New Wave came just a bit too early for me, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t get into it now. The 2016 remastered version of B-Movie’s 1982 hit record Nowhere Girl popped up on my Spotify and it’s just really good listening.
Yes, it’s better than the original, but I can’t find an online remastered version, so you’ll have to make do with the one from [weep] 41 years ago:
On the updated version, they’ve done more to bring that piano riff to the fore, and it’s made it just iconic.
Thanks to my latest rediscovery of Mansfield’s finest*, I can see myself having a bit of a synthy weekend.
Now work from the University of Oxford suggests that extremely hot days are getting hotter faster than hot days are getting hotter. More than twice as fast, in fact.
This graph and the news that goes with it will come as little surprise to those who read this post last year. There was a similar graph there:
…with that mental little red dot top right, showing just how extreme the extremely hot days were in Sheffield last July.
And it’s all Spain’s fault. Well, when isn’t it?
Because Spain is warming faster than North-West Europe, this means that air carried in from this region is ever more extreme relative to the ambient air in North-West Europe. The hottest days of 2022, for instance, were driven by a plume of hot air carried north from Spain.
I don’t have any answers for this trend. I’m just here pointing out that it’s yet more evidence that these sort of trends exist. Being aware of this is a good first step in either doing something or nothing about it. The study’s author says:
‘These findings underline the fact that the UK and neighbouring countries are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and that last year’s heatwave was not a fluke. Policy makers urgently need to adapt their infrastructure and health systems to cope with the impacts of higher temperatures.’
Ah, yes. Let’s get the politicians to do something about it.
That’ll work.
Of course, there will be some people who will read this and go “pfft” or make some such noise, because they don’t believe that climate change exists. They don’t need to come and talk to me. They need to talk to someone on their own level of expertise, like the guys in Oxford who are presenting these data, because obviously, they are also experts in recording and analysing near earth temperatures over north-western Europe for the past 60 years.
That’s why they are all also physical scientists at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
Not an ad. Although if Woolies want to pay me in cash or kind, I’m not going to say no.
Woolies do a lot of nice products, but with good quality comes a higher price tag. That said, many of their products are worth it (e.g. their Clemengold nadorcotts): they’re nicer, they last better and they look smart on your shelf/in your fridge/atop your Karel Boyz fruit bowl when fancy-pants people come round for drinkiepoos.
And then came this – definitely the best non-citrus product that they have ever sold:
I had to rotate the image so that it wasn’t long and tall and annoying on the post, but now look at the cod. He’s the right way up, but his Linnaean name isn’t. It’s those sort of little details that prove you’re getting a genuine Woolies product and not some inferior knock off. Always check the cod and the cod name.
And any inferior knock off would be inferior too, because this is SO GOOD. It’s rich, it’s creamy, it’s very tasty, it’s (quite) healthy, and – because you need so little – pretty good value at R79.99 as well. Made in Norway – almost certainly from Fjord cods – this is definitely worth dropping into your basket on the 26th.
Lob it on a cracker, pop it on some fresh brown bread or just smear it on the kitchen wall and have some fun while you’re home alone: it doesn’t matter how you eat it. It’s just great.
I’ve been following this for a while now, and I’m really glad to see that it finally seems to be getting a bit of traction (no pun intended).
Step forward (no pun intended) 26 year old Russ Cook aka “Hardest Geezer”, who is running the length of Africa. It was going to be North to South, but there were Algerian visa issues* and so he weirdly decided to start at the bottom and go uphill.
Nuts.
He’s running between 50 and 60 kilometres per day, and he’s knocked off SA in just over two weeks. Bear in mind that Cape Agulhas to the Namibian border will take you about 11 hours in a car, so 15 days is already just a ridiculous feat. He’d still got another 215 days to go once he got to that border crossing though.
No rest days. 50 or 60 kilometres of running every single day. It’s unbelievable.
There’s an initially – and I’m going to use this word in the nicest possible sense – ramshackle support team with him in a beaten up old Iveco van, and they’re not only doing the prep and the food and the logistics so that he can concentrate on the running, they’re also documenting his progress on social media: there are updates on Instagram every day and two Youtube videos each week. You can already see how the team is learning and growing together. The nervous energy is giving way to solid hard work. There’s a bit of swearing, there’s some silliness, but there’s also an absolute will for Russ to succeed. It’s clearly an adventure for all of them.
Obviously, I had my eye on his progress through SA, especially the start at Cape Agulhas and through Cape Town. Here’s the video of his departure from just down the road:
That place where he started: I run there on cold Saturday mornings at the cottage. And then I go home and I stop.
I don’t carry on until Tunisia.
Do watch the videos. The accent grates to begin with, but you soon warm to his positive attitude, his will to overcome any obstacles in his path, and his sheer bloody-mindedness.
Of course, the aim of all of this is to raise money for charity. You can support the project (ie. help pay for internet, food, lodgings, van repairs etc.) via Patreon here, and you can support his two charities:
As I said at the start of this post, I just get the feeling that this is really about to take off, and it’s really well deserved. I can’t wait to follow Russ and his team all the way to Ras ben Sakka.
*Algerian Visa Issues are in session for Marc Riley next Wednesday
South Africa is once again demonstrating its neutrality over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This comes just a few days after it was revealed that SA had been following a non-partisan approach by supplying arms and ammunition to Russia.
Now we’ve sent the head of the SANDF (the SA armed forces) to Russia to “visit educational institutions of the ground forces and enterprises of the military-industrial complex” there and “further increase cooperation between ground forces in various fields”.
Thank goodness we’re not taking sides here.
It’s not like we can afford to be doing this. The Rand is tanking already because of loadshedding and the arms shipments row. To add fuel to the fire right now seems both deliberately provocative and deliberately stupid.
South African bilateral trade with Russia amounts to around $1.3 billion. In comparison, bilateral trade with the UK is $10.1 billion, the US is around $17 billion and the EU over $30 billion. To risk all of that for Vlad’s pocket change means that there’s clearly something else happening behind the scenes. Is that something SA owes Russia? Or is it something the Ramaphosa owes Putin? Because we can talk all day long about how much we abhor the colonial West and and all that they stand for, but that talk is cheap when we are still doing 50x more trade with them each year than we are with Mother Russia. And that’s a lot of money we simply can’t afford to lose.
Maybe the idea is to just run what’s left of the country into the ground before they get voted out at the next election. Or maybe this is actually an election strategy: a vote winner. The anti-imperialists will go for it, of course, but it remains to be seen how the incoming hyper-inflation will attract any normal person to vote for the ANC.
So… what is the plan here? Because I’m equally mystified and concerned.
