Recuperation. Progressive, My Foot. Confusion and Disillusionment.

A break in the rain early this week, but it is back with 50mm a days now a daily event

By the time I post this, it will be two weeks since my surgery, and I am still feeling uncomfortable due to the pain caused when I sit down. Now and again, I think, let me stop the paracetamol, and within twenty-four hours, I am reaching for it again. The discomfort arises when I try to sit; lying down immediately relieves me of all pain, and it is significantly reduced by standing up. However, I do most things nowadays while sitting, that is, from writing this blog to eating and watching rugby on TV. My programs of choice are, by preference, rugby, quizzes and crime and of course, a daily overdose of news. I spend much more time watching digital podcasts about farming, fishing, and wildlife. My least favourite and rarely watched on TV are reality and game shows, except for The Chase. I do enjoy documentaries if the subject interests me.

Flooded vineyards in the Rabacal Valley below us this week

“Inane people doing stupid things on TV because they are deemed handsome or pretty; I am apathetic to them.” - Peter McSporran

So, yes, I am a bit grumpier, as the pain is taking too long to subside, in my opinion. A long recuperation was expected in my previous, much more serious surgeries, so the fact that it's taking longer than expected may be why I am so agitated. It could be an indication that my body is creaking with age. Furthermore, although I can walk, it will be at least another week before I can perform light duties in the garden. Luckily, it has been raining so much that gardening would be impossible, and freakily, this year the wind has stripped most of the leaves and blown them into the neighbouring properties. In fact, we are expecting eighty-kilometre winds today, Wednesday, as I am making the final edit to this blog. We have only raked or blown leaves twice this year, as opposed to the previous years when it was a twice-weekly task from October to December. To give you an idea of the weather conditions we have been subjected to, here is the IPMA report on the morning of my birthday, the 5th.

“Portugal's Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) reported over 23,000 lightning strikes in a 12-hour period between the evening of November 4 and the morning of November 5, 2025.”

Not only is it a lot less painful when I lie down, but the new apparatus also keeps me continent when lying down and has helped somewhat when sitting, and to a lesser extent, while standing. The surgeon was not concerned about improving my incontinence immediately; instead, he wanted to ensure I could void and, if necessary, adjust the pressure pad in a couple of weeks to fine-tune it. Let me tell you, being able to stay in bed most of the night without having to get up and change every couple of hours is such a relief, not quite a full night's sleep, but nearly.

I have also been watching a lot of news on TV from the couch, and this word ‘progressive’ keeps coming up as a description of many organisations deemed to have the moral high ground. Generally, they are left-leaning, including political parties, quangos, activists who self-represent their views in fields where they have little practical knowledge, and celebrities who often owe their fame to the screen or possess substantial new wealth. Reality show hosts feature high on this list. They have a naive, but sizable, following of those who believe their propaganda. In the past decade, this lobby group of idiots have intimidated politicians and corporate boards to implement crazy rules, including in the UK and the EU. I know the EU is not a country but rather a group of countries that foolishly agreed to abide by the rules and laws set in Brussels. Thankfully, the headquarters of the EU is based in Brussels, far from Portugal; the rules apply, but their implementation is lax. Not so in the UK. 

It has been a concern of mine for quite a while that even the trusted BBC, which we listened to religiously as a reliable source of news in Africa, has also lost its way, and the news has become biased towards the left, even becoming woke. For a while, Al Jazeera was my world news station of choice, but with present events in the Middle East, I feel, in my prejudiced view, they have lost their way. I decided to look closer at the use of the word progressive, as we of the old school have always considered progress to be improvement, moving forward, and development in all spheres of life, including democracy, human rights, innovation, and public services, rather than activism, especially in imposing your beliefs on the majority. I once again turned to AI for a modern definition, and this came up.

“Believing that society should evolve toward greater fairness, equality, and opportunity — using ‘evidence’, compassion, and reform to solve modern problems.”

I gave that some consideration and thought it was utter bullshit. The word I have highlighted is evidence. As far as I can see, there is little proven evidence in what they use in support of what they say and what they want to impose on us. Their perception of how the world should be. My definition of someone or an organisation that is considered progressive in this modern world is:

“A progressive individual, group or organisation that wants to impose its myopic liberal (left) views on the world using the media, but meanwhile finds any argument against them to be abhorrent and identifies those that do speak out as being far right. While the media is their primary weapon of choice, they want to remove the right to free speech from all who contradict them.” - Peter McSporran

Their actions are focused on imposing their rules on the majority of us, regardless of our actual political views, and have therefore been conversely hugely retrogressive, especially in our social structures, on matters of gender, environmental management, immigration, employment, and free speech. 

“Modern progressivism has cost us dearly as private citizens, states, corporations and all forms of businesses in billions of unneeded costs and jobs just to please an illogical few on their perception of what we should think and do.” - Peter McSporran

It has, however, created a large number of jobs in the public sector to enforce these trends.

The list of things they have interfered with to the detriment of the majority seems endless, with ‘Net Zero’ being the craziest, especially as the remedy is not being implemented in a holistic, global manner, but rather at a cost to their own citizens in terms of employment and energy. Meanwhile, they are still importing what is deemed 'dirty' fuels, food, and technology to achieve this impossible dream at great cost. All are happy to jump on jet planes and stay in five-star air-conditioned hotels and conference rooms in the tropics to hypocritically say we are progressive as we are tackling climate change. Is it little wonder that we, or at least I, are not only confused but also disillusioned. 

