Ko Samui, Thailand

We dicided to stay in, hoping to catch the funeral of the great man Nelson Mandela on TV. Woke up quite late, went to the gym in the complex after which we had a lovely homemade breakfast. Our choice of news TV channels are limited to RT (Russia TV) and News Asia, so we did not have high hopes of seeing the event live. Lo and behold, Asia News covered the whole event, from beginning to end. Most speakers did a bit too much granstanding to my liking, but the event went off well. At least this time around they had the good sense not to have a clown on stage doing sign language, subsequent to the fiasco of the memorial servce a week or so earlier. If it wasn’t so sad it would have been very funny. Later we watched a TV channel, it was it fact a live comedy show, where they asked a sign language expert to interpret, if at all possible, what the person signed, and proceeded to play a clip from the event. The expert tried to interpret, it went something like this… I greet you all… I acknowledge and I dream… it is a circle… and once again, I greet you… here it comes again… I eat… Total nonsensicle, total nonsense, total embarrassment. Anyway, this was a very sad event, the funeral that is, sad for his family, sad for his country, as well as the world. The man was a giant. Rest in perfect peace, Madiba…