Category: annoying people

Money for research

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As a scientist, I know just how difficult it is to secure funding for research projects. That’s why it annoys the hell out of me to see that someone (albeit not a scientist) has gone and got a lump of money to find out if television wildlife documentaries infringe on animals’ privacy.
And apparently, yes they do.

Footage of animals giving birth in their burrows or mating crosses an ethical line that film-makers should respect, according to Brett Mills, a lecturer in film studies at the University of East Anglia.
Mills compiled a report on animals’ rights to privacy after reviewing scenes from the BBC’s 2009 wildlife series “Nature’s Great Events”.

Perish the thought that some money should be spent on something important like finding a cure for HIV or addressing the growing scourge of XDR-TB.

No, let’s rather give Brett a big wad of cash to go into the woods with a video camera and see if he can make a badger blush.

Gym and Haircuts

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On my recent post about returning to gym after a prolonged (4 years) absence, I got a comment from Damien Tomaselli, a personal trainer, a part of which I have faithfully reproduced here:

I’m a personal trainer. I like to know what peoples attitudes towards exercise/gym are. You mentioned you don’t like the people at gym. I know your not alone in that. May I ask what it is exactly that you don’t like?

So, Damien et al, here’s the deal. For me, going to gym is like having a haircut: purely functional.
It’s a pain to have to do and I dislike actually doing it, but I enjoy the results. Generally, anyway. No-one can do it quite like Precious from Partners on the Waterfront and if she’s not around, it all goes a bit Pete Tong. (And have you ever seen his hair?)

The problem with gym is one that runs through any physical activity in South Africa: that is, the perception that if you’re not doing it completely full-on and seriously, then you might as well not do it at all.
Take a couple of sports I have dabbled in back in the UK: mountain biking and golf. I actually find myself scared to start doing them here, because then I have to join the club which talks about Shimano GT220-R gear sets and the new Ping carbon-fibre graphite shafted driver with the elliptical sweetspot.  I don’t care about all that crap – I just want to do it for some fun and exercise.

The same goes for gym, but the problem is exacerbated by the sheer arrogance of the gymming class. If you’re not bench-pressing 105kg, sprinting like a cocaine-snorting, demented hamster on the treadmill, wearing an understatedly cool baggy vest to show off your pecs or have the latest ever-so-small iPod attached to a big alice band around your sweaty bicep, then what the **** are you doing in there?
It’s like you’re suddenly part of some underclass for not being healthy or trendy enough or just not fitting in with the unwritten rules of serious gymming. But you still pay the same money as them to use the same equipment while having their sneering superiority complexes forced upon you.
Yeah well, sorry I’m not as super fit as you, but I actually do other stuff besides exercise. I have family, have braais, have friends that I can talk to without having to be running along a suburban pavement in a group of twenty runners, talking about running. I can drink a beer without having to feel guilty about the extra 3 kms I’ll have to do in the morning to run it off. I have a life.

And that’s why I only go to gym when it’s quiet: Sunday afternoons or weekdays at 11. It’s why I plug myself into my music before I go through the door, why my distinctly uncool but ever so practical 120GB Classic iPod remains tucked into my pocket, playing distinctly uncool but ever so enjoyable music. Sure, I’m hugely unfriendly – I don’t make eye contact, I don’t talk – I just do my cycling or circuits and I leave. It’s not a bloody singles club – it’s purely functional.

Like I say – I hate gym. But I’m already starting to like the results. And that’s why I’ll be back again tomorrow afternoon: head down, training hard and ignoring the twats.

UPDATE: Gym Bunny “Come Sweat With Me” online dating ad sounds death knell for all things gym.

Sipho does Steve

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Because my most important reader is me and I might like, one day, to recall Sipho Hlongwane’s open letter to Steve Hofmeyr, delightfully entitled “Need any help removing your head from your arse, Steve?“, I’m documenting it right here and now.

And yes, this excerpt is quite funny, but it’s probably best that you click the link above and read the whole thing for maximum entertainment.

I also find it quite funny that you “own” Westernism, just because you’re a white man. Don’t give me that “us” vs “you” nonsense. Where were YOU when the printing press was invented, Steve? Where were YOU when the nuclear bomb was invented? Did you help Gottlieb Daimler with that first motor vehicle? Did Thomas Edison consult with you when he had that light-bulb idea? Until Julius Malema drives a car that YOU built, and wears a shirt that YOU designed, don’t come at me with that humus.

The irony of having to hear a lecture on originality from a man who sings Neil Diamond covers for a living isn’t lost on me either.

