Noorspoort Guest Farm

P O Box 29

Steytlerville

6250

Telefax 049-835-0001 or 049-835-9014

Cell 082 578 5503 (George)

Website: www.noorspoort.co.za

Date: 2008-02-23

Ref. 55-

Dear

NOORSPOORT NEWSLETTER 2008-02

We landed a mixed bag of responses after our first new-format newsletter! There were some readers who liked what they read and saw, but there were also those who felt that our liaison held no future potential and asked me to ‘unsubscribe’ them – which of courses is their democratic right, and fits in correctly with the philosophy and rules of new field of ‘netiquette’ (Internet etiquette). Some readers also lauded my use of some Afrikaans and expressed the hope that they would see more of this in future (ek self is maar ‘n eenvoudige boerseun en trots op my Moedertaal, Afrikaans. So baie van ons probeer so hard om polities-korrek op te tree dat ons begin skaam word het vir ons wortels). Keeping all readers interested and satisfied is of course no easy task, but we try our best!

NEWS AND EVENTS

Photography course

Please remember the digital camera photography course that Pine Pienaar (left) will be offering from 7 to 9 March 2008. If you are interested, contact Heidi at 082 865 2699 or 041 368 6087 or at e-mail heidikb@mweb.co.za. 

Geese Farming course

The first Geese Farming course of 2008 took place this past weekend and was well received. People with e-mail addresses who have attended such courses at Noorspoort Guest Farm are now automatic subscribers to an e-zine (electronic newsletter) in which we share new information with them and allow readers to ask us the odd question. In the first e-zine we tell readers how the French with their love for fatty livers (‘pâté de foie gras’) have cleverly circumvented the ban placed by certain countries – including France itself - on the force-feeding (‘gavage’) of geese. A real case study of The French Connection!

Weight Loss & Wellness Retreat

Another Weight Loss and Wellness session has been scheduled for the immediate future at Noorspoort Guest Farm, namely from 14 to 16 March 2008. Please click on the above link or here to obtain more information on what it is all about. Alternatively you could contact Dr Anchen van Tonder at 073-031-5368.

FACTS & FIGURES

·         Yes, we all know about the genius of Albert Einstein. And I fully agree with the accolades and praise that have been heaped copiously on his high IQ head. What a remarkable intellect and insight the man had! But you know, in my books there is a guy I admire even more than Einstein – the guy next door in the photo. Maybe it is because I saw him personally on quite a few occasions and even had the opportunity to speak briefly and superficially with him at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York state. My promoter and at Cornell University was Professor F C Steward, a brilliant, diminutive Englishman, who seems to have had regular running battles with the University Administrators. As a result he ended up with his laboratory outside the Biological Sciences block, viz. in the Mann Building of Physics. And it was here that I sometimes saw Professor Hans Bethe in the passageway (on my - and his - way to and from the men’s toilet!). Hans Bethe literally sat down with pencil and paper in the years before super-computers and worked out how stars could produce radiant energy for millions of years without burning out (the so-called carbon-oxygen-nitrogen cycle)! Amazing! For this work – and numerous other scientific contributions – he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967. He was also to a large extent the head (read ‘brains’) behind the Manhattan Project in which America developed the atomic bomb during World War II (as Head of the Theoretical Division). Hans Bethe was born in Germany in 1906, fled Nazi Germany, and became a naturalised American in 1941. He died at Ithaca on 6 March 2006 (the image above is of a much younger Hans Bethe than the older, kindly gentlemen I remember, and is placed here with full recognition to the Internet encyclopaedia, Wikipedia).

·         It is said somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun. So what happens is that the same things are said and done over and over during the course of time. Even the same mistakes are often repeated by those who do not heed the lessons of history! A case in point is some of the wisdom and insights that corporate trainers tend to come up with. Mr Kerry Gleeson, founder of the Institute for Business Technology, says that schools do not prepare us well for many of the basic tasks we have to perform in the everyday work environment, such as sorting through e-mails, filing our paperwork, time management, and so on. He is right of course, and thus he and many other consultants and trainers can make a living by helping modern man to come to grips with his weaknesses and forgetful nature! As human beings we simply love to have the basics explained to us again and again, albeit in new and refreshing format and form every time. It is only the wise, it seems, that learn from the mistakes/weaknesses of others. Do I hear some dissenting voices?!

IN LIGHTER VEIN

You may have heard the following true story, but it is simply worthwhile recounting again (ah-ah, what did I say above?!). A bus driver in Zimbabwe had a contract to transport twenty mentally ill patients from the southern part of the country to an asylum in Harare. It was an extremely warm day and along the way he decided to stop at a shebeen to have a quick beer. One beer became two, two became three, and so on. Eventually he made his way back to his bus and found that all the patients had disappeared. In agony he looked around, for if he could not deliver the patients to the asylum, he would forfeit his contract fee. However, he saw a group of people standing under a tree next to the road some distance away. He drove up to them as asked them where they were going. When they said ‘Harare’, he said that the first twenty could get a free ride there. And so he delivered 20 people to the asylum in Harare! The newspaper report in which this story was reported says that it took two days for the twenty to convince the authorities and personnel at the asylum that they were normal. The article concludes by saying that as for the original twenty who disappeared, well, they ‘simply blended back into Zimbabwean society again’.

Kind regards/Vriendelike groete

Dr George Craven

PROJECTS COORDINATOR

PS. If you wish to unsubscribe simply Reply to this e-mail & by placing the word ‘Unsubscribe’ in the Subject line

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