Category: annoying people

Things you should read

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AGAIN… not much time tonight (cue groans of happiness from the 6000 miles… reader collective).

But, rather than a quota photo, some reading material for you, since there’s not ever so much here:

Firstly, this, from the Independent, via my Dad:

Meet the Geordie who led Benfica to three league titles

When the great Eusebio flies to Sheffield to attend a statue dedication, and describes the subject as “still in my heart”, it is quite a tribute.

But so it was for Jimmy Hagan, the legendary former Sheffield United player who managed Benfica to three consecutive Portuguese titles in the early 1970s. He was only manager there for three seasons, but demonstrably left a strong and personal mark on one of Europe’s great clubs. He can be considered among England’s finest managerial exports.

It was not for Hagan’s managerial achievements, though – important as they were – that the statue was dedicated. Hagan, who was born in Washington, County Durham, on the outskirts of Newcastle, is broadly thought to be Sheffield United’s greatest ever player, having played there for 20 years, from 1938 to 1958.

Eusebio, who is to Benfica what Hagan is to Sheffield United, was speaking at the dedication of a statue of Hagan at Bramall Lane 11 years ago, near what would have been Hagan’s 83rd birthday. He died in 1998.

And then, continuing the sporting theme (sort of), this from Jacques Rousseau on Tim Noakes dietary advice flip and the lack of scientific evidence behind it:

Tim Noakes on carbohydrates – fad or fact?

It, therefore, seems premature – even unjustified – to speak of this diet in such unequivocally positive terms, not to mention introducing the language of moral panics in the form of our hypothetical “addiction” to carbohydrates. As Ben Goldacre has pointed out, anecdotes are not data, and the bulk of the data available right now suggest that the main problem is simply that we eat too darn much.

Seriously, they are both worth several minutes of your time. If I hadn’t read them, I’d be able to blog properly today.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to tell you about the tortoise in Nigeria.

But tomorrow is another day.

ASA ruling against Red Bull – those complaints in full

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I really don’t want to get into this, but I absolutely had to share the complaints against the Red Bull “Jesus walks on water ad” (you can watch it here), as submitted to the SA ASA.

It’s comedy gold!

COMPLAINTS
The complainant submitted, in essence, that:

  • The commercial is offensive as it makes a mockery of Jesus Christ by portraying Him in a blasphemous manner. Peripheral arguments to the allegation of offence relate to the fact that the commercial implies that the miracle of Jesus walking on water was all a sham.
  • Christians believe that Jesus Christ is alive and sitting at the right hand of God and as such His express permission should have been obtained before being featured in the commercial (in accordance with certain provisions of the Code).
  • The advertiser should apologise publicly and should be fined as well to indicate the level of offence caused.
  • Creates a bad example for children.
  • Its misleading as it creates an impression that the product existed during the time that Jesus Christ lived.

Yes, the first point initially suggesting that Jesus’ walking on water was not a sham, the second point then actually argues that Red Bull should have got Jesus’ “express permission” before featuring him (“Him” – whatever) in an advertisement.

How would one go about doing that? Presumably via your local church? Or through “Healing” Pastor Chris? Surely a verbal agreement would not be enough – some form of documentation would have to be signed by both parties. How many Christians have got Jesus’ autograph? None? Why on earth not?

And then point five? “…it creates an impression that the product existed during the time that Jesus Christ lived”?

Well, in point two, you just told us he (“He”) is still alive, so what’s with using the past participle? And if he (“He”) is still alive and I can buy a Red Bull (and I can), then the product does exist during the time that Jesus Christ lived… lives… lived… oh… whatever.

Contradiction much?

I do agree with point four though. Stepping out of fishing boats into the Sea of Galilee and expecting to be able to walk on water does set a very bad example for children by suggesting that people can walk on water.

They can’t, that’s all a sham.

Cape Party make huge strides on “Turn Cape into France” effort

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Regular readers will remember last year’s infamous Cape Party want to turn the Cape into France Shock! post, in which I suggested that, shockingly, the Cape Party wanted to turn the Cape into France and which was revived recently by commenter Lourens Camphor’s fantastic PERHAPS YOU ARE A BABY!!! allegation:

Check the party emblem and compare the shape of the new Cape Republic to… France:

OK, Normandy is a bit out of proportion, but that Southern coast looks dangerously familiar.

It was because of this concerning similarity that I looked into the Cape Party in greater detail. And look what I found as the very first line in their Vision for The Cape Republic:

The Cape Republic is roughly the size of France

Oh – isn’t that convenient???

So we look like France and we’re about the same size as France. Now all that is needed is an hatred of the British because you once lost a war to them.

The selfish motives of politicians a political system that is as racially divisive and oppressive as the others that have plagued this land since the British Empire forced the Union of South Africa upon us in 1910…

Bingo.

Further evidence: constant references to Cape Provence and suggested adoption of the Swiss system of voting – a country where they speak French and which borders France.  In addition, the Cape Party headquarters is in Franschhoek. Need I say more, except for informing you that I actually made this last bit up – they’re actually based in Claremont. Which sounds very much like Clermont-Ferrand, which is in France.

The Cape Party’s performance in last year’s municipal elections was undeniably dreadful, gathering, as they did, a whole 0.09% of the vote in the Western Cape. And thus, we thought (Lourens aside) that this issue was over and done with.

Not so, it seems, because Cape Town’s Llandudno beach has now been annexed. BY THE FRENCH!!!

Yes, in what is described by Steve Turton, Managing Director of UK-based The Line Agency as:

a genuine, absolute mistake

it seems that photos of Llandudno beach, a short sprint down the Atlantic Seaboard from Cape Town CBD, are being used to advertise holidays in Normandy. WHICH IS IN FRANCE!!!

