There’s talk of emigration in the air

Remember when we used to hear that at all the dinner parties, the braais, on the television and in the papers?
The ZumaRumas™. The dangers of another ANC government. Chasing the whites out of the country. Murdered in our beds. How South Africa was going to become “another Zimbabwe”.
I never did get a firm date for any of those unfounded scare-mongering stories.
When I asked, I usually just got a hard stare over my wors and some mumbled excuse about needing another Castle Lite.

Sure, South Africa does have its problems. Many of them, in fact. Which is surely all the more reason for not adding more silly ones that you made up on the way to the party.
But why the exceptionalism? Because nowhere is perfect and everywhere you go, you’re going to face challenges. The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence. And if it is, it’s probably because of all the s**t that’s around over there.

So – back to the talk of emigration in the air:

There’s talk of emigration in the air. It’s everywhere I go. Parties. Work. In the supermarket.

That’s Jeremy Clarkson in this week’s Sunday Times. He’s fed up with the UK – particularly the way it’s being run – and he wants out:

It’s a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else.

The rest of the piece is a wonderful rant about the amount of control and red tape that is exerted over those in the developed world. And a highly amusing list of the problems with each individual country that he considers emigrating to. And – while it is, of course, written with tongue firmly in cheek – at least Clarkson acknowledges that it doesn’t matter where you go, things won’t ever be perfect. Because that’s really not how life works.

I often think that immigrants to a country are better at seeing the good in it. I certainly think that I have a much more positive opinion of South Africa than many of those who have lived here all their lives. And that goes for a lot of the other ex-pats I’ve met here, too.
I’ve done my best to educate myself on the substance behind the stories, taking opinion from all sides – like The Political Analyst and The Guru amongst others – and I’m finding it easier and easier to recognise nonsense emails and stories earlier and earlier, because – like all lies – they really don’t stand up to any degree of scrutiny. I now regularly have friends emailing me with stories of crime and politics and the ANC, with online petitions and the like, asking me if they are true.
And they never are.

And while I’m happy to set records straight, I find it sad that people still willingly believe all that they read in their inboxes and in the newspapers. And sadder still that there are individuals who will prey on this gullibility to push their agenda across. Thabo Mbeki did some things right and he did some things wrong (and this really isn’t a post about that), but he hit the nail on the head with this line:

It seems to me that the unacceptable practice of propagation of deliberate falsehoods to attain various objectives is becoming entrenched in our country.

Ironically, it now seems that he was behind some of the propagation of those deliberate falsehoods, no matter how unacceptable he found the practice. But it’s still a great quote.

What I’m saying here is that you can’t allow yourself to be dragged down by only seeing the negative side of things and you have to make the best of what you’ve got.
Because you’re never going to have it all.
A lot of people in South Africa fall into that negativity trap and their lives, their outlook and the mood of whole country in general are detrimentally affected because of it.
Positivity costs nothing and it makes you feel a whole lot better.

As for Clarkson – his column has now been removed from the Sunday Times website – probably something to do with his plan to strap Peter Mandelson “to the front of a van and drive round the country until he isn’t alive any more”.
Fortunately, I got there first and have a nice small (35kb) PDF of it for you to read. Enjoy!

Snails, Cheese and Wine. And Rain. And Footy.

It’s been a wet weekend. Very wet.
Latest figures from Kirstenbosch suggest that they weren’t really expecting rain at this time of year and forgot to put the rainfall gauge out. But if they had have done, it would have been full. And that’s a lot of water.
I would look it up on the SA Weather Service site, but since it got “upgraded” it’s worse than useless.

Aside from a trip to the supermarket, we stayed in. As you would have done as well.
Mrs 6000 and her chums were due to take some horses out through the vineyards in the spring sunshine, but after the spring sunshine failed to pierce the thick grey clouds above and all around us, apparently even the horses were moaning about it being cold and wet (98% relative humidity 13.8°C at 3pm), and thus a semi-impromptu cheese and wine party took the places of the ruiterkuns. Which was nice.
Especially since we didn’t invite the horses.

The wet weekend flickr set.

