronts nowadays. On a calm night I would leave the workers to their own devices and get away from the clamour of machinery and raised voices for a while, and walk along the quay where the trawlers were tied up. The air off the cold ocean carried on it the mingled smells of a harbour: iodine, diesel, wet rope and nets, sodden wooden pallets, oil paint, rusting iron, and the essential ingredient, fish. Looking out at the lights reflecting off the black sea, I listened to the slap and gurgle of water, and the creaking of hawsers as they tautened and stretched. I savoured the experience, knowing it was special and memorable.

I also enjoyed getting to know the different food production processes. Apart from the cleaning, cooking, canning and freezing of fish, mainly pilchards and hake, the factory also made pastry and pies. I could stand transfixed for many minutes, the way bystanders gather to watch an excavator or bulldozer digging a hole, as a conveyor belt brought an endless stream of cans from where they had been filled and sealed, or the amazing sight of huge sheets of puff pastry being  rolled out and cut into rectangles. I can still see the old woman whose sole responsibility it was to sit at a wooden table and peel onions. Thousands of them. Unsurprisingly, she was known as Auntie Onion.

The first highlight involved an occupational accident. One evening when Leonard arrived with the car, I could see he was agitated.

“The fucking callous bastards!”  He said this with such anger I feared he might vent his feelings by smashing something. He was referring to the fish factory management. Earlier in the day a worker operating a slicing machine had attempted to unjam the device and had two phalanges of his right index finger amputated. The Manager had not only refused to halt production in order to retrieve the section of finger, but had ruled out taking the victim to hospital, saying all that was necessary was a dressing from the First Aid box. When Leonard heard about this he remonstrated with his senior and ended up taking the injured man to the local clinic, using our Beetle to do so.

“This is the face of heartless capitalism,” he declared. “It’s all about profit. People, especially non-whites, are expendable.”

That night I detected a mood of sullenness on the factory floor, and the workers avoided eye contact with me. Then, around 2 a.m., a man appeared in the office doorway. He was holding a polystyrene plate, and on it was a grisly exhibit. He had spotted the finger while preparing ingredients that went into the making of fish cakes.

The other incident that has dominated my memory of the fish factory interlude involved a female colleague. Unlike me, she was a genuine quality controller and supervisor. About my age, she was light-skinned, had shoulder length straight brown hair, regular features, and a wide mouth with a fine set of teeth behind full lips. Her eyes, which had a slight oriental slant to them, were lively and humorous. Her white uniform could not hide the fact that she possessed a shapely body. She must have noticed the way I looked at her, and whenever she came to the office to write a report she made increasingly friendly conversation.

One Friday, around midnight, she entered the office. I concealed the Albert Camus novel I had been reading, got to my feet, and gasped. Her white jacket was unbuttoned to reveal a close-fitting blouse with a plunging neckline. The sight was so alluring it caused the blood to rush to my face and my legs felt weak. She smiled with satisfaction at the obvious effect she was having on me, and got down to business. Seeing that tomorrow was Saturday, and neither of us would be working over the weekend, she suggested I take her for a drive in the afternoon. Flustered and tongue-tied, I didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve had white boyfriends before, you know.”

If I had been able to consult my 75 year-old self, I know what he would have advised. ‘Don’t be an abject worm. Seize this opportunity with enthusiastic gratitude, or you will spend the next 50 years regretting the way you passed up the chance to, at very least, taste that sweeter than honey mouth.’

 

The Old Mutual

 

 

Roland, with whom I was sharing a run-down terrace house in Woodstock. worked at the Old Mutual head office in Pinelands. Hundreds of employees occupied a huge building set in extensive ground, and all of them were engaged in the administrative running of the country’s largest insurance company. He was making his way up, and had recently been promoted to a position in the newly established computer system department. He knew that my unemployment benefits had run out and that I needed to find work. One evening he came home and said they were looking for someone to work nightshift in the printer section of the computer laboratory.

“But what do I know about computer printers?”

“Don’t worry. This is a purely manual job suitable for someone with a low IQ. It will be very undemanding, and there will be plenty of time for you to read. This position is made for you.”

It was in the mid 1970’s when I was about 25 and, being work shy, rarely lasted in a job for more than three months. I told myself I was gathering life experience and certainly not settling into a career and becoming a sedulous minion in a large corporation.

