Roger Dickinson - Selah

  In his book (which I’m currently finishing up)   Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity   Dr Peter Attia points out that the odds are overwhelming that an average middle-class person will die as a result of one of the chronic diseases of aging he calls the Four Horsemen. These are heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, or type 2 diabetes and related metabolic dysfunction. For those who care about these things, the Four Horsemen imagery is taken from   Revelation 6   in the New Testament of the Bible. I choose not to go into the Revelation 6 imagery's meaning and symbolism here but maybe suffice to say that it is intended to convey the coming of chaos, hardship and eventually death. How it also relates to Attia's point is that the Horsemen come in response to choices made by individuals and groups of people. Attia’s view is that one of the Horsemen or a combination of them will eventually kill you and me, before out time.  This of course apart from the proverbial

  In starting this blog, I only realised in talking with my Daughter yesterday, that I had not set out my intentions for it. She asked me why I was doing it and the first thing that came up was: “For my mental health”. Which is a slightly weird thing to say but probably is the truest thing. There are other reasons I am doing this, which I will expand on later in this blog, but keeping myself sane and more or less aligned to my life purpose and goals, seems like a good thing.                                                                        The Thinker statue                                            So, this should probably have been the first blog but maybe now that I’ve actually started it is good to set down some markers.  I have always found writing things down clarifying for the mind and the soul, and maybe this will be an extension of that. I also get and acknowledge the inherent narcissism and self-promotion that comes with thinking that you have  amazing  or  profound  th

  Anyone following my social media profiles or those of our African Spelling Bee partners, will be inundated with posts and videos about our upcoming spelling bees. (If you haven’t - then please do check us out at:   www.africanspellingbee.com   Spelling Bees are an integral part of our programming at A Better Africa Foundation but were never intended to be the primary focus. A concern right from the start of our programmes in 2009 was whether spelling bees actually assisted in literacy improvements or if they were simply a distraction. 14 years later and our spelling bees have now expanded to partnerships across 25 countries with hundreds of thousands of spellers coming through our various competitions each year.                                                           Spellers at the 2019 African Spelling Bee in Uganda The questions still persist though!   The Spelling Bee A spelling bee is a competition in which participants are asked to spell words correctly. It is typically organ