Snails, cheese, wine and bathing the kids gave me limited opportunity to watch Chelsea and Man U, but I did get to see the goal and yes, it was a foul; no, Drogba wasn’t offside and no, he wasn’t interfering with play anyway. And yes, actually I am a qualified referee, so **** you.
I’m sure Fergie and the Man U fans won’t be happy, but to be perfectly honest, who really gives a toss about what they think? Deep down inside they’ll be happy to have something to moan about, anyway.  

And so it’s onward and upward (the stairs, to bed), with a week full of grey, wet weather to look forward to. Happy days.

SARS block 6000 miles… – reinstate access to 2oceansvibe in November net crackdown

Shocking news from a regular 6000 miles… commenter:
In a heinous act of censorship, SARS – those people who very efficiently take our money off us all year and then tell us how great they are because they give us a little bit of our own money back – have blocked access to this website from their premises.

According to our source, each month, SARS “chooses” the 50 top sites “to be investigated” which essentially means “to be blocked” and 6000 miles… has found itself on the November list – probably due to its huge popularity amongst SARS employees. I’m not entirely sure that huge popularity amongst SARS employees is something to crow about, since they are presumably mainly grey tax accountants and over-zealous IT workers who apparently have nothing better to do than block decent Cape Town blogs.

Meanwhile, perhaps demonstrating a lack of huge popularity amongst SARS employees, access to Seth Rotherham’s 2oceansvibe.com has been reinstated at the revenue service. Or maybe this just indicates that there is a plan to bring in some sort of Tits & Ass tax in the next budget.

I would urge all SARS employees to access this site via mobile technology as often as possible so that they don’t miss out on the latest news and information, pictures of my kids and amusing stories from around the world.

6000 miles… is, of course, fully enabled for mobile viewing.

UPDATE: Apparently, the thousands of SARS officials surfing 6000 miles…at work was slowing down the whole eFiling process by overloading the servers with quality blog posts. Really.

Why does our society hate children?

Try flying with a small child and retain your love of humanity.

Incoming from The Guru:

Perhaps of interest?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/and-all-jazz/200910/why-does-our-society-hate-children

Oh yes.

I have to admit that I laughed out loud as I read James C Kaufman’s take on the recent Southwest Airlines throws mother and child off plane because child is too noisy story. Especially when I found out that it was because the 2-year-old in question was drowning out the the safety announcements with shouts of “Go Plane! Go!”.
I think we’ve all felt that way as they run through yet another sodding demonstration of how to put a sodding life-jacket on.

Kaufman seems to have exactly the same approach to parenting as me:

I believe in rules and good behavior in public. I don’t like ruining people’s days (at least via my child), and we don’t take our son to nice restaurants, movies, or live theatre when he’s clearly not ready for it. But there are some situations where it is necessary to take a child into the public eye. One that’s on my mind right now (because we’re traveling quite soon) is plane rides. I have seen the most egregious behavior here – from adults.

Before I was a parent, I wasn’t a parent. And those days aren’t so far gone. So yes, I understand that unruly kids can be a pain.
What I don’t think I understood before I was a parent was that sometimes kids have to be a bit unruly. And what better time for them to be unruly than on a plane?

Think about it. You’ve been cooped up in a car for an hour (or however long) to get to the airport. You’ve stood in 13 different queues – check-in, security, customs, etc etc.
And then you sit – seatbelted in – doing precisely sod-all for another hour once you’re actually on the plane before a really scary take off and 11½ hours (I’m doing Cape Town – London here) of having to sit in your seat and not go anywhere – oh, and then a really scary landing as well.
All in all a wholly unpleasant experience. I’d certainly scream and cry.
I still do, from time to time.

The thing that non-parents forget to take into account is that they were once kids too. And they almost certainly  behaved in exactly the same way, be it on a plane, in a shop or in public anywhere.
Because that’s what kids do, from time to time. It’s part of what being a kid is about.
Of course, parents have to react to this – especially in public. One can’t be seen to be simply ignoring the fuss that one’s child is making. Goblin – in her charmingly titled post Just Gag It points this out:

Parents should be fined when their child is throwing a tantrum in a public place and they pleasantly continue to drink their coffee saying, “Oh he’ll calm down in a second. I will ignore him until he behaves properly. Until then, we will ruin your experience”.

Of course, it should be noted that trying to deal with your child throwing a tantrum in a public place (or even in a private place) very rarely yields instant results. Or at least any beneficial ones. But it’s the fact that you are at least trying to do something about the noise which is enough for most people. Most people.

