Wednesday 16 July 2014

No Sleep!


Sleepless night for me, I am afraid.  Usually this was the time of day I wrote my best stuff but back then my creative juices were fortified with Scottish whisky and not the Ceylon tea I am drinking now.  Alex has a chest cold, a pretty miserable affliction at the best of times but awful in the tropics.  Marcia is desperately tired so I am doing the night shift as duty nurse so that she can sleep and I can keep Alex propped up on his pillows to help him breathe.

The internet connection has been pretty much useless since I returned from England.  While I was there I bought myself a wireless router, a device marketed as a ‘MiFi’ which promised to improve my connection and also allow me to set up a personal hot spot.  The hot spot would allow Marcia to connect as well.  Sounded wonderful except that the local internet service provider refused to configure it (or give me the configuration settings) as they had not sold it to me.  It took me a while to work out but I am now linked to you and the rest of the world through the device, as is Marcia, so up yours Movinet.  Much to my dismay though, as I have to pay for the gigabytes used, I notice that the connection has improved so markedly that Marcia was able to watch her favourite soap channel as a streaming video this afternoon.  Having extolled both the virtues of the device and my own technical prowess, I can now hardly complain if she enjoys its benefits to the full.  Alex is only five but he has already worked out how to stream Ben 10 cartoons onto his Samsung Tablet.  Until the novelty wears off (or the monthly quota of internet wiggly amps is exceeded) the TV appears largely redundant.

For want of tools, I was unable to finish off the installation of the FrankenPump, the working water pump I created out of the dead bodies of two other pumps, so with spit running backwards have had to accept the need to call in a local plumber.  Naturally, he did not turn up so we passed another day of lugging water in buckets from the well to the cottage.

The Jeep is looking years younger now that I have bent my finger joints backwards giving the coachwork a good going over with cutting polish.  Sadly, I can see through its makeover and know that beneath its buffed skin lies a heap of trouble.  It is about time I replaced it with a new car.  Marcia sportingly suggested I buy something small such as a little Corolla.  I put my foot down.  There was no way I was going to allow her and little Alex to travel backwards and forwards to town in a car notable only for its origami like qualities when involved in a collision and I told her this.  So she asked for a Range Rover instead.  I hate Range Rovers.  Sure, they are good looking and very capable 4x4’s but they are so bloody unreliable and outrageously expensive to repair.  I suggested a Volvo XC90.  They’re brilliant.  Comfortable, reliable and understated, everything I could wish for in a car.  No dice, she might stoop to a VW Touareg.

It is hard to buy a decent car here at a decent price.  I generally do not buy cars new, people who do lose a quarter of the value of their investment as soon as they drive it out of the showroom.  I prefer to let someone else take the hit and buy a low mileage year or two old example.  Finding such a car here is, as I have said, tough.  It will either be knackered or overpriced so the only course left is to import.  I have imported a few cars, all of them bought unseen, the decision to buy having been based on photos and the declarations of sellers, a highly risky strategy you will undoubtedly agree but I have been lucky.  I do try to mitigate the risk.  For a start, I will only import used cars from Germany.  Of all the nations in the world, they, along with perhaps the Swiss, have draconian roadworthiness directives and, with a genetically programmed need to keep things neat and tidy, tend to look after their cars. 

Import duties for vehicles are not simple.  They are anything from 2% to 50% and depend on the use to which the vehicle will be put (making it cheapest to ride around in an ambulance), the age of the vehicle (the older it is the more expensive the duty), the type of fuel and the cubic capacity of the engine.  A low mileage Range Rover is cheaper to buy in Dubai than in Germany.  But all Dubai RR’s have hot snot turbo charged large capacity V8 petrol engines so attract 50% duty whereas the smaller capacity diesel engined version in Germany may cost more but only attracts 20% duty if it is less than three years old.

I am too tired to think about cars tonight, it will have to remain a niggling anxiety until I work something out.

Well, it is six in the morning, Alex and Marcia are sleeping peacefully and my laptop battery is about dead so I shall try and snatch a few myself.  Germany won the world cup as we all know and I am sure you picked up on the fact that it is the first world cup a united Germany has won.  Well, with the ex DDR mob involved, it isn’t so hard to believe that Germany cheated.  This new, brash young team were bred from birth to win…



7 Up - They don't like 7 Up in Brazil.

30 comments:

  1. I often wonder WHY companies have to treat their custormers so crappy. Glad you figured out the configurations.
    I wish there were a fix out of my internet, but I live in the "sticks" and a valley to boot, so good internet is IMPOSSIBLE here. It's hard to come home from travel to SSSLLLOOOWWW ( !!! ) internet.

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    1. I am confident that Movinet Customer Service personnel were trained by British Airways.

