Don’t Frack With Our Karoo™ Booktown Richmond’s 13th Anniversary 12TH ANNUAL BOEKBEDONNERD FESTIVAL October 23,24,25,26, 2019
A Richmond Community Development Foundation Project
October 8, 2019.
G’Day Karoosters…….. this is Canada calling……
In the frantic runup to BoekBedonnerd XII I find myself in the northern climes of Canada, Ottawa in fact, doing the obligatory annual family visit required of all immigrants to foreign shores. We are in full fall and the deciduous forests are starting the progression from greens to yellows, oranges and all the shades of red. This event is brought on by the cooler / colder temperatures which kills the chlorophyll revealing the other pigments in the leaves like the carotenes and xanthophylls. It is a fantastic display of colour; the only bad news being the fact that these Canadians have 6 months of winter to look forward to. Yup that’s why I decided to head south to somewhere that I would not have to shovel snow.
Fall is here
Quebec Lake District…….the entire Province is a lake district
Boogy down on the farm and ready for the big chill
Blue skies are great but overcast with rain more likely
Ya but look at the kak going on in South Africa, enough that thousands of very skilled people are heading away to make a life in a different…safer and more predictable country …like Canada; notwithstanding the onerous winters.
Canada is preparing for a national election in a few weeks and the political temperature is rising. Last night we were the countrywide audience of a national televised debate between the six major political party leaders: the ruling Liberals, the opposition Conservatives, the left / socialist New Democratic Party, the Greens, the Bloc Québécois, a provincial based federal party whose only policy is the separation of the province from Canada, and a right wing, populist, anti-immigration Peoples’ Party.
Questions were put to each candidate from members of the audience as well as from a panel of reporters. There were heated exchanges and insults hurled left, right and center. Most of the time every politician was talking over the others in a cacophony of incomprehensible noise. It was a shambles! But it was democracy at work.
From the post-debate discussions, predictably each parties’ proponents pronounced their party the clear winner. There were no holds barred and despite the fact that the majority of questions posed by either interviewers, audience or fellow politicians, were completely skirted and left unanswered, at least the politicos were in theory prepared to take the heat.
Now wouldn’t it be nice of our politicians would be prepared to engage regularly in open debates….outside the prim and regulated House of Parliament? One in which reporters and we South Africans might question and demand answers and not deflections from our political masters of slime and obfuscation.
Things are moving at a pace as we tsunami towards October 23 in Richmond. This year by popular demand we are starting at a more relaxed hour and taking longer lunches and tea breaks so that audiences an participants can fully enjoy and explore our greatest little dorp in the Karoo.
Below is attached the latest programme and you will notice a few slight changes and the addition of very well-known journalist and political commentator, Jan Jan Joubert. We are all looking forward to some very good political debate over the week.
The slightly revised programme is attached and if any presenter / author has any questions they can be returned to me or Darryl.
Tick tock tick tock and we look forward to seeing you all in the dorp.
RAZZAMATAZZ
Parades, karretjie concourse d'elegançe, dancers, street market, and the "Richmond Mile" road race.
Richmond RAZZAMATAZZ
Parades, karretjie concourse d'elegance, dancers, street market, and the "Richmond Mile" road race.
