NP: See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Blind Lemon Jefferson)

Only one kind favour I ask of you

Well, there's one kind favour I ask of you

Lord, there's one kind favour I'll ask of you

Please [see] that my grave is kept clean

There's a long lane, it's got no end

It's a long lane, it's got no end

It's a long lane, ain't got no end

There's a bad wind that never came

Lord, there's two white horses in a line

Well, there's two white horses in a line

Well, there's two white horses in a line

Gonna take me to my burying ground

My heart stop beating, my hands are cold

My heart stop beating, my hands are cold

Well, my heart stop beating, Lord my hands are cold

It wasn't long [till I understood] what the Bible told

Have you ever heard a coffin sound?

Have you ever heard a coffin sound?

Have you ever heard a coffin sound?

Then you know that the poor boy is in the ground

Oh, dig my grave with a silver spade

Dig my grave with a silver spade

Well, dig my grave with a silver spade

You may lead me down with a golden chain

Have you ever heard a church bell toll?

Have you ever heard a church bell toll?

Have you ever heard a church bell toll?

Then you know that the poor boy is dead and gone

Nerd Food: SSH darwin awards

Like every other Linux user, I use SSH extensively to connect to different computers and run applications remotely (-X in particular is one of my favourites). SSH has a tendency to remember hosts you've connected to in the past, and stores this information under ~/.ssh/known_hosts. This works quite well for fixed IPs in the WAN, where SSH key to IP address is bijective. It doesn't work so well for people who connect to different local networks using the traditional 192.168.X.Y space, because the same IP maps to many different keys, confusing SSH. Any DHCP environment also suffers from this problem.

In the past, I've solved this the brute force way by trashing the whole of .ssh:

rm -rf ~/.ssh

This solution works fine. Fine, that is, unless you happen to actually have created a private/public key to authenticate with servers requiring it, such as GitHub. Just as I pressed the enter key, it suddenly occurred to me that I had in fact started messing around with git and said provider, and had made no backup of the key - even though the FAQ states quite clearly that one should do so. Classic Homer Simpson moment.

Fortunately, GitHub must have thought about this exact same mistake and made it really easy to update one's key. From now on:

rm -rf ~/.ssh/known_hosts

NP: Singapore (Tom Waits)

We sail tonight for Singapore,

We're all as mad as hatters here

I've fallen for a tawny Moor,

Took off to the land of Nod

Drank with all the Chinamen,

Walked the sewers of Paris

I danced along a colored wind,

Dangled from a rope of sand

You must say goodbye to me

We sail tonight for Singapore,

Don't fall asleep while you're ashore

Cross your heart and hope to die

When you hear the children cry

Let marrow bone and cleaver choose

While making feet for children shoes

Through the alley, back from hell,

When you hear that steeple bell

You must say goodbye to me

Wipe him down with gasoline

'til his arms are hard and mean

From now on boys this iron boat's your home

So heave away, boys

We sail tonight for Singapore,

Take your blankets from the floor

Wash your mouth out by the door,

The whole town's made of iron ore

Every witness turns to steam,

They all become Italian dreams

Fill your pockets up with earth,

Get yourself a dollar's worth

Away boys, away boys, heave away

The captain is a one-armed dwarf,

He's throwing dice along the wharf

In the land of the blind

The one-eyed man is king, so take this ring

We sail tonight for Singapore,

We're all as mad as hatters here

I've fallen for a tawny Moor,

Took off to the land of Nod

Drank with all the Chinamen,

Walked the sewers of Paris

I drank along a colored wind,

I dangled from a rope of sand

You must say goodbye to me

Kizua Mwangola: They think it's all over...

And it's all over now: Egypt has won the CAN. Ghana did a lot better than I expected though, and in the end the game was actually quite close. The cup goes to the best team though. The other point worth of notice was the size of the crowd: over forty thousand Angolans turned up to watch it, an amazing figure for a final that did not involve the host nation.

