FEAST OR FAMINE

  The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen Conqueror of the South Pole (2013) is the biography of the Norwegian polar explorer, set in Oslo, the North Pole, and the South Pole, from 1900 to 1928.   It begins in 1928 when Roald Amundsen is 56 years old in Oslo in the first year of his retirement as a polar explorer. Rival explorer, Italian Umberto Nobile, is in dire straits when his dirigible (airship) crashes into the polar sea. Despite having publicly feuded with Nobile for the previous 18 months, Roald Amundsen sets off to Spitsbergen on a private rescue mission with a Norwegian pilot, a French pilot, and three Frenchmen. It was his demise when the plane disappeared over the Barents Sea.   For the previous 20 years, between 1903-1928, Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) was revered as an experienced and handsome hero, leading many eplorations across eight nations, were he conquered the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole. Described as...

  Wild Hares and Hummingbirds: The Natural History of an English Village (2012) is about the author’s home town in the ancient West Country of England in the Somerset Levels, the home of King Arthur in medieval times. This is about village life, its nature, and the wildlife that lives in his garden and surrounding environment.    The book is divided into the months of the year, beginning with snow in January. He tells of birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals—most in hibernation at this time of year. Weather plays a large part in this book, with the changing seasons and the unseasonal changes. As does the metamorphosis of insects, the reproduction of animals, the growth of the young, and their demise.    As the months pass and the year unfolds, readers can visualize the landscape and the integral life of everything that lives within it. Here and there, a poem appears, to enrich the narrative. Colours are described in relation to the sunlight or shadow, in all the...

MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Prisoners of Geography (2015) is an interesting account of geo-politics and the key issues behind the division of land and countries.  The book covers ’10 maps that explain everything about the world’ and is divided into the following regions: Russia, China, United States, Western Europe, Africa, Middle East, India and Pakistan, Korea and Japan, Latin America, and the Arctic.  Marshall explains, in clearly understandable English, the political decisions made about land limited by physical geography – mountains, rivers, seas, deserts, and natural boundaries. He explains each country’s vulnerabilities and strengths – and why some countries are seemingly eternally in conflict over land issues.  There are countries and regions overlooked in this book, because it can’t cover everything. However, some omissions are quite noticeable and some regions are not mentioned at all. For example, the Middle East, in my opinion, is not comprehensively covered – nor is A...

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

In the Northern Hemisphere water runs clockwise down the drain. In the Southern Hemisphere water runs counter-clockwise (anti-clockwise) down the drain. So what happens at the Equator where the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere meet? Testing this at the Equator in Kenya, locals demonstrate the Coriolis effect of water going down a drain and a funnel. It is true that north of the Equator, water does run clockwise. It is also true that south of the Equator, water does run counter-clockwise. And at the Equator, exactly on the Equator, water does not rotate either clockwise or anti-clockwise, and it runs directly down the drain or funnel. In physics, for the clockwise rotation, the Coriolis force acts to the left of the motion of water, and for the counter-clockwise rotation, the Coriolis force act to the right. It is called the Coriolis effect due the the French scientist Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis who, in 1835, recognized this effect...

Another candlestick plant – apart from the Candelabrum Spurge – is the Lion’s Ear. The Lion’s Ear ( Leonotis nepetifolia ) is also called the Klip Dagga. It is native to Africa and southern India, as well as South America and the West Indies. The plant grows to 3 metres (almost 10 feet) and has orange-red lipped (tubular) flowers in dense balls. The flowers can also be white or purple. It is a mint species found along roadsides and fields in high elevation (1,600 metres above sea level) locations in the Rift Valley near Eldoret, Kenya. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).