Hurdling deadlines

Final stretch. I broke into a sprint a bit too early, so now I’ve got a stitch and a cramp, and I’m struggling against the urge to spend 24 hours in bed to make up for the many late nights and early starts. Less than a week to go, cheer me on! We haven’t even thought about packing up the house yet. Poor Kinshasa – I haven’t really given it much time or energy this year. Next time.



Here are some pictures of DRC refugees from the BBC News website. Lovely shots, but just too stereotypical in my view. I wish someone would do a series about the everyday madness and frenzy and fervour and energy of Kinshasa. Now that would be a real challenge – you could more readily film it, but I reckon it’s all too much to capture on still. Lionel has the best selection of DRC pictures I’ve seen so far, but even he hasn’t cracked Kinshasa yet.

P.S: The reason I was browsing the BBC News website was to see if this story, about a misguided man who cut off his penis with a knife in a London restaurant called “Zizzi”, was genuine or not. French speakers will understand my scepticism – a gruesome late April Fool’s joke perhaps? I eventually found the story under the ‘most e-mailed’ category.