Out to bat for Allen

APPARENTLY the fiveTwilight films have grossed almost $1.4 billion (R16.52 billion) nationally and $3.4 billion worldwide.

Judging by those figures, this first book in a series of three is the ideal fare of most modern day young girls, cashing in on the vampire/werewolf/zombie craze, which seems to have initially taken off with the launch of the Vampire Diaries books and television series by L J Smith, as far back as 1991.

Of several books for teens I have recently reviewed, the collaborative writing of these two authors resonates most with me.

It effectively sets the scene for the arrival of the recently-orphaned Katelyn in her grandfather’s small town, drawing the reader into the enigmatic lives of theWolf Springs inhabitants.

Wolf Springs is a place where werewolves are an unspoken threat and inscrutable secrets are part of the tapestry of the small-town American High School, a la Mystic Falls.

Two dishy blokes vie for the heroine’s attention, providing the obligatory love interest, and scenes played out in the forests surrounding Katelyn’s grandfather’s secluded home evoke an eerie vibe of angst, uncertainty and mystery.

It seems certain that any teen with a bent for the paranormal will postively devour the Wolf Springs Chronicles books. Hot on the heels of the release of the English version of Crochet Know How, Karen Adendorff has released its successor, Crochet Know How 2. This time the English and Afrikaans editions have hit the bookshelves simultaneously.

The guide still teaches the basics so beginners can learn the art of crocheting. She has featured more than 100 pattern stitches, which are rated according to difficulty, and has included stitches such as Solomon’s knot, extended single crochet and bullion stitch.

Adendorff has kept to the successful formula of accompanying each with a clear explanation, diagram and photograph.

This follow-up book is sure to be as popular as the first, which was a top seller.

CECIL Rhodes is on everyone’s lips at present, but this fascinating book brings to light a character who lived in his shadow.

Historian Dean Allen’s sumptuously illustrated book covers 25 years in the rich, dramatic life of colonist James Logan, from his arrival in Cape Town in 1877 until the end of the Anglo-Boer War in 1902.

Logan was a working-class Scotsman from Berwickshire who, finding opportunities limited at home, “went out to bat for the empire”. The cricketing idiom is appropriate because this resourceful son of a railwayman used the game to elevate himself within the colonialist social hierarchy while he built up his personal business empire from his home at Matjiesfontein in the Karoo, just off the Garden Route, about 240km from Cape Town.

The fickle nature of fate was writ large in Logan’s life. Having initially decided to emigrate to Australia, his ship, the Rockhampton, was damaged near Cape Point and had to undergo ON JANUARY 20, 1989, George H W Bush was inaugurated as the 41st President of the United States. He served a single term, losing the 1992 election to Bill Clinton. This book is by his son, George W Bush, who succeeded Clinton as the 43rd US president.

Only once before had a father and son served as presidents of the US, and that was John Adams and John Quincy Adams in the early 19th century. But the younger Adams had left no serious account of his father’s presidency. When it was suggested that George Bush write about his father, he accepted the task with relish.

It is not difficult to see why. The Bush family is a close one, with the bond between 41 and 43 particularly so. He openly admires his father, whose presidency has often been underestimated. The passage of time has led to a re-evaluation, with some historians now considering him the greatest of the living presidents.

Bush covers his father’s entire life. Born in 1924, the first defining period of Bush senior’s adult life was his service during World War II. He was just 20 when his plane was shot down by a Japanese anti-aircraft gun. He managed to parachute out, but gashed repairs in Cape Town. Frustrated by the delay, Logan changed his plans and made his life in what was then a thriving colonial outpost.

His timing was perfect. The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand and diamonds in Kimberley had attracted thousands to the country and prompted the rapid development of the railway network between Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Kimberley and Johannesburg.

Being a former railwayman himself, Logan joined the Cape Province Railway Service and quickly sniffed out a way to make his fortune, entering the lucrative rail catering market. As the traffic increased, so Logan accumulated more and more refreshment rooms at stations,which ultimately stretched from the Cape in the south to Bulawayo in the north.

Allen ably pinpoints the relationship between commerce and politics, showing how they combined to assist Logan realise his dream of becoming a man of substance.

