Money

The day after we arrived in England from Zimbabwe, I went out on a little mission; namely, to investigate the offerings of the British confectionary industry. I effected this mission at the nearby corner shop. Apart from being rather taken aback by the discovery that Cadbury was not a Zimbabwean brand, I was generally most satisfied with the results of my research.

When I went to the counter to pay for my selection, and the cheery Indian man behind it (yes, they have Indians in England too!) told me the price, the realisation suddenly dawned on me that I was completely unfamiliar with British currency. In a mildly panicked fluster, I regarded the pile of assorted coins in my hand, and then just thrust the whole lot out to the man, for him to take the appropriate amount.

Well, I found this little episode so unspeakably embarrassing that I made my way back home and immediately stationed myself at the dining room table with a comprehensive array of coins before me, and proceeded to make a careful study of them, that I might never again be placed in a position of such shame by my pecuniary ignorance.

And here’s the thing. I memorised the identity of every British coin in a matter of about 45 seconds. The coins are wonderfully designed, each with a size, weight, shape, or combination of these factors peculiar to that coin, making each one instantly recognisable, even at a distance, in the dark, in the depths of a pocket or handbag.

What a startling contrast to the august, worthy currency that is the legal tender of 17 states of the European Union.

For those of you who are familiar with the euro, here is a little quiz. Those of you not familiar with it, feel free to hang around and watch.

1) This coin is:

A.      €1

B.      €2

2) This coin is:

A.      20c

B.      50c

3) This coin is:

A.      1c

B.      2c

C.      5c

4) This note is: 

A.      €10

B.      €50

C.      €200

ANSWERS

1. B

2. A

3. C

4. C

SCORE

All correct: Congratulations! Either you fluked (you had a 2.8% chance of doing so), or you really know your euro!

Three correct: You are definitely among those with a privileged knowledge of the European currency.

Two correct: Not bad. At least you are likely to pay the correct amount for your purchases half the time.

One correct: Better than none at all.

None correct: Join the club.

The euro was introduced in 2000, and notes and coins started circulating in 2002. This makes it a comparatively new currency. Now, if you have a currency that doesn’t make much sense but has been around for ages, then there is a certain case for keeping it – because it would be a hassle to change it to something more user-friendly.  But in this case, a currency was being designed from scratch. There were all the colours of the visible spectrum to choose from; there could be the most magnificent works of art embossed upon the notes and coins; they could be square, triangular, shaped like animals (how cool would that be?); the euro could be the envy of every country with a frumpy-looking currency. Given the above, why oh why, please tell me, would you go and churn out a load of coins which all look the same and a note which is virtually indistinguishable in poor light from a note 20 times its value?

It puts me in a very frustrating position when I am in a eurozone country, and I have to pay for something in a shop. I stand there for interminable minutes, poking around in an amateurish fashion at a handful of coins, trying to identify those which will most efficiently serve my purpose, and wanting to cry out at the shop assistant and customers in the steadily growing queue behind me, “I’m not like all those other clueless tourists, you know! I’ve been using the euro for ages!” But I don’t. Because the shop assistant and gathering customers would just roll their eyes and mutter, “Oh, these stupid, stupid tourists.”

In a quest to find specimens of notes and coins from which to draw inspiration, I have just typed “Cool notes and coins” into Google Images. I nearly closed the computer and went to make a cup of tea when I saw that of the first 20 images proposed, no fewer than 12 were pictures of euros and pounds. I realised it was probably due to my geographical location and to the fact that my last few Google searches have involved the euro, so I decided to put the cup of tea on hold and do another search.

This time, “beautiful money” yielded the following:

The old Dutch currency:

I bet they have mixed feelings about the euro in their day-to-day banknote-handling activities.

The French Pacific territories:

Another European currency whose beautiful notes had to make way for the dowdy euro.

 The Comoros franc:

Breathtakingly evocative.

Canada – pictures of people having fun. What a marvellous theme for banknotes.

