I don’t think there’s any need to go over this too much, given that penguins are cute little rocket shitters, and geese include (sort of) the Egyptian Goose, which is very much in my top 2 of Most Hated Birds.
So, I’m guessing that everyone I know would side with the sad little (initially) flightless penguin in this cartoon strip:
As my daughter remarked with a smile:
Goose Confetti!
Those are clearly Canada Geese, which are very much the Northern Hemisphere (I know, I know) version of Egyptian Geese.
They all look very similar when in tiny chunks in the sky, though.
It was all a bit weird from the start. Populist, vocal, flipflopping political party, known for its publicity stunts and – let’s be honest here – “occasional” forays into violent protest, calls for a day of National Shutdown to end loadshedding and oust the President. But given that their grievances are an ongoing thing, it was odd that they gave us all six or seven weeks notice.
Until you realise that they had chosen the Monday 20th March because it falls in between a weekend and Tuesday 21st March – a public holiday. Schools were closed, many people would have taken one day of leave from work to get an extra long weekend: it would likely be quiet anyway. This did not go unnoticed by some people:
But it did meant that the organisers could easily claim that images of quiet cities and empty streets were down to support for their cause, when actually, a control for their experiment would have yielded much the same result.
Hint: Don’t mess with a national keypoint, guys. Silly move.
And many of those businesses (not the airport) won’t be open today Not because they are supporting the protest, but more that that they are terrified of the potential violence that might befall them, should they open. And while the leaders of the party are publicly calling for peaceful protest, the EFF dosen’t have a great record at doing that:
I’m not saying that today’s EFF protests will be/would have been violent. I’m just saying that their history is enough to assume that there’s a fair chance that it won’t all be peaceful. And in the lead up to the protest, over 24,000 tyres (the SA protestors weapon of choice):
were found – many of them sequestered at strategically important localities like major intersections – and removed.
So when journalists report that “street vendors stayed away”, and the EFF supporters claim that shows endorsement for the protest, I’m more willing to believe that it’s just for the vendors’ safety and that of their businesses.
And then there’s the misinformation, because there always is misinformation. Old videos, old pictures, entirely normal traffic jams: the works. Thankfully, all debunked here. But not before they have had millions of impressions on social media.
Also, it rained in Cape Town this morning. It rained a lot. Now I’ve never been a fan of sports which are stopped by a bit of rain (tennis, padel, cricket etc…). And the rain certainly kept the protest numbers down around here. Much to the amusement of the mayor:
Cheap shot, agreed, but I reckon that he’ll be extremely glad that the weather helped his city out today. And after all the sabre-rattling, intimidation, threats and bravado from the other side, why not push back a little?
It’s 4:30pm now, and there have only been sporadic or unverified (at the time of writing) incidents across the country, thus far. It seemed like a lot of people stayed away from the protests instead of work – there have been a lot of images of tiny groups of red-shirted individuals from various places around the country.
A couple of valid(?) points have been raised though. The sudden availability of police officers to combat any trouble that may arise, when they’re usually nowhere to be found when actual crime happens to actual individuals. That said, I do know that they are working unsustainable shift patterns in many places to have extra numbers on the ground today. Even Struisbaai SAPS has 12 hour shifts going on this weekend, and the EFF only managed 20 votes there in the recent by-election. And the sudden availability of electricity, as well. Is it really down to hard work and good luck, or can the powers that be actually positively affect loadshedding? And if so, how? Because if so, that’s quite sinister. Why aren’t they doing it all the time? The proof of the pudding here will be what happens tomorrow and the rest of the week. And finally – why the panic by the government? Lots of police, lots of talk, lots of unnecessary drama:
“Regime change”? “Unconstitutional means”? (Let’s talk about constitutional means after the elections next year.) And the military on standby. Overkill. Sorry – poor choice of words.
All in all, an awful lot of “all mouth, no trousers” again, as it usually is in SA politics. OK, in worldwide politics, but especially in SA politics. Still a few hours of the day to go, though. And then the rest of the year.
Anything could happen.
And what’s happening here? Well, I’m going to have a beer, because my fridge hasn’t been shut down.