His business empire, based in Matjiesfontein, needed political oil to grease its wheels and this it duly received through his often dubious relationships with various Cape politicians, including Rhodes.

In this regard, Allen reminds us his head and tore his parachute on the tail of the plane. He was lucky to be rescued. His two crewmates both died, but Bush never forgot them. Years later, as president, he invited their families for a private visit to the White House.

During a brief month’s leave, he married Barbara, the girl of his dreams, in 1945: they have been married for 70 years, by far the longest presidential marriage. The following year, the author of this biography was born.

After the war, Bush went to Yale, where he captained the baseball team. He opted against a career on Wall Street, deciding to work his way up in the oil industry in Texas. He did not waste time.

His political career began in 1966 when he entered Congress. President Nixon later appointed him ambassador to the United Nations, where he built trust with his fellow ambassadors and recognised that the key to effective diplomacy was the development of personal relationships. After Gerald Ford became US president in 1974, Bush was posted to China as the US representative, before returning home to head the CIA.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan chose Bush as his vice-president. During the eight years in that job he attended so many state funerals that it was once said, “You die, I fly”. Reagan and Bush enjoyed a congenial relationship that the issue of “tenderpreneurs” is certainly not an invention of the ANC: Logan effectively brought down the Cape government because of his involvement in a contract scandal.

Where, you might ask, does cricket fit into this cosy picture? Allen is at pains to point out the cultural function of cricket on the imperial map. Cricket, he argues, “imparted a sense of imperial kinship across an otherwise fragmented and disparate nation” whilst also cementing links between colonial South Africa and the mother country.Logan was an avid colonialist, a great believer in the civilising mission of the British empire. But he was also a practical, self-serving man, not a moralist, and he was particularly alive to the various ways in which politics and cricket could boost his status.

Of course, it’s no surprise to learn that this intricate, intra-colonial dialogue excluded the black masses. Cricket was a game to unite the colonists and also to build bridges with the mother country, but this had little or nothing to do with the native Africans and coloureds who were simply there to be ruled.

Logan was the principal driving force behind South African cricket in the decade before the Anglo-Boer War, but after the tour he sponsored to England in 1901, his influence faded, with a shared sense of humour.

When Bush senior was elected president, he was one of the bestprepared of the modern era. He was a prudent statesman who showed restraint, shared the credit and avoided triumphalism. This is, perhaps, why his presidency was unappreciated. He also never wrote a presidential memoir.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, he avoided brash celebrations. Bush believed that freedom had a better chance in Eastern Europe if he did not provoke the Soviet Union. As he said, “I’m not going to dance on the wall”.

He displayed a similar realism when the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. Bush spent months building a coalition of nations to force Hussein out of Kuwait. Strikingly, even the Soviet Union joined with the US to condemn Iraqi aggression. Hussein was forced out of Kuwait, but was left in power in Iraq. Some urged Bush to topple Hussein, but he wisely resisted. Instead, it was his son who toppled Hussein, but at the cost so high that it blighted the author’s presidency.

The loss of the 1992 election to Clinton was a heavy blow. He later wrote, “I didn’t finish the course and I will always regret that”. In later years, when Clinton was also out of office, presidents 41 and 42 became great friends – the odd couple – raising huge sums of money to as did his political career (which ended in 1908) and his business empire.

It’s good to know that, nearly 100 years after Logan’s death, we can still visit the town he created, Matjiesfontein. The Scot turned this exquisite dorp into a renowned health resort, attracting the likes of novelist Olive Schreiner, cricketer George Lohmann and politician Lord Randolph Churchill.

Allen’s book, originally a PhD, but rewritten with a general readership in mind, vividly captures the fascinating interaction of colonial Cape politics and business, and the early days of cricket in this country.

Filled as it is with excellent illustrations, Allen’s book should attract a wide range of readers. help various relief efforts. Clinton frequently visited the Bushes, calling himself the black sheep of the Bush family. He also joked that Barbara Bush would do anything to claim another president in the family.

This is an engaging tribute to the 41st president, written in a light, readable style, with many personal observations. As gracious in victory as he was in defeat, “Bush set an example as a man who put civility and decency ahead of the ugliness of politics”. There is much one can learn about leadership from the career of 41.