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  2. poor alex! i hope he feels better soon. i watched every single world cup game. a first for me.

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    1. Blimey, you need to get out more!

      I reckon the US are in with a good shout next time...

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    2. God help us if they ever start playing Cricket.

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  3. Whenever i want to contribute some witty comment i get distracted by that bloody yucky toe on my right. Living in Angola seems bloody difficult on all fronts and so i ask myself why?

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    1. It was a Portuguese colony and Portugal was still Third World until it got into the EU...

      Try reading my blog with a patch over your right eye.

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  4. Maybe even consider an XC70, an estate on small stilts and sort-of 4 wheel drive. Very comfy and still a fair bit of room for family and stuff.

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    1. Since the disastrous floods, I have a small estate on stilts...

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  5. Re: Alex's cold - what a shame those bloody numpties at the airport kept your supply of Buttercup Cough Syrup. Complete F***wits aren't they?

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  6. What about buying a 4x4 in Namibia?
    http://www.namcars.com.na/4x4-Namibia.html
    It's only 27 hrs by car between Windhoek and Luanda and you could fly down to pick up your new vehicle...I can already hear you laughing in darkest Yorkshire!

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    1. Sadly, cars in Namibia are right hand drive so not legal (or sensible) to import into Angola.

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  7. A couple of my workmates have been driving the rest of us crazy with incessant world cup talk. If I never hear the word "futball" again it will be fine with me! Some of them even thought it was acceptable to constantly re-arrange their schedules to go home and watch games. Irritating. So glad it's over!

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    Replies
    1. And now, here comes the American football season, too. Sigh.

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    2. Only foreigners call this game football. It is, of course soccer. Football is played with an egg shaped ball. To their credit, Americans make this distinction too.

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  8. Both Greg and I share your views on new cars. We have NEVER bought a new car EVER, the youngest being 6-months old. I agree that Germans hold the market for cars with their stringent TUV regulations. Audis seem quite popular here at the moment.

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    1. Actually, as far as I can recall I have bought at least four cars brand new, Two of them were VW Golf GTi's, one was a 300SL and the last a Mitsubishi L200 here, I also bought two small trucks brand new but they were Chinese and as cheap as second hand anyway. With their short, generally tortured life span, I only ever bought new motorcycles. I have bought boats second hand but generally subscribe to the view that if it flies, floats or f***s, rent it.

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  9. 7-up and milk? sounds like cat puke. Older 70s vintage 2 door SWB Range Rovers with the aluminum Buick engine were decent. After 1975 when they made them in to Liberacce limos they are all junk. Just last weekend we looked at one of those new Evoques. I like the general design but they have way to many bells and whistles that will crap out after 3 or 4 years. Especially in a 3rd world crap hole with real road conditions, and you'd be up shit creek trying to source finicky parts in Angola. And the same goes for the Touareg and Tiguan. For long term survival, your best bet might be a bare bones double cab Japanese pick-up truck (Taliban truck) with a proper H frame underneath. If Toyota or Nissan have reps there it might make your life a whole lot easier when sourcing parts. No good having a leather seat pimpmobile if the AC don't work and the windows don't crank down.

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    1. That advert was from around the time Marlboro were convincing us all that it was healthy to smoke.

      Sr Silvius, we both know what would be a sensible vehicle here but convincing Marcia to drive an old style Toyota would be like you trying to convince your fiancée that an olive washer would serve perfectly well as a wedding ring.

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  10. I'm glad you're home and sorting out your little world. Take care of the leg; we don't need it posted in the side bar.

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  11. Tom

    If you decide to import from Dubai and need any assistance let me know, I've lived here 4 years now, 3 years in Luanda before that , happy to help.

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    1. That is very kind of you, I would love to pick your brains! I am also in the market for a sport fishing boat but can't find a decent sales site to give me a good idea of pricing. I would also like to get in touch with a decent and patient freight forwarder who knows about exporting to Angola and is prepared to answer a lot of stupid questions!

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    2. Sorry for the delay in replying but I was on vacation for a few weeks.
      drm.dxb@gmail.com is the mail address, drop me a line and should be able to help on all issues as our logistics manager here was also in Luanda with me for several years so will have the contacts to help there as well.

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  12. I will say I am looking forward to eventually heading out of Africa and living in a country where things work pretty much all of the time. But it does teach patience.

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  13. Have you charged that laptop up yet? Missing your posts that used to be so regular! Hope that you and the family are all OK. X

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  14. Has Ebola caught up with you? No word for weeks!

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    1. I think maybe Tom was abducted by martians. Should make for a good story when they let him go.

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    2. I thought of Ebola too. Never considered aliens. "A Hippo on a Spaceship" could be his post- abduction blog.

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