Things to remember:
1. It’s not pleasant for me [the parent] either.
2. I’m doing my best to stop the noise for everyone’s (incidentally, including my daughter’s) sakes.
3. We’re at 37,000 feet. Where would you like me to go so I’m not disturbing anyone? (Actually, don’t answer that)
4. It’s 10 minutes out of your life. It may seem like longer, but it’s not. 10 minutes. Deal with it.

I would argue that most of the anger that is directed the way of parents and their children on aeroplanes is there because other travellers have given themselves a false level of expectancy. I would also be disappointed if, when traveling economy, I was expecting free champagne, caviar, ample leg room and a nice massage with a happy ending from Denise the Stewardess.

Dream on, sunshine. Ain’t going to happen.

And likewise with kids on flights – as I pointed out earlier – you have basically put them through every situation that they hate. What do you expect?

Kaufman again:

Several folks on this and other sites pointed out how much money they would pay for a child-free flight. You know what? I’d pay just as much for a child-friendly flight – where reasonably behaved kids can fly without fear of glares from miserable old ladies, put-off hipsters, and misanthropic businessmen.

Correct again, Professor K.
I have already suggested this idea to influential people in the parenting business. Like Mrs 6000.

This doesn’t mean that kids shouldn’t be allowed to fly. All it takes is a bit of understanding from all parties involved. From the children – as much as they can understand; from the parents – who must do everything to make the experience as uneventful as possible for all concerned; but most of all from the other people on the plane, who – when one looks at it properly – often end up behaving like… well… children.

P.S. Southwest Airlines apologised to the mother and her son that were kicked off the flight.

No Silence in the Suburbs

I was leafing through the recycling fodder that is The Times today and found Aspasia Karras’ column:

I have a neighbour whose alarm goes off every weekend. It rings for hours without pause or reprieve. Technically, there is a pause – for like three insane seconds of pure silence, and then it starts up its hysterical whine again.

We too have exactly this problem – including the perfectly described “three insane seconds of pure silence”, which bring with them immediate relief and sudden hopeful anticipation, but are then rapidly followed by crushing reality as the noise starts up again. 
I have some wonderful video footage from my birthday braai last year with impromptu football, promptu beers and a siren soundtrack. Bastards.
The most persistent local offender seems to be triggered by the wind – perhaps blowing a door or window open – and thus in Spring (and Summer and Autumn and Winter) it is, sadly, a rather regular occurrence. In fits of rage I have gone wandering around the neighbourhood attempting to locate the source, but the inevitable wind has sided with the alarm, surrounding and teasing me.

Karras goes on to wish a faulty alarm on her neighbours who poisoned a dog in their street which had been barking too much for their liking.

We know it was her neighbours because they fed the dogs steak laced with gut-wrenching poison. The vet, who did the autopsy on the dog that succumbed, explained that your garden-variety criminals use sausage for their murderous intent. Neighbours go all upmarket with their crimes.

Having read that, I am hugely tempted to use my Opstal Wors on my neighbourhood canines. The best bit being that it probably wouldn’t need anything added to finish them off.

While my immediate neighbours don’t have dogs, we are surrounded by a wider ring of canines that happily “chat” to each other throughout the night. One barks, and then (I swear, because I have lain in bed and aurally followed it on numerous occasions) you can follow the noise right around you in a 360º arc (often called “a circle” in technical terms).

By help is on the way in the shape of the City of Cape Town Animal By-law 2009. And particularly sections 5 (e) and (f):

No person shall –

(e) keep any dog which barks for more than six minutes in any hour or more than three minutes in any half hour.

(f) keep any dog which –
(i) by barking, yelping, howling or whining;
(ii) by having acquired the habit of charging any vehicle, animals, poultry, pigeons or persons outside any premises where it is kept; or
(iii) by behaving in any other manner,
causes a disturbance or nuisance to inhabitants of the neighbourhood;

That would seem to cover every single dog in our area. Apart from the ones that I don’t know about because they don’t make unnecessary and prolonged noise. Which kind of proves the point, doesn’t it?

The by-law has just completed its second round of public comments and can’t come in quickly enough for my liking. Of course, then we’ll have to see if the council will actually act on it and enforce the restrictions therein.

But if not, there’s always Operation Wors to fall back on…