Egypt team. (c) Angola Press

Kizua Mwangola: Magreb War

There is no other way to describe yesterday's game - it was like being invited to watch someone else's war. A few days ago I overheard one of the reporters quoting a Algerian player, his words being along the lines of "this is a matter of life or death" and "it will be a war". Well, it really was. To make matters worse, the game boasted the biggest crowd of away fans we've ever seen in CAN, with a predominance for the Algerian side. The rumours of two thousand Algerian fans entering the country were certainly an exaggeration, but at least five hundred must have done the trek, and they were noisy too.

There was a lot at stake, and it wasn't just the place in the final. The Egyptians wanted revenge from Sudan, which according to them was solely due to the referee's mistakes. The Algerians wanted to prove that Sudan was no mistake, and that they deserved to represent the Magreb and the whole Arab world in the World Cup. If, to that, you add years of bad blood between these two, you're starting to get a rough idea of how high the tension was.

Algerian Supporters. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

When it came to football, however, the Algerians demonstrated their Achilles heel: bad behaviour. To be fair, this is a common problem on all Arab teams. We've seen Egypt and Tunisia losing it too, moaning on every decision referees take against them and ganging up around the ref. Algeria managed to go that extra step, causing total havoc when Egypt got a penalty. The game was going Egypt's way, to be sure, but it wasn't clear cut; but playing Egypt is always a difficult task, and playing with ten men is neigh impossible. From then on it was a slippery slope, red cards following red cards and trivial goals following trivial goals. Egypt wasn't even trying to score, but the massive gaps in the Algerian defence made it so easy they couldn't resist. The final body count revealed almost as many red cards as goals (three of the former against four of the latter). It seems Egypt is, and always was, the champion waiting to be crowned.

Egyptian keeper anticipates Algerian striker. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

As a side note, I was extremely surprised to see a packed ground for this game - must have been around thirty thousand of us watching it. Most people here are interested in the Southern African teams, and very few can name an Arab player other than Egypt's Zidane. However, Benguela turned up for the game in great numbers and made loads of noise. A good few hours later, I'm still unable to hear properly. I guess Egypt became our adoptive team, the only one that never left Benguela all the way up to the final. Egypt's coach said so in the after match press conference, and thanked the Benguelans for all the support.

This was also a milestone for us: the last game of the competition we're watching live. We've seen many games, travelled to three of the four CAN stadiums, saw Angola live and met many, many great people. It was a great adventure. But all good things must come to an end, unfortunately, and the tiredness is now getting to us. The last two games will be watched on telly.

Kizua Mwangola: OMG, Ghana!!

Unbelievable. Watching Ghana v Nigeria was exactly like watching Angola v Ghana. One attack from Ghana early on in which they score, then 90-odd minutes of Nigeria attacking badly. Amazing, like a carbon copy. Off to the stadium now, to watch Egypt v Algeria. Hopefully my predictions will come to pass, and we'll have an Egypt v Ghana final - either way, I think Ghana is running out of luck, fast.

Kizua Mwangola: Peter and the Kupapata

After a prolonged stay here at Nancy's, Peter decided to move to Hotel Praia Morena. We were all getting quite used to him (and to Mark too, another recent defector), but that's the gist of a guest house I guess - people come and people go. But that's not the story; the story is _how_ he got there.

Like any practical South-African-come-Irish-come-German he thought the fastest way to move hotels was to take a kupapata (a bike-taxi). However, he had some luggage, so he decided to go for a kupapata with a trailer - something fairly common around here. He immediately caused chaos amongst all the staff by asking them to arrange one for him: surely not!! A Praia Morena guest riding on the back of the kupapata with the luggage?! Unheard off! Debates immediately started, and heated discussions too; people wanted to see this crazy foreigner riding with the luggage. I was even asked to take a picture, an undeniable proof that this event had actually happened.

Peter with Senhor Viana. (c) Marco Craveiro

No one believed the security guards would allow them to park at the entrance of the hotel. In the end, the mission was successful. Whilst the locals were getting agitated, the foreigners didn't quite understand what the fuss was all about - seemed like the sensible thing to do, really. I guess they don't quite get the "never lose your style" moto.