Sunshine, starsign, the Beatles' I feel fine.
'Have you vertigo?'
'No, I stay just around the corner.'
Embrace the new. Ooh, she loves to be embraced, embraceable you.
I guess it's true that I need the sunshine. I thrive on the stuff. I'm a sun-sign myself and bop with energy on days like these. From the house there's a beautiful view of sun and shade walking on the tops of the mountains. They're like arms of sun, warm and yellow and welcoming. Arms waiting to embrace me.

Still raining... which is literally a downer (not just a downpourer). When there is blue sky and sunshine, it's always easier to wake up and get up in the morning, days have a bounce to them that they don't have when blankets of grey cover the sky. Blankets of grey positively encourage staying beneath bed blankets--whatever colour those bed blankets might be. There's a Swazi expression, 'to share the blankets', which begins the process that sometimes ends in babies or AIDS... I wonder this morning if grey skies usually lead to more babies in this lovely kingdom...
Whatever, I feel slower today and vaguely depressed--'under the weather'?
Not much on the news about Mario today. Today's biggie is about the PM overriding the rule of law in the fuss over clerk Ben Zwane.

After the sun, the rain... today is cold and drizzly in this mountain city. The Times of Swaziland's frontpage headline today is misleading: 'Judge drops Mario case'. 'Mario's case' is of course the sedition trial of PUDEMO leader Mario Masuku, and the headline suggests that government has done itself a favour by dropping the issue, but that's not what happened. The story is actually that the judge set to preside over the trial has recused himself. This is a valid and important story (seems a wise move by the judge, for whatever reason), but it's not the story the headline led me to expect.

A very hot day in the kingdom... so hot that snakes are rutting in the ruts... also hot politically because of the media and public attention on the Mario Masuku Event: the 'sedition' trial. I agree wholeheartedly with Vusi Ginindza (in his 'As I see it' Times of Swaziland column) that government has scored an own goal here, drawing far too much attention to what should never have been an issue in the first place. And apart from making a media event out of a molehill, government has also sent a timely reminder of exactly why a nation needs free speech and widespread access to information. Transparency and dialogue? Restriction of speech creates heroes and anti-heroes who so very often lack any real credibility when you really get down to it: many of Swaziland's well-known 'political' figures are well-known and 'influential' by default, not because of any inherent worth.

A successful, funky and fun quiz night--we almost looked intelligent, getting all those answers right! Then off for a shared pizza and a game of pool before turning in for the night and a warm cuddle...

A long and busy day at school, but quiz night tonight at Ezulwini Sun. Off we go...