This error was spotted by eagle-eyed (you’ll see what I did there) ex-Capetonian, Bradford Bird.

Billboards displayed in London Underground stations advertising cheap travel to the French north coast have left a UK creative agency red-faced when it was discovered the beach pictured, was actually Llandudno in Cape Town.

The billboard poster produced for the French tourism authority, Atout France, shows a family running along a beach under the headline ‘Sprint finish on the Northern France Coast’.

The distinctive rocks on the spur of land in the background, however, unequivocally identify the beach as Llandudno.
The faux-pas was spotted by former Llandudno local, Bradford Bird, who now works in London as a photographer.

Genuine, absolute mistake, my arse. Sure, there is granite in both areas and both contain a phat amount of silica – durr! it’s granite!! –  but in Normandy it’s Barfleur granite, with limited quantities of Rubidium, Strontium, Caesium and Barium. And as Graindor and Wasserburg highlighted in 1962, it’s only around 330 million years old. Cape granite, like that in the photograph, regularly demonstrates magmatic crystallization ages of over 500 million years.

Do you take us for idiots, Steve?

Also, am I really the only one who, when rearranging the letters of “Steve Turton” gets “The Cape Party” (or something ever so slightly similar, anyway)? This is merely the start of a heinous plan by the defeated hoard of Cape Party supporters (both of them) in carrying out their party’s wishes without due democratic process. Just wait until images of Stellenbosch are passed off as the Rhone Valley, Mossel Bay as Calais and that funny little bit of scaffolding on top of the MetLife Centre as the Eiffel Tower.

We are on a slippery slope.

I will utilise this blog post to serve as a record of any further attempts at franco-colonisation of the Western Cape. Please point out any sudden and/or concerning similarities between these two completely separate geographical areas in the comments section below.

Vive le différence! (as they say in Mitchell’s Plain).

City to frack CPD?

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Wow. This is huge.

The contents of a previously confidential and completely fictitious City of Cape Town report which were revealed during routine business in the Western Cape High Court this morning look set to cause outrage across the city.
The report, commissioned late last year, outlines details of plans to move the Cenotaph from its present site on Adderley Street in the City Centre to a disused quarry on Chapman’s Peak Drive where it would be used as part of a hydraulic fracturing rig to extract the rich deposits of natural gas discovered at the site during preliminary survey work by the toll company Entilini last year.

The plan marries together three contentious issues which are described by the report’s anonymous author as “awkward problems which could prove potentially costly vote-wise at the next election, but which require addressing”. The author goes on to suggest that “tying the three together would likely limit the amount of negative PR generated by these issues should we address them separately”, but notes:

On face value, this plan makes good financial and political sense and makes the best of several difficult situations facing the City; namely, (a) that the position currently occupied by the Cenotaph is the preferred site for a MyCiti bus station, (b) that the City contract with Entilini requires that we must upgrade the Chapman’s Peak Drive toll plaza and a huge office park, and (c) that the natural gas deposits beneath Chapman’s Peak Drive are of such value that it would be foolish not to act upon them.
However, we should expect stiff opposition to each of these issues, given the historical significance of the Cenotaph, the emotional attachment of Hout Bay residents to Chapman’s Peak Drive, and the current negative publicity surrounding the process of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).

The report suggests that certain environmental and financial points regarding the plans should be emphasised in media releases and interviews, including:

  • The convenience and improved carbon footprint of public transport when compared to private cars.
  • The recycling of the Cenotaph material and the return of those stones to their natural home in a quarry.
  • The cleanliness of natural gas when compared to electricity from coal.
  • The offset of expensive costs of new toll plaza and first stages of the Entilini office park through selling natural gas fracked from the Chapman’s Peak Drive site.

The confidential report appears to have been distributed to appropriate departments within the municipality.
City officials were unable to comment on the report at the time of writing.

Watch this one folks – I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about it.

6 months on…

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UPDATES in the comments section below.

…and a day, because I forgot to post this yesterday.

Remember this post, when I suggested that things are slowly but surely falling apart in the City of Cape Town. Well, here’s a good example – a pothole on a shared pavement/cycle path that I reported back on the 7th September last year.

(as long as you don’t expect a pothole filled in within 6 months) (and one day)

Looking at the email thread, I reported it to the appropriate city email address at 9:18am and received a reply:

Dear Sir
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your e-mail dated 07/09/2011
Please be advised that we have forwarded your concern to the relevant department for their action.

together with a case number, at 9:44am – a turnaround time of 26 minutes. Brilliant.

Sadly, in the intervening 263,520 minutes (yes, that took some rudimentary calculations on my part), precisely bugger all has been done about fixing said pothole.

During these minutes (each one of which I have paid my municipal rates for), I enquired why there had been no progress on the 26th September and was told:

All complaints are worked on a first come first to be served basis and on the availability of manpower and equipment. So we cannot determine or give out timeframes.

I reported the pothole again on 2nd November and got this:

Please be advised that we will follow up with the relevant department and will keep you informed of the outcome of this issue.

But they didn’t. And I had cause to report it again on 24th November after a little kid (not mine) fell off his bike having hit it.

Guess what?

Dear Sir/Madam
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your e-mail dated  2011/11/24.
Please be advised that we will follow up with the relevant department and will keep you informed of the outcome of this issue.

And guess what? They didn’t.

Yesterday marked 6 months of constant inactivity on the City’s part. If this pothole was an e-toll, millions would be vocal in support of me withholding my rates until it was scrapped. Or filled in. Whatever – you get the analogy.

I’m sure that someone will forward this to @HelenZille – even though this is a City issue and she doesn’t really have anything to do with the City. Sadly, no-one will forward it to our actual mayor, @PatriciadeLille, because we all know that that would be a complete waste of pixels.