Boxes, little boxes, they used to sing years ago.

I'm referring to the rapidly changing appearance of Swakopmund. A local paper said that many of the town's best-known buildings were disappearing, to be replaced by structures aka instamatic holiday flats with all the aesthetic appeal of lego blocks. I disagree - a libellous statement about Lego, whose blocks do have much appeal. Have a look at the above examples - the black and white stage-set frontage - what is it supposed to be? Apart from the €$ symbol - the sole deoration on the edifice - it looks pretty cheap. Also the twee cardboard gables and the intent to create a fake kaiser-kolonial theme park. Which are the real buildings and which the fakes? Clue - most of them are fakes. Anyway, a happy new year to all. The season for jollity and not for whingeing. Just bring your headache tabs if you are visiting here.

DID YOU SEE

the hilarious ads in the namibian papers the other day placed, by the state Telecom monopoly, using our money, and issuing dire warning about the prevalence of "illegal" practices?

You can get the full text of the advertisement here.

These dangerous, subversive, illegal practices (remember this is the 21st century) include VOIP, Wireless Internet Access (shocking) and International callback services. All systems, in fact, which enable ordinary people to conduct their communications in an affordable manner and bypass ramshackle state services and their diktat charges. Can we detect the cries of said state organisations desperate to prop up their pathetic monopoly before it gets kicked from under them? Maybe our dear Telecom is looking over its shoulder to South Africa, where the state telephone monopoly, which has been ripping off its hapless customers for half a century, is about to get a vastly overdue free market competitor.
Anyway, the ad reveals solomnly that Telecom "regularly receives complaints about outright violations of telecommunication legislation". Right - many people are 'outraged' that private systems offer them overseas calls for 40c per minute for instance when they could be paying N$6 per minute to those nice Telecom people. Not to mention 30c per minute for dial-up Internet services.
And how is Telecom going to enforce the 'law' - for instance to stop a Namibian using VOIP on a German hosted website? And how is Telecom Namibia going to prosecute a US based call-back service and put it out of business?

The main thing about the Interent is the transcending of political and legal jurisdictional boundaries. I can lend the worthies of Telecom some books about this if they are interested.

I recommend to Telecom that they stop wasting money on full page ads (and also incidentally stop sponsoring crappy events like boxing matches). Not to mention the millions spent on repainting everything with a stupid orange spotted logo which isn't original anyway). Use the savings to bring their PRICES DOWN. Maybe this would put them in a better position to be competitive to rival services when these inevitably come.

As for the Namibian Communications Commission (NCC) sitting in their air-conned offices 'regulating' on geovernment salaries (what do they actually do all day?) - the sooner they come out and seek honest employment the better. When 'regulation' is gone you will see the price of calls dropping form 40c to 4c per minute. But not before.

It's always sad in a way to see vested interests trying to hold back not only the march of technology but the people's access to it. Like the English Luddites who went around smashing those new-fangled steam engines - they were going to make transport affordable to the masses. Infringe the stage-coach monopoly? Can't have that!
The same applies (of course) to modern communications, and if Namibia Telecom and the NCC don't like it, they can stick it up their telephone jack.

There used to be a mini-suburb of Windhoek, intriguingly surrounded by the Southern Industrial area, which resembled a rural Namibian town, with simple but perfectly sound houses, and gravel roads, shaded by huge gum trees, inhabited by local people - just a couple of streets off the main thoroughfare of Lazarett St. It was like an intriguing time warp. In April I passed by to take a few pictures (see above). Now, just a couple of weeks before the 'festive' seaon, I passed by again And was greeted by a forlorn sight - the houses had all been demolished, or left as empty shells, the people of course evicted and gone.
This land is owned by the Municipality who gave the excuse that the houses on it were 'substandard', not worth maintaining, and were going to be sold for 'resticted' business purposes. Let me guess - the sale will be 'restricted' to Mr. H. Pupkewitz, whose enterprises occupy the surrounding area. Mr Pupkewitz recently celebrated his 90th birthday, which simply means that he has been robbing Namibians for the past 60 years now. His latest exploit, achieved with a few well-placed bribes, was to induce the Goverment to forbid the direct import of good affordable used Japanese vehicles, so that consumers will continue to have to pay the inflated prices in his 'official' Nissan and Toyota dealerships.
So the little suburb by this time next year (the houses and trees all gone) will become the latest Toyota showroom, to match his new Nissan one next door. Something we desperately need.
Anyway, a merry sun-drenched Christmas to all our readers.