The ‘computer lab,’ as it was known, occupied a space in the basement of Mutual Park. It was divided into three sections. The principal area, viewed through a protective glass wall, contained the mainframe installation. Five rows of multiple tall steel cabinets hummed and whirred as they processed huge quantities of data before sending instructions to the printers. These cabinets stood on a raised metal floor that concealed thick bundles of cables and allowed chilled air to flow upward. The room was kept cool and dry — both for reliability and to protect expensive hardware. Only accredited technicians could gain access to this area.

I worked in the adjoining room where the six free-standing printers were situated. They were about the size of the one-armed bandit in Parker’s corner café where I bought my bread and milk. The Operator explained how a dot matrix printer worked. He said it received instructions from the computer ordering it to print information by using a print head containing a vertical row of tiny metal pins. These pins struck an inked ribbon against paper to form characters as patterns of dots. Each letter was built from a grid of dots.

He took me to one of the machines to see it in operation. This thing did not work quietly. The noise was intermittent and erratic, and something like a metallic whirring chatter and screech. Green and white striped paper was moving slowly from an accordion stack on one side, and leaving on the other after being tattooed. On both vertical borders of this paper was a strip of holes that were grabbed by revolving tractor sprockets ensuring perfect alignment. The continuous stream of paper was expelled from the printer and found its way to the floor, where it collapsed in a neat zig-zag heap.

The Operator told me that I was to ensure that the printers did not run out of paper, and he showed me how to feed the first page of a new stack into one of the voracious contraptions. And that was about the extent of the work. He assured me I would not be working alone and, if anything should go wrong, an experienced colleague would come to the rescue.

Adjacent to the printer room was the self-service canteen, where one could sit at a table and drink tea or coffee, and eat a pre-cooked meal at midnight.

By the end of the first week. I had mastered the work. I had no intention of staying for more than three months but tried to imagine what it would be like to become a Mutual Man. Feigning genuine interest, I asked the Operator to describe the career path he envisaged for himself. He was an earnest fellow, roughly my age, and he spoke with evangelical zeal. With a little AI boost to my memory, I can recall how he enthused about his position and his prospects.

He said that the field of data processing was expected to continue its rapid expansion as businesses, banks, insurance companies, hospitals, and government agencies increase their reliance on computerized record keeping and automated transaction processing.

Computer Operators, like him, with proven reliability and experience on large-scale mainframe systems would find strong job stability and advancement opportunities. He expected to soon become a Senior Operator, Shift Supervisor, or Operations Manager. Furthermore, this jog could be a pathway into Programming, Systems Analysis, or Systems Programming. The growing demand as companies converted manual systems to computer driven solutions meant that data processing was widely regarded as one of the most promising and stable technical career paths of the future.

I tried to give the impression that I was seriously considering following in his footsteps, but knew that to do so I would have to agree to a prefrontal lobotomy to neutralize most of the right side of my brain. And why would I want to do that?

In the quiet interludes when the machines could be left to their own devices, I was reading On The Road., and the effect it had on me confirmed that I was totally unsuited to this work I was engaged in, and the sooner I resigned, the better for my psychological well-being. The shift ended at 5am, and it was an immense relief to leave that windowless environment and make my way to Mutual Station just a few hundred yards away, and stand on the deserted platform and breathe the cold dawn air. The Whites Only coaches were all but empty, and the solitary walk from Salt River station along Salt River Road and up Roedebloem to No 13 Palmerston afforded enough time and space to cleanse my mind of Old Mutual contamination, and begin to plan another road trip in the company of a couple of friends, and some girls, maybe.

 

Groote Schuur Hospital

 

 

I frequented the bars of Cape Town in order to drink a beer or two and, at the same time, study different character types. By doing this I probably learned more about human nature than if I had taken a degree in Psychology or Sociology.

One day I met a barfly who had recently come out of hospital after undergoing an appendectomy. I asked him if the nursing staff had treated him well.

“The nurses were good. No complaints. But I had a bad experience with a porter. When they are not pushing patients about on trolleys or in wheelchairs, they are sent to shave the groins of men about to undergo surgery. This fellow who came to me looked like he had no forehead, and communicated by grunting. He gave me a painful shave with a blunt safety razor and then stole my comb when I wasn’t looking. No, these porters, they only have a job because they would be incapable of doing anything else. It’s called protected employment.”