I’ve never been into trendy things that are trendy because they’re trendy.
Trendy things that are trendy because they are good or useful – sure. Solar power would be a great example of that, right now. But if you are just doing something trendy solely to be trendy – well, that’s not for me.
Step forward padel: the latest trendy thing to hit the monied white people of South Africa. In Cape Town, you may have seen Mountain Biking fill this niche. And then there were E-Bikes. Remember the Tim Noakes Cookbook? How about Hot Yoga? Fedoras. EMS BodyTec fitness. Crapft Beer (or Gin). There are many, many examples.
Padel is a cross between beach bats, tennis, pickleball and squash, and it is EVER so trendy right now. And it’s almost exclusively in that demographic that I have mentioned above.
I have friends who play padel. But it’s not for me. And I feel that that decision was vindicated when I saw the (hastily built, always full) local courts being used by at least two gentlemen wearing fedoras. Case rested. That’s not sporting gear, that’s trendy for the sake of being trendy gear.
They’d probably ridden there on their E-Bikes.
And then I was served this ball-achingly awful ad on Facebook for Padel bats padels, which just sums up the whole thing:
So many issues here.
seventy-Four different Examples of Capitalisation. Never a good Start.
Released on 23 February, but “designed to celebrate the holiday season”? Which holiday season, exactly? Shrove Tuesday? And “a little pre-taste of the summer collection”? Mate – this is the Southern Hemisphere. On the 23rd February, summer is less than a week from being over. How pre-taste do you want this? 9 months?
“wintery Smoke Pine Greens” – absolutely ideal for a little pre-taste of the summer collection.
As an aside: never smoke a pine, by the way:
“When considering total emissions, particulate matter from smoldering pine wood and needles was by far the most mutagenic of the samples assessed, and thus potentially more carcinogenic.”
And then the weird elevation of “a papaya smoothie” as some sort of aspirational goal for the hue of sporting equipment.
But after that, well, they’re just taking the piss, aren’t they?
Our Collection continues to draw its inspiration from Sci-Fi movies translating the current world we’re living in, where people spend their time between the physical world and the virtual metaverse.
I don’t even know what that means.
I love a good Sci-Fi movie translating the current world (we’re living in).
But no, the people you are trying to appeal to are spending their time between the padel court and the next occasion they go to the padel court. This intermediate time is spent in the physical world, describing their last padel game and arranging their next one.
No-one is spending any time in the virtual metaverse, because:
the “metaverse” is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality and augmented reality headsets.
And no, I don’t know if you can play padel there.
As with many of these fads, padel will last for a while (durations of these things vary) while shrewd individuals and companies pivot and invest to make a quick (and big) buck (e.g. Osaka’s [above] domain is actually osakahockey dot co dot za, but that old curved wooden stick staple is nowhere near as trendy and money-spinning as padel) and will then die out.
But with the equipment (padel, racquet, ugh… whatever) starting at a few thousand Rands for a bit of moulded plastic:
…it’s clearly for the few, not the many.
Thankfully, it won’t be around for long.
Please remember to recycle your bat on the way out.
Right. Before we begin: the T&Cs. Because I know that this post is going to annoy some people, and if it does, I really do want to it to be for all the right reasons. So…
This post is NOT about: The rights or wrongs of the UK Government’s new policy on immigration. The rights or wrongs of the opinions of Gary Lineker on said policy.
There is enough stuff out there about those things, and I’m not even providing a link to anything about this story, because this is a political thing and so the views out there on this are completely polarised and will either strike you as “spot on” or “bullshit hate speech” depending on your political stance. It’s not difficult to google “Gary Lineker”, click the “News” tab, choose your site, read the article and then either applaud or rage. Have fun.
My point is rather more about Gary Lineker’s contract with the BBC. Contracts are important things. Gary Lineker wouldn’t get paid for his Match of the Day work if he didn’t have a contract. But it’s a two way street, because equally, he wouldn’t have to turn up for his Match of the Day work if he didn’t have a contract. But he does turn up and he does get paid, so everyone’s happy*.
