‘Bush Midnight’ is an evolving body of work about the African bush. In the wilderness night has a different density to anywhere else. ‘Bush Midnight’ is a term that refers to the early nights in bushcamp: if you get up at 4.45am, then you go to bed at 8.30pm.
‘Bitter Pastoral – A Talk About the Cederberg’ is the title of an essay written by my friend Stephen Watson, a South African writer who died after a short illness in April 2011.
Recently I’ve been learning about birds, and can now identify over 70 African birds by their calls, and a similar number by sight. Bird life in Lewa in the Northern Rangelands of Kenya is prolific, with over 400 species recorded in the area.
Sunrise on the Indian Ocean creates a visual effect more moving than any other sunrise I have seen.
‘Only food runs, Jean.' This is what I was told when I first broached the subject with Corne van Schwalyk, the marketing director of Ecotraining, a training provider of safari and nature guide courses in South Africa.
Pursuit as conversation…
Conversation and conservation – switch a couple of consonants around and here we have the same word. What might be the linkages between them?
To start with conversation:
‘Academics go head to head in X Factor-like talent contest’ – this is the sort of headline that accompanied the inaugural year of the BBC/AHRC’s scheme to train academics to be mainstream radio and television commentators and programme makers, launched in 2011.
In the autumn of 2011 and into January 2012 I taught one of the workshops for the innovative Write Forward – Writing the City collaboration between Birkbeck College and the
‘Ok people! Take out your paper and pens,’ Stephanie calls. ‘What are you going to do to change your lives?