The old Otto Beit Bridge at Chirundu still stands but luckily there is also a new bridge as well

Returning to 2001, I had by then purchased a second Land Rover, specifically to travel back and forth to Zambia and, to a lesser extent, Mozambique. Unlike the one I used on the farm, this was kitted out with a canopy, roof tent, a larger fuel tank, and also a small freezer, used more for cold beers than food, as the border crossings could be extended affairs, and the journeys through the Zambian escarpment were arduous. I slowly learned the system for expediting myself through what was little better than a hut housing immigration and customs, always filled with sweating truck drivers and touts, on the Zimbabwean side. The Zambian side was not much better, except that their gatekeepers would let you through if your papers were in order, while in Zimbabwe, they took extra powers into their own hands, looking for a bribe. It was so bad that all truck drivers carried cash specifically to bribe the police and customs on their intra-country trips. At that time, army personnel often used their weapons to intimidate the cross-border traders as an added incentive to their requests for cash or goods. I was caught out on occasion by a scam that must have been coordinated with the Police Vehicle Clearance Unit in Southerton and the people on the border. To take a vehicle out of the country, you had to get prior police clearance at Southerton Police Station. Upon arrival at the border, you would find that an 'O' on your registration was now a 'D' in your clearance, or an 'S' was changed to a 'Z', or a number was missing, or some such similar minute discrepancy, open to different interpretation. You soon learned all the tricks, but often a new scam would appear. I am proud to say I became very adept at getting through unscathed. I am proud to say I became very adept at getting through unscathed. Still, sometimes the road was blocked with trucks, forming long queues of them. A further annoyance was that the Old Otto Beit Bridge could only accommodate one truck at a time, which, in theory, would involve voluntary alternating from each country’s side. However, in Africa, as many are aware, voluntary good manners and traffic rules do not apply, and on many occasions, two trucks would face off with each other mid-bridge, defeating the purpose of weight safety and also causing delays. By then, I was making almost bi-weekly trips to Zambia, often with John Knight and sometimes with Led Smit, both from Ernst and Young, endeavouring to raise money to move farmers. Like all farming, entry is a challenging step due to the associated costs, as well as the demands of working in a new environment. At that time, the Zimbabwean road between Harare and Chirundu was in good condition; the opposite could be said of the Zambian side. More often than not, as the trips became more frequent, I was on my own. Little did I know when we raised money, my trips became even more frequent.

The road up the escarpment from Chirundu to Lusaka. Thank goodness for the Land Rover

Once in Lusaka, we would visit all the larger businesses, such as millers, oil expressors, tobacco companies, and banks, to assess their appetite to support farmers as possible suppliers to their industry financially. It should be noted that many, certainly not all, Zambian commercial farmers viewed us with suspicion, having survived challenging times with interest rates at one point reaching 60%. At the time we arrived there, it was 15%. Believe it or not, in Zimbabwe at the same time, it was as low as 7%. With inflation, it was a no-brainer to borrow in that country, but why borrow if your farming business was in jeopardy due to the actions of politicians in their wish to confiscate our land?  

Further loans, even if we found a source, would only be suitable for crops with good margins, which generally also meant high inputs, and sold in foreign currency, as all our capital required for equipment, tractors, irrigation and tobacco curing facilities in foreign currency to repay it as a hedge against inflation. As we were borrowing money to start up, it would also preclude any long-term enterprises such as plantation crops or cattle. That narrowed it down to tobacco, seed maize, and, at that time, winter wheat. 

I also learned that accountants like to produce cash flows from the profit generated by sales, rather than us, practical farmers who build in profit after covering real costs. I could not get my head around it, John and I would have long arguments about it. He never convinced me; he wanted to access the money, I wanted the farmers to be able to survive. In practice, we know we can often reduce costs. Yes, you can arbitrarily reduce costs across the board to produce a profit on paper, not in practice. That would be the only profit you would see in many instances at the end of the year, on that obsolete piece of paper, a record of your foolishness. 

We also visited the embassies; after all, most were happy to tell us they would love to see the Zambian agricultural sector getting a boost to return to its historical success, and relocating displaced farmers from Zimbabwe sounded like an excellent idea. NGOs were all equally enthusiastic, and many wanted to be part of it, just for the employment it would create. However, they could not lend to the private sector, as donors or their countries' taxpayer funds could be misused, and certainly not to a single-owned enterprise. I presume going every time in their gleaming 4x4 and visiting Zambia’s exclusive wildlife lodges was not misuse. I often thought it was more about accountability; lending money has huge accountability. It's much easier to distribute funds and support to public services, such as healthcare, education, and community projects, and claim you are positively impacting thousands of people's lives rather than just employing a few. Despite those few creating long-term jobs and wealth for the country.

“I quickly became disillusioned by the fact that much of the donor money coming into Africa was allocated to short-term, unsustainable projects rather than investing in sustainable businesses that would create employment, help feed the nation, and bring much-needed foreign currency, either through savings or production.” - Peter McSporran

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.