And, I’m exceedingly proud to note, Zimbabwe’s hundred-trillion-dollar note (now – in one sense unfortunately – replaced with the more dependable US dollar) made it into the top twenty results.

And finally, my vision of animal-shaped banknotes has come true:

Cupboards

Everywhere I go, I leave a trail of open cupboards in my wake. The peculiar thing is that there are few things that irritate me quite so much as a cupboard door left open.

This was the backdrop of my life for many years – in fact, for as many years as I have been opening cupboards – and I never thought in a very focused way about it until about a week ago.

The thing is, when I open a cupboard, even as I am in the process of turning away from it, I am already starting to get irked at the fact that it has been left open. So why do I do it?

                                                                   

“Why do you do it?” I would ask myself, as I turned away. “If you know it is going to bother you, then why don’t you just turn back and close it?”

“No,” I would reply to myself. “Because… No.” And I would go back to whatever mission I was on.

So one day, as an experiment, I did actually close a cupboard. It pained me to do so – I clenched my jaw, I furrowed my brow, and I tensed my throat as I did so. And it was at that point that I discovered why I always leave them open.

 It made the most bone-jarringas it swung to.

  

On several occasions since then, I have replicated the experiment. (They do say it is good scientific practice.) And every time, it has produced the same result. The noise of the door banging shut, no matter how gently, causes greater disturbance to me than any open cupboard ever could.

Oddly, this aural discomfort applies only to cupboards. I have shared workspaces with people who beg and entreat passersby to shut the door with care as they enter or exit, and I have promptly exited, slamming the door shut behind me without even realising I was doing so. I have been severely remonstrated by proud car owners for my violent closing of their car doors as I get in or out. And I believe there can be very few people in existence who ever close a microwave as crashingly and clatteringly as I routinely do.

So why the cupboards? The short answer is: I have no idea. In the meantime, I continue to leave them open, or, out of consideration for those who might find it galling, ajar.

Art

I once went to an art exhibition, in an attempt to introduce some culture into my life. The theme of the exhibition was “White”. There were some very impressive works of art there, but I must admit I paused and rolled my eyes ever so slightly before a picture which looked precisely like this: 

The theme was “White”, you understand. So the artist had given us a white canvas. And, just to be daring and cutting-edge, he had ruled a grey pencil line all the way around the edge.

There are undoubtedly those who appreciate such antics in an art exhibition, but I regret to say I’m not one of them. Nevertheless, in order to avoid slipping into the cultural gutter, I continued to visit this gallery every now and then.

On one occasion, there was an exhibition of the winning entries of an art competition – a display which I had heard spoken of most highly. There were certainly some beauties there – a treat to the eyes and soul. But I hope you will understand how I felt when I found myself face-to-face with one of these winning entries, a painting which looked – please don’t laugh – like this:

I consulted my brother, who was studying A level art at the time, on the matter, and he nodded comprehendingly and then explained it to me, thus:

“If you give a three-year-old a piece of paper and some crayons, and ask them to draw a tree, then they will draw a triangle on a stick, because a three-year-old thinks that’s what a tree looks like. But if you have studied art to degree level and beyond, and you draw a triangle on a stick and call it a tree, then that is because you are interpreting a tree and drawing your interpretation of it. There’s a difference, you see.”

Well, call me a philistine, but this is way beyond my comprehension. My interpretation skills clearly leave something be desired.

My view of art (and, if it comes to that, Art) is this: its most noble purpose, as I see it, is to provide pleasure to the viewer (or listener or experiencer). The performance of a musical opus which employs murderously difficult sequences, unnatural syncopation, and dissonant note clusters and requires decades of study to be able to perform properly is admirable in its own way, but is it really the sort of thing you want on your iPod? Experimental dance, in which the performers contort themselves into curious positions and periodically wiggle across the stage or indulge in simulated epileptic fits may be highly therapeutic for the performers, but would you pay good money to watch an hour of it? And a painting may employ painfully complex techniques, take many hours to complete, and be saturated with significance, but if, at the end of the day, it is ugly, then will you hang it on your wall? And is an exhibition truly a felicitous place for it?

