I am sinking into my chair, my head is floppy and my eyes are at half-mast. I have succumbed to chronic Durban-ness. I can barely tap the keyboard. I would pay someone to tap it for me, but that would mean going indoors to make a phone call or something, and I can’t be arsed. It is a wintery 26°, the air is slow, soft, barely there. Not much is going on. I went for a coffee, and half a swim. Neither can beat the slumber. I want to say conquer but that seems too much effort.

 

I saw a monkey a week ago, there by Burman Bush, he is still there, thinking about the road and when he will cross it. Maybe one day, he will take the leap. In Durban, you can be 48, and still living at home, thinking about that surf shop, coffee shop, DJ collective you always meant to open. That’s why I like Durban. Ambition is metered by lethargy. Change is what you do when you take off your board shorts and put on your smart shorts. Activity is a word found in the dictionary, not on the street. There is a stillness to purpose that Buddhist monks yearn for. If we could bottle it and sell it, we’d make millions, but who can be bothered with that?

 

I can hear the call to prayer wafting up the hill from across the race course, it is teatime. My wife and I used to talk about politics, the environment, the moral responsibility of individuals versus corporations and some other stuff. Now we talk about the virtues of homemade banana bread, toasted with butter. But ag, who really cares? If you are quiet enough, even a banana tree has something to say.

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  • David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon missionary they call the Sweet Singer of Israel. He is a British historian and a bishop. David Smith is the biographer of HG Wells, a professor of physics, a composer and a music teacher at Yale. He played rugby for Samoa, England and New Zealand. He created the Melissa worm, a deadly computer virus. He is the Guardian's man in Africa, he starred in a reality TV show and shot his way to silver in the 600m military rifle prone position at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. But this isn't that David Smith. This is the blog of the other David Smith. David J Smith. The one from Durban by the Sea. The one who lives in Amsterdam. Yes, him. The David Smith who likes to write about himself in the third person. To learn about all the other David Smiths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith To contact this David Smith: [email protected]

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David J Smith

David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon...

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