The thing is, because he’s working for the BBC, Gary Lineker earns more than £1,350,000 of taxpayers’ money each year. Is that reasonable? IT DOESN’T MATTER – that’s not what we’re discussing here. But when he signed the contract to allow him to be paid that amount of money, he also agreed to abide by the BBC’s guidelines on social media use. Is that fair? IT DOESN’T MATTER – that’s not what we’re discussing here.
The fact is that the two-way contract street says that yes, he gets paid, but no, he can’t share his political opinions on social media. And by signing that contract, he tacitly said that he was ok with not expressing his political opinions on social media, as long as the BBC paid him £1,350,000 to present MOTD.
And because it’s a two way street, and no-one has got you at gunpoint signing anything, you always have a choice: Don’t like the terms of the contract? Don’t sign it. Don’t present MOTD. Express your political opinions freely on social media.
But also, don’t get paid £1,350,000 a year.
You can’t have your cake and eat it.
And so, whether you agree with the Government policy or not, and whether you agree with Gary Lineker’s opinions or not, is completely immaterial here. He clearly broke one of the terms of his contract, and, just like you or I or anyone else who is lucky enough to have a job might expect if we broke one of the terms of our contract, his employers have taken issue with that. But are they right t… IT. DOESN’T. MATTER. Stop bringing your emotions and politics into a simple black and white issue.
The upshot of this is several-fold:
There will be no MOTD presenters or commentators this evening, and the BBC viewers will instead have the international PLP feed – including Jim Beglin. Eish.
The BBC will be pronounced by both political sides as biased. (An aside: the fact that one can look at such polarised political opposites both complaining that the national broadcaster is prejudiced against their particular viewpoint actually indicates to me that the BBC is doing quite a good job of being impartial.)
Gary Lineker will either back down (nope) or he will have to leave the BBC and be seen (by some people at least) as some sort of martyr for free speech. But…
The more likely outcome will be that the BBC (and/or any other employer watching this and not wanting all this shit coming their way) will surely make their contracts clearer and more restrictive when it comes to this issue, thus “stifling” “free speech” even further.
Personally (and again, this is without prejudice towards this case – this goes for each and every one of them), I would love it if the opinions of celebrities and TV personalities weren’t given more credence and gravity simply because of their public status. It’s ridiculous that because Matt le Tissier had a somewhat successful career as a footballer in the 80s and 90s, we should somehow pay particular attention to his views on vaccines. It’s pathetic that because Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar for her acting ability, we should consider her as some sort of expert on nutrition. Happen to be a minor celebrity because you were the keyboard player for a 90s band and you have several qualifications in particle and quantum physics? Then that’s fine: you tell us all about the universe. But tell us about it because of your academic qualifications, and not because you came up with the riff on the band’s big hit.
The Gary Lineker issue is clearly very emotive and multi-factorial. But while there are many difficult conversations to be had around each of those matters, it seems to me that him clearly choosing not to obey one of the terms of his contract with the BBC is probably the most simple thing to grasp of them all. Equally, how that breach of contract is dealt with shouldn’t be complex at all, but given the inevitable outrage from the all-knowing public, it almost certainly will be.
I’m lucky enough not to have to brave the traffic very often. I used to brave it all the time – although paradoxically, somewhat timidly – but that was a few years ago. Today, I had to pull on my big boy pants and go into town.
Twice.
The first journey in and out wasn’t too bad, although the CBD itself was an absolute disaster. Avoiding the Friday morning rush hour by making the appointment for the visa interview at 11 was a stroke of genius. And getting out by 11:30 before the Cape Town Friday exodus began at midday was also good. Duty done and actually, with very little issue. Boom.
But then the request for additional documents to be submitted in the afternoon shattered all our good work. UnBoom.
And when we returned to the CBD later in the day it was hell to get in, hell to be in and even more hell to get out. Ugh.
I like my car: it’s lovely to drive and it’s a nice place to be. But less so when surrounded by lots and lots of other cars. I can’t believe I used to sit amongst all that stuff for 2 or 3 hours each day. What a waste of time, energy, money and resources.
At least we’re done for a while now, though another visit to another visa centre will follow in a few weeks. Needs must, so I’m already mentally preparing myself for that.
