This is a true story. Sadly.
An acquaintance has Covid at the moment, and is feeling pretty rubbish (as you would).
The acquaintance still went along to see Peter Kaye’s show at the Arena in Sheffield last night.
Joining 12,499 other people in a big metal box.
Why?
Well, selfishness, obviously.
The acquaintance has excused themselves on the socials by using the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”.
I despair.
Apparently, the show was very good, though. So there’s that.
Right. Back from Agulhas a bit early so that I can fit in a friendly game of football this evening. And it was a good journey back, with only several near death experiences. Honestly, driving in South Africa really is something very special. And making it safely to your destination is even more remarkable.
We’ve left behind the peace and quiet of the Southern Tip for the ongoing building work next door, with the constant drone of the jackhammer welcoming us back. Again. It is already very wearing.
But before we left, we did see this girl out of the front window. Watching us, watching her:
This is a Cape Grysbok (Raphicerus melanotis) resplendent in full winter coat. I’m guessing female, because there are no visible horns, but there is quite a lot of eye-shadow.
It’s been a great few days away, with some good exercise and some amazing wildlife, from whales through to geckoes, this bokkie, more than one mongoose, and loads of birds including fish eagle, spoonbills, ostrich, a defaecating cormorant, and that petrel.
I can already hardly wait until next time.
Well, it’s one reason, anyway.
I regularly refer back to a post from 2008 on this blog. This one.
Brian Micklethwait’s words originally, but something that I live… er… blog by, every day.
And, if you can’t be bothered to click through, then you probably just need to know that despite commenting on everything from news to sport to weather to politics to whatever this falls under and everything else, this still remains – from time to time – a personal blog. And because this is a personal blog, I do occasionally put personal stuff on it. And then when I look back on it, I can be reminded of exactly how I felt about something back then. Whenever that was.
Like this post from last August:
And it’s a really good thing that I can be reminded of good stuff like that, because last night I played football and it was shit. Really shit.
Sore arse, 40km round trip through the traffic, some floodlights not working, ball with an egg in it, a whole 15 minutes game time, I was rubbish, our whole team was rubbish, the referee was a complete [censored] clown from start to finish and yes, we lost, but to be honest it would only have been very mildly better if we had won, such was the general attitude on display and overall crapness of the whole evening.
Worst game of football (that I was playing in – there have been a few United performances that would still beat it) that I can remember. I broke my rib in two places and tore ankle ligaments in one of them, and it was still better when you consider last night’s bollocks.
I came home and went to bed. At least that went ok.
So maybe I’ll look back on this post in years to come and think: “hey, things have gone better today than I thought”, because I’ll helpfully have the memory of yesterday evening with which to compare it.
Several bits of small stuff to share, so here it all is.
Knock yourselves out*.
After yesterday’s post, this:
That’s quite a movement, ironically suddenly making illegal “small boat” immigration across the English Channel a whole lot harder.
Two tweets, just a few pixels apart on my laptop screen:
and:
And yes, I’ve experienced both ends of this spectrum.
Delightfully astonishing at the one end, but oh so frustrating at the other.
Nothing to panic about here, but certainly one just to keep an eye on…
A recent advert on the web:
Ah yes. The silver self-defence spike. A true Camping and Outdoor Essential. And… does it really say “Thank you for choosing [manufacturer]” on the lanyard? That’s amazing.
A local page I follow on Facebook got hacked and started posting all sorts of weird stuff, including (but not limited to) a lot of AI generated content resembling American cities. In fact, the only local thing it posted was this range of images depicting (allegedly, at least) Cape Town, some lions in the Kruger, and some KhoiSan rock art in an ancient cave.
The worst bit was the comments though, with people from Cape Town fawning over the picture of their city. And this, despite all those new mountains, the sun setting on the wrong side, and that frankly weird extension bit coming out of Green Point.
Compare and contrast…
Also, while we’re on the subject, that is clearly not KhoiSan rock art, and WTF has happened to those lions? Our jobs are safe from AI for a while yet. But whether our lives are safe from idiot commenters on Facebook… well… that’s another story.
In more genuine pictures of Cape Town…
We took a walk around Groot Constantia a few days ago, and it was lovely.
Go and see more of the yellowing vines and lush, green grass on Instagram. And drop a follow if you haven’t already. Thanks.
* simply a turn of phrase, not an instruction.
There’s an outbreak of E.coli in the UK. And it’s a particularly nasty one.
A lot of people are quite upset that the announcement contained that phrase:
a nationally distributed food item
As if there’s some sort of conspiracy in not announcing exactly what food item it is, presumably in order to allow more people to get sick.
All the blue ticks. All the time.
Surprisingly though, the nationally distributed food item can’t be named, because they don’t know what it is. (Microbiologists will be waving their hands in the air, trying to attract the teacher’s attention so they can tell you that it’s almost certainly a pre-prepared salad of sorts, but that’s because it’s always a pre-prepared salad of sorts which is to blame when you get this sort of thing.)
What they do know however, is where the bug didn’t come from. Not from a particular holiday destination or cruise. Not from “wild” swimming. Not from a single water source. Not from a school canteen. And so on. And they can do this because of the demographics of the patients, and their geographic distribution.
It’s easy to tie these cases down to one specific bug: genome sequencing can do that very quickly. What it’s more difficult to do is to then work out the link between all of those cases. So what the UKHSA is doing with this statement is trying to reassure the public that swimming, drinking water, going on holiday etc etc is absolutely fine.
Can they identify the nationally distributed food item? No, not yet. Or they would have done.
They could guess, but then they’d get into trouble either simply for guessing, or for guessing incorrectly. Damned if they do, and damned – albeit by tossers on twitter – when they don’t.
They’ll let us know as soon as they know. That’s how these things work.
And in the meantime? Well, there’s plenty of advice on that link about the best way to avoid the bug and avoid getting sick. But with a population of about 70 million people, and “just” 113 cases, I honestly don’t think that you should be treating your fridge as a potential ticking timebomb.
I’d still wash that lettuce really well before you eat it, though.