Rather than sit here complaining about bad art, I thought I would share some art with you which I think is truly worth sharing. Each of the following works answers to what I think makes good art: it shows intelligence and skill, and it is wonderful to look at. Enjoy.

World-famous landmarks in ice

Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders

The death of Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais (worth £30 million)

Three-dimensional pavement art, as pioneered by Bert in Mary Poppins. This example depicts a Lego version of the Terracotta Army (very interesting).

  Here are the originals, for comparison.

More 3-D pavement art. Tell me it’s not terrifying!

And pavement art need not necessarily happen on a pavement.

Images from the Hubble Space Telescope. I include them here as art because they are in false colour, so they have actually been “made” by someone.

The Hubble guys having a little joke at our expense

And you thought maths was just numbers? Well, feast your eyes on what our mathematical friends can produce:
Fractals - a self-similar geometric shape (i.e. one that appears similar at all levels of magnification), produced by an equation that undergoes repeated iterative steps. But don't let that disturb you: just look how pretty they are.

Entreat me not to leave thee, by Philip Hermogenes Calderon

Ruth and Naomi from the Bible.

And art hits the street:

Flowers

Sometimes people ask me if I miss Zimbabwe, and I’m never quite sure what to say. There are things I miss about it, certainly, but I have been in Europe for so long that I feel as if I belong here now. (Even so, after so many years, there are still days when I wake up in the morning, and in that instant just prior to waking, as I am trying to work out where I am, my bedroom in Zimbabwe comes up briefly as an option.)

The fact is that my childhood happened in Africa, and my adulthood happened in Europe. I thought I was very grown-up when we moved (I was 16), but now I realise that I really wasn’t. And if I lived there now, my life would be very different, not only because the country has changed so much since I lived there, but because I have grown up. So if I miss “Zimbabwe”, it is not so much the country as my childhood that I am nostalgic about.

When I was in Brazil, something that never failed to draw excited squeals from me was seeing flowers that I had last seen in Zimbabwe. Whoever I was with at the time would tend to get the impression that I was fanatical about flowers in general, and would start pointing out this flower or that flower that I might like to take photos of. And then I would have to explain that it was not “flowers” I was excited about so much as “flowers that brought back memories”.

I would like to share some of these with you. If you are African, you may well find these as nostalgia-inducing as I do; if not, then I hope you simply enjoy looking at them.

Nasturtiums

These are edible flowers. Some people put them in salads. I’m not entirely sure why, though – they’re peppery and not particularly nice. My mother swears that when she was a little girl, she once put a nasturtium in a glass of water, and she saw a water baby swimming around it.

Black-eyed Susans

The black-eyed part of the name is clear enough. But why Susan? I don’t know.

  

Canna lilies

Apart from being beautiful flowers, these have the most fascinating seed pods. When they are green, they look like this:

and the seeds inside are white. When they dry out, both the pod and the seeds in it go black: 

and if you scatter the seeds in the garden in the evening, then the fairies will come and take them away during the night. 

Bird of Paradise flower

Spectacular, no?

Busy Lizzies

These are wonderful for two reasons: first because they come in so many different colours, and second because they have the most fantastic seed pods. They are shiny and bulbous, and when you squeeze them, they burst and curl up:

Eucalyptus

 

If you crush eucalyptus leaves, they release a delicious smell. The flowers are furry and gorgeous, and when they fall off, they leave a little cup behind, which also falls off eventually. I used to collect these cups, put a drop of water in each one, and leave them out for the fairies. Every now and then, I would announce that I could hear the fairies crying because they were thirsty and I had to go and fill up the cups.