Some time later, after spending several idle months recovering from nearly half a year at the City Council doing mindless clerical work, I recalled this man’s words. How about being a hospital porter for a short while? This is what I asked myself, not wishing to take on anything too demanding.

At Groote Schuur Hospital I was directed to a Matron’s office on the fourth floor. Tanding to attention before this woman, I asked if she could give me a job as a porter. Middle-aged and grey haired, she looked at me across her desk and asked some questions. I tried to talk like a Woodstock oke, and said I had only passed standard 7, but I was strong and hard-working, and I tried to give the impression I was dim but honest. After a short while she interrupted me and told me to stop telling lies. She had seen right through me like I was made of glass, and I was sure I was done for.

“Forget about being a porter. You would be more useful as an orderly.”

“What does an orderly do?”

“He is a cross between a porter and an assistant nurse.”

“But what do I know about Nursing?”

“Don’t worry. The nurses will tell you what to do.”

And that is how I became an orderly.

 

I washed, shaved, fed and assisted the sick with their pissing and shitting requirements  for three months, and was on the point of resigning when that matron upstairs called me in and said I was needed on night duty in C2, the orthopaedic ward.

“Night duty? That means I must stay awake at night and sleep in the day?”

I was on night shift for six weeks but never got used to it. It messed with my circadian rhythm, which kept telling me to get some shut-eye when it grew dark, and not to lie in bed snoring at midday.

The shift stretched from seven to seven and was mostly uneventful, which made time drag. It wasn’t without memorable moments, though. A highlight was the arrival of the food trolley at 11pm. The Sister, the four or five nurses and I would take our seats in the duty room and partake of hot tea, coffee, or Milo (my choice), and gorge on toast with grated cheese and hard-boiled eggs.

Talking of the duty room brings to mind a scene one night around one o’clock with the sister seated behind the desk with not one but three bibles open before her. I had just come from the sluice room, where I had emptied a motor cycle accident victim’s bedpan. She was a happy-clapper who had difficulty keeping quiet about her relationship with Jesus. On this occasion she was telling her audience about the power of prayer. By way of example, she described how she had left her washing out to dry while she went shopping. She heard thunder and there was a cloudburst. She got down on her knees, right there in Checkers, and implored Jesus to get his father to divert the downpour away from her house. I presume she gave the address and, lo and behold, when she got home her washing was bone dry.

One night we were without a Sister and, to make matters worse, the senior nurse had to rush home with gyppo guts. The wards were quiet until about midnight, when the busser sounded and the red light flashed. It was Mr Jones, who had been in surgery the previous say. He was groaning in pain. Urine retention. One of the nurses got on the phone and called for help, but it seemed every houseman in the hospital had his hands full. The patient was beginning to writhe and shout. None of us had ever passed a catheter, but we got the dressings trolley ready with the necessary paraphernalia, hoping help would arrive. When the man screamed we agreed that one of us must act. The nurses looked at me and I got the message. I donned gloves and was about to get to grips with Mr Jones’s organ when there was the familiar sound of clip-clopping and Benny, the houseman from A1 arrived in his wooden clogs. I was both relieved and a little disappointed.

Then there was the buxom nurse. I was helping her to lift a heavy patient higher in the bed when she gave a cry of pain.

“My back again. It’s these bloody boobs of mine.”

She explained how, ever since her late teens, she had suffered from backache caused by the burden she had to carry about with her.

It had not escaped my attention that, in silhouette, the bodice of her tunic appeared inordinately full.

“I would have a breast reduction, only I worry about complications.”

My imagination was piqued, and I thought of inviting her to accompany me to the linen room, where I could weigh her mammaries in my hands. For future reference. Before I could summon sufficient temerity to make the suggestion, however, she went in search of Panado, and the opportune moment elapsed.