Steve, here’s a word of advice. I know you mean well. You had the moral upper hand and everything, but you squandered it by being a cracker. Leave this sort of thing to the people who know what they’re doing when they put pen to paper, alright? Go back to doing whatever it is you do when you aren’t riding bike in the veld. Go back to impressing suburban housewives with that lush goatee of yours.

Brilliant.

Race war still not happening

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After the recent hugely disappointing news that South Africa’s eagerly anticipated (by the press) Race War had been postponed due to a lack of protagonists sunshine, many people have been getting in touch with us here at 6000 miles… asking when exactly the rearranged date for the Race War is.
Well, I was heading out to buy a sandwich at the local Café Lacomia wondering what the best way of predicting the outbreak of the Race War would be, when I had an epiphany in that regard.
As you do.
The café in question is located in a branch of Builders Warehouse, a local chain of DIY/Gardening stores. If you are in the UK, you would probably be best comparing this to a B&Q.  

Of course, there are some local peculiarities: Builder Whorehouse has an extensive swimming pool section, B&Q doesn’t need one of them. The store also stocks pangas (pangae?) – better known worldwide as machetes. Considering there is heavy duty gardening to be done in the UK as well, I’m surprised that they’re not more popular over there, but they’re not.
Of course, the panga is also often noted as an African weapon of war and will be much in evidence on the darker side of the front lines when the Race War is eventually rescheduled.

         

Presumably, the paler guys will be armed with Black and Decker weedeaters which should present a formidable defence, Eskom willing. And as long as the little stringy bit doesn’t break too often. 

Either way, when the Race War comes about, there will obviously be a period of arming up before the actual fighting begins. And where better for your local Xhosa Warrior to buy his panga than Builders Warehouse, with its amazing No-Quibble Guarantee?

That’s where my “forearmed is forewarned” plan comes in:
The Builders Warehouse Panga Race War Prediction Index.

No, it’s not catchy and neither is the BWPRWPI acronym. It sounds a bit like a wet fart.
But it will work. Because right now, the local Builders Warehouse has a huge number of pangas (pangae?) in stock. Great for hacking back that dense bush or those Bloody Agents with White Tendencies.
And should that number drop suddenly and considerably, then I will bet that there will be trouble ahead. Thus, the BWPRWPI is measured as the percentage of pangae (pangas?) remaining in stock, using yesterday’s numbers as a benchmark of 100%. (Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on the weedeaters as well, just in case there’s a sudden and unexpected AWB uprising in Cape Town.)

Right now, the BWPRWPI remains steady at 100.
Which is bad news for Builders Warehouse, but wonderful for the Rainbow Nation.

Any excuse

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Don’t expect too much this evening.

I’m utterly knackered. Emotionally, mentally and physically this week has been draining. Somnially, it’s been a complete disaster. And I’ve inhaled enough Icelandic volcanic ash to close a nation’s airspace.

Actually, that last bit wasn’t true. But the rest was gospel. And while today I have been completely out of it, having spent the day at home looking after two demanding, but hugely lovable little kids, when I have ventured towards any sort of information source, all I have heard about is flight chaos in the UK and over the counter World Cup ticket chaos in South Africa.

It’s difficult to blame anyone for the Icelandic volcanic ash issue. Even the neanderthals that were interviewed by Sky at Manchester Airport were understanding, using a softer “Ug!” rather than the more aggressive it’s-Willie-Walsh’s-fault “Ug!!” (note the extra exclamation mark) that they were voicing last week. 

The World Cup ticket debarcle is also difficult to pin on anyone. Or, rather on any one. It seems to me that at every stage of the process, each person or organisation involved failed in their duties in some way.
FIFA, whose computer system was overwhelmed – again. First National Bank with their irritating “How can we help you?” tagline, to which several thousand people can now respond: “By getting enough application forms to your bloody branches, you tossers!”; and lastly, though I hate to say it, the individuals buying the tickets themselves.

EyeWitness News was reporting that punters were angry that the cheapest (Category 4) tickets had sold out so quickly. Well, here’s some news for you – I have 24 of them and I have had for well over a year now. It wasn’t so tough – all I did was actually get my arse into gear a whole 15 months before you. No overnight queues, no fighting with the person behind me who thinks I should be behind him, no last-minute computer glitches, no issues with Cape Town games being completely sold out (shock). Not hard.

So, while I think the Local Organising Committee, FIFA & FNB have let people down – badly – it could all have been avoided if those people weren’t jumping on the bandwagon so very late on.

But I bet you haven’t learnt a thing…