Golden showers

You really want to type in “golden showers flowers” if you go and do a Google search for this. Apart from being very pleasing to look at, these flowers are very exciting, because if you pluck them off the green base, you can drink the nectar out the end.

Dark red roses

Not necessarily African, but I include them because my grandparents had a section of their (huge) garden with a collection of rose bushes growing, untended and perfectly happy to be so. They were always slightly black, making them look old even when they hadn’t even opened yet, and they smelt heavenly.

Frangipane

These flowers are wonderful for making necklaces with, because you can easily thread a piece of cotton into the centre and through the short stem. The trees have a milky white sap which we were warned was poisonous and which I was always slightly afraid of.

Dahlias

I first discovered these in my grandparents’ garden when they grew out of a pile of rubble where some building work had been done. For years, I was convinced that dahlias necessarily grew out of rubble.

  

Wild strawberries

We had these in our garden, growing in the shade of a big tree, hidden among moss and violets. We never ate them – I think they might have been poisonous.

Mulberries

The best way to spend an afternoon during the school holidays: climb the mulberry tree (and never was there a tree so tailor-made for climbing), and sit in the branches eating mulberries. Then spend the rest of the day with purple fingers. And if you have silkworms, you keep them in a box full of mulberry leaves. 

Flame lilies

This is the national flower of Zimbabwe and is protected. You are not allowed to pick it, even if it is growing in your own garden. They grew in my grandparents’ garden, for a few weeks every year, and we would go round counting them.

Jacaranda trees

Not indigenous to Zimbabwe, but so much part of the scenery that you would never know it. Every year, thousands of these trees come into bloom, and the streets turn purple. The flowers fall to the ground, inspiring teachers up and down the country to give their pupils creative writing assignments on “purple carpets”. Bees creep into the flowers on the ground, and then you walk around with bare feet and get stung, but you never learn to put shoes on.

If you squeeze the base of the flowers, a white, mucus-like ooze comes out. You can imagine how many hours of entertainment that provides.

  

Mielies

Or corn, if you will. We had some of these growing in our garden. They were a nuisance to prepare – you had to peel the cobs and pull off all the annoying hairy stuff. Then you boiled them, covered them in margarine (you couldn't get butter) and salt and pepper, and sat there gnawing them, and bits got stuck between your teeth. I refuse to eat them now without cutting the grains off the cob first.

Clover/Donkey weed

       

A bed of clover is the most decadent place you will ever have an afternoon nap. Someone at school once told me it was edible, and I tried several times to eat it, but was never quite convinced. (Having said that, someone at school also told me that red ants were edible. I was never brave enough to try them, but the other kids ate them. Mind you, that was at the age when we were still eating banana skins, mud, and food from the dog’s bowl.)

  

Mukwa

The wood of the mukwa tree is used to make furniture. The seeds are used to make instant parachutes. If you drop them from a height, they float down most delightfully.

Hoopoe

Not, strictly speaking, a flower, but what a magnificent crest and beak!

Lilac-breasted roller

Well, we appear to have moved into bird territory. 
I first became aware of these when I saw one on a postage stamp, and after that, I started seeing them all the time. And they always seemed to be sitting on electricity lines (although this one isn’t).

Masked weaver

These are very industrious little birds, and at the beginning of the summer, they all start building funny teardrop-shaped nests with the entrance at the bottom. How the babies manage not to fall out is one of life's great unsolved mysteries. When the nests are high up, it’s supposed to mean there is going to be a lot of rain that season – the birds build the nests out of the reach of flood waters. (A bit overly cautious, perhaps, since it never floods in Zimbabwe.)

  

Red bishop

A sure-fire way to catch a predator’s eye, but what a stylish way to go!

Chongololo

I suppose this is a millipede, but nobody in Zimbabwe will ever refer to it as that. Chongololos are delightful creatures with such fine, numerous legs that they look as if they are gliding along on two waving ribbons. They tickle if they crawl on your hand, and when they are scared, they coil up.

My grandparents

whose garden was a magical playground.