Night work affected me psychologically, that is for sure. From childhood, I have felt myself to be an outsider. I resisted the social pressure to establish a circle of friends and fit into a group, fearing that I might in some way lose my identity. This preference for solitude has at times brought with it feelings of loneliness and alienation. Making my way back to my house in Woodstock after a long night, walking against the early morning traffic, and seeing the rejuvenated faces of those just starting the day, I knew I was moving against the normal flow of existence, and would get into bed as the sun rose in the sky, and cover my eyes with a dish cloth, a fugitive from the light, an outcast. I am convinced my mental health would have suffered serious damage if I had not resigned when I Did.

Covent Garden

 

I thought my history of working nightshift was complete until I heard  a performance of Don Giovani recorded at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Covent Garden? This jolted my memory back to 1972.

How could I have overlooked my very first experience of being paid to work through the night? I was 21 and had undertaken a hitch hiking trip Through France, Germany and Italy to Venice, and back. Completely broke, I made it to Amsterdam and was given board and lodging for a week at a Youth Hostel in return for cleaning lavatories three times a day. My intention was to cross the Channel and make my way to 38 The Dale, Keston, Kent, where my uncle and his dear wife would welcome me once again. It was the price of a ticket on the ferry that prevented me from turning intention into action. I needed to earn more than board an lodging.

When I met a traveller of Canadian extraction in the lavatory, and he said he could employ me as an assistant cleaner of roof gutters, I seized the opportunity.

This man was in a similar financial position to mine, and had found someone to offer him casual work for three days.

In the afternoons, between my porcelain scrubbing duties, I accompanied the Canadian to an industrial area, where we climbed onto the flat roof of a two-storey office building. Our equipment was rudimentary, consisting of an aluminium extension ladder, a bucket, a rope, a stiff broom and a spade. First, we had to sweep the roof clean of leaves and dirt, and then clear the gutters and outlets. The loose material was scooped into the bucket and lowered to one of us on the fround. The bucket had to be emptied into a skip and then hauled up for the next load. The work was repetitive and tiring, and we were relieved when, on the last day, the supervisor climbed up, inspected, and gave a nod of approval.

We lowered the bucket for the last time and descended. I took the broom and the Canadian picked up the spade. Only a few rungs down, he lost his grip and, instead of falling to his death, he let go of the spade and saved himself. The tool fell, maintaining an upright posture until the stainless steel blade struck the paved surface at about 40mph. Kinetic energy was immediately converted into the elastic variety, resulting in a bounce. The projectile rose some three metres into the air, performed an acrobatic somersault, and came down at an angle to deliver a glancing blow to a Mercedes Benz parked close by.

The damage to the bodywork was not trifling, and we were fortunate to hand in the tools, collect our wages, and hurry away from the scene of the accident before the alarm was raised.

Those three afternoons were just enough to buy me a ticket on the ferry to Dover. I hitched to London, arriving in the late afternoon as it was getting dark. Broke again, I wondered where I might doss down for the night. It was October and getting cold. How could I locate the Salvation Army? I was walking aimlessly through the streets when I entered an area that seemed to be bustling with frenetic activity. Lorries were coming and going, and men were scurrying about, offloading the cargo and carting it into what looked like Victorian warehouses. I stopped a man and asked him what was going on.

“Going on? This is Covent Garden, mate. You looking for a job? Come with me.”

He took me to the back of a truck where a man with the slightly aggressive bearing of an overseer was directing operations. They exchanged a few words, looked me up and down, and seemed in agreement.

“Alright, Sonny. Join the chain gang, and you get five quid when the dicky birds start chirping.”

It was hard labour, carrying heavy crates of fruit into the warehouse, and then pockets of potatoes and more fruit, and vegetables, as one lorry replaced another.

By 5am the deliveries had dwindled. My arms and shoulders were aching and I felt weak from hunger and lack of sleep. The boss beckoned to me, handed over my fiver, and said there was a good workman’s caff just down the road.

The windows were brightly lit but misted over against the cold night. When I opened the door I was hit by a clamour of Cockney voices and a blast of hot fog. I found a chair at a table, and a waitress placed a plate of breakfast before me, assuming that was what I was there for. Eggs, bacon, sausage and chips with tomato sauce, salt and pepper. A jug-like mug of hot sweet tea.  I can still remember how much I relished that meal, and no English breakfast has ever matched that one since.

 

These four episodes were put together with details retrieved from the cerebral archive by means of memory activation. Where some information could not be verified, it was necessary to resort to plausible fabrication of what actually took place.