How do you do, fellow humans? (Sub-vocalise in Steve Buscemi voice for maximum effect.)
This edition of the Weekly Head Voices covers the week from Monday January 25 to Sunday January 31 of the year 2021.
Figure 1: Weekend scene from the Afrikaans Language Monument (or “Taalmonument”, when you speak the lingo). Initially I thought about ‘shopping out the photo-shooting couple, but I’ve grown to like them now.
My notes for the period don’t have much that is WHV-worthy, except for the following two humble offerings:
GOU #1’s growing running habit
I’ve mentioned MAF (maximum aerobic function) before on this blog, when I was trying to nurse back to health an ankle I had injured.
More recently, Peter Attia hosted Phil Maffetone, the inventor of the MAF idea, on his podcast. Relative to the normal Attia standards of multi-hour blog posts, this one was quite compact, and definitely worth a listen if you’re into running.
Just to recap: Maffetone recommends running at a heart rate of 180 minus your age (a rule of thumb, of course), in order to exercise at one’s maximum aerobic function (MAF).
This is usually lower than 80% of one’s maximum, so think long and slow.
The goal of this is to increase the use of stored fat as the primary source of fuel, the idea being that one would be able to go much further with reduced effort.
Anyways, this running without too much effort simply sounded too good to GOU #1, and so she asked me if we could try another 10k like this. (We usually do 5 to 6 together.)
As you might know, my rule for running is that if there’s a question about whether to go run the answer is “yes”.
So an Saturday I started with my own 11k so that I would not mind slowing down for the GOU-leg (I do realise that me slowing down for her is temporary…), and then we set out for the MAF(ish) 10km.
She found it super tricky to maintain the lower-than-normal heart rate, which is to be expected, and for the last few kilometres had no choice but to let it increase quite a bit, but… she did a really comfortable 10km!
Since then she has asked if I’m up for another one, which is of course the best possible sign that this habit is being imprinted quite nicely.
(I was pretty tired after the whole episode, but don’t tell anyone.)
We visited a gateway to another dimension and didn’t even get a t-shirt
On Sunday we planned to take the family up Bretagne Rock (see this 2017 vacation WHV for a photo), but were met by closed gates, thanks to surprising lockdown regulations.
Well, the journey there was picturesque (Paarl valley is beautiful, also from up there), and we suddenly had the opportunity to visit another old favourite instead: The Afrikaans Language Monument!
If you grew up in Paarl like I did, and especially if your school was located as close to the monument as mine was, you would have spent many hours of your young life, both during terribly official ceremonies and outings, at this impressive artifact.
I always did think it was a pretty science fiction design, especially taking into account it was erected in 1975.
Well, to my pleasant surprise, it turns out that my Taalmonument featured in season 12 of Dr Who, and specifically as the monument marking the location of a gateway to “another unknown dimension or universe”.
In an even more pleasant turn of events, the monument and the gateway played a pivotal role in the fairly specific origins of The Doctor, the protagonist of the series.
When the gateway is active, the Taalmonument apparently looks like this:
Figure 2: Taalmonument in gateway to another universe mode. Image courtesy of screenrant post linked above.
Here’s a tweet about the relevant episode, with some more photos:
The Gate where Tecteun found the Timeless Child is actually the Afrikaans Language Monument overlooking Paarl, in Western Cape Province, South Africa. The real setting is every bit as dramatic as any movie could envisage 😍 pic.twitter.com/4IDJZc6C7O
— The Timeless Doctors (@Ten_Doctors) August 22, 2020
Note: I grew up knowing what a Dalek was, but I’ve never, as far as I can remember, followed a Dr Who series. I might have seen snippets of old episodes in the 80s.
Here’s another view of the monument which you may not (yet) have seen in any science fiction productions. I think its time will come.
Figure 3: 1975 had some serious sci-fi architecture mojo.
With that my friends, and my wish that you are really able to shine this week, I declare this post concluded.