Category: annoying people

Burning bridges with Bruno Fernandes

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Football social media worldwide is still alight with news of that result in that big game, and yes, I too was delighted to see Sheffield United win away at Reading last night. Get in there!

Before that big game though, everyone was talking about Sunday evening’s Liverpool vs Manchester United match at Anfield.

I realise that I am a little behind the curve on this one.

Look, we all know that the match finished 7-0, and while I have no particular love for either of the teams involved, clearly the right team won on the night. When you win a game 7-0, it’s not by chance.

One of the talking points of the evening, aside from the scoreline, was the behaviour/attitude/general shithousery of Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes. [see here] And The Athletic, to which I subscribe, wrote a huge long article on it, which is behind a paywall, but which also appears to have somehow magically tumbled into a PDF available here.

You lucky fishes.

It’s well worth a read. Suffice to say, Nick Miller does not hold back in his criticism, or his language. Lines like:

Fernandes reacted to yesterday’s events in the way that an especially immature six-year-old child might deal with huge disappointment.

or:

Cue the first of many arm-flaps, the Fernandes limbs flailed like the wings of a particularly petulant owl. We would see it again, many more times.

or:

Anyone who’s spent time with a toddler will tell you they don’t like it when they don’t get their way. 

and:

In truth, this was a fairly routine bit of play-acting, the sort of thing which is deeply tiresome but that you see a few times in every game. But in the context of everything else, on top of the arm flapping and the complaining and the diving, this was an especially fetid cherry atop a decomposing cake.

Quite literally delicious. Or… er… not.

I know that the TA, who unknowingly came up with the filename for the link above, will love every moment of Miller’s synopsis. And, despite the result and the depression and the embarrassment and the often unkind (but amusing) piss-taking and rivalry, I suspect that many Man U fans will agree with a lot of it too.

I’m not a sports journalist, and I recognise that The Athletic isn’t the biggest name when it comes to EPL coverage, but given how much the red half of Manchester must be smarting already, I wonder if they will now refuse to give interviews to Miller and The Athletic going forward. Have bridges been burned?

Surely not, though. You’d have to be really childish and petulant to do that.

Oh.

Keep it simple

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Fine advice from the US National Park Service:

We have a lot of SA National Park in and around Cape Town. That’s a real privilege, but it’s also not all it’s cracked up to be. Go to a popular spot at peak time and you might as well be in the city. But take the above advice and go to a less crowded spot (or a crowded spot at a less crowded time) anywhere in the Table Mountain National Park, and you’re (potentially) asking for trouble.

e.g.

We’re all advised on websites and on the trails themselves to make sure that we’re not alone, but much like the Eskom situation, there shouldn’t have to be normalisation, acceptance and victim blaming with this sort of thing. More should be being done to prevent these problems from happening, rather than (just) us having to change our behaviour because the authorities can’t guarantee our safety and/or electricity supply.

For balance, can I also point out that this is an urban park problem. The chances of you being mugged in – for example – the Agulhas National Park, are pretty much zero, no matter how alone you are.
But on the down side: no big, flat mountain.

More to come

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Ugh. I does sometimes feel like this blog is just a means for me to moan. But taking a step back, and looking at the several (or more) years that I’ve been writing on here, I also feel that it’s reasonable for it to reflect my state of mind at any given time. Sometimes, that state of mind is influenced by personal stuff (no, the kitchen still isn’t finished and they’ve also managed to not connect the sink up correctly, so they’ve destroyed some cupboards as well), sometimes by life in general. Probably most often both, with some delicious interplay between the two.

But the last couple of months have been… bad.

Are things going to get any better? Well, hopefully, yes. But perhaps not just yet.

We have a few things to deal with before that:

It’s a lot.

The light at the end of the tunnel?
I want to believe it’s there, but I just can’t see it at the moment.

Not a great day

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It’s hard not to be a bit down when you wake up to wind, rain, poor service and no electricity. And then the bad news is compounded by the first two things served to you on social media. All a bit much for a Monday morning.

Still, a problem shared is a blog post written, so let’s go for it.

I mentioned the weather yesterday, so this wasn’t unexpected. And yes, it’s great for the garden. But as I write – and with the rain still coming down hard – we’re looking at over 33% of the rain in the last four months having fallen in the last six hours. It’s dark and chilly and wintery.

And there’s no electricity.

“So how are you writing this, then?” I hear you ask.

Well, the answer is that I am peddling hard on my exercise bike, which I have hooked up to the grid at home. And we’re all good, as long as I can keep up the speed. If I slow down, however, then th

.

.

.

exactly.

Stage 6 loadshedding today, then (and remember as a rule of thumb, number of hours without electricity each day = Stage x 2) because of the breakdown of 8 (eight) generating units across the country, and the tacit promise of possibly more issues ahead because of the rains up north.

A true taste of what’s to come this winter. And it’s not pleasant.

Then, news that two World Tours have actually made it to South Africa. This has been a long-term gripe for a lot of people down here, and rightly so. We’ve mentioned it more than once, as well. So what I’m about to say might seem a little hypocritical, but I’m going to say it anyway.

The quality of the bands that are coming to SA… isn’t great.

I mean, like this:

This band coming over is problematic for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the fact that this will count as a potential strike against our indignation at being left out of numerous other “world” tours.
The argument will be: “You say that bands never come to SA, but I saw that the Backstreet Boys included two dates on their recent tour”, like that’s a feather in South Africa’s cap when the band in question haven’t had a hit record in almost 25 years, and clearly just need a bit of extra pocket money for drugs and plastic/orthopaedic surgery.

And secondly, the number of individuals using the line “Backstreet’s Back, alright!” when they hear the news. Don’t do it, please.

We don’t need this. Although, they did give us this amazing TV moment.

Amazing.

But the Backstreet Boys being back, alright! is still better – far, far better – than the other “world” “tour” that’s coming here. Because if you want to talk about grifters out to make a quick buck from a naïve public, well, you really need look no further:

Ah, jesus. What utter trash. The Mattias Rath of this age, peddling snake oil and pseudoscience to a sadly desperate public. And yes, the talk will be free, but don’t expect that there won’t be book sales and voluntary donations and supplements to buy and, and, and… Because if you think that this charlatan is doing this out of the goodness of his own heart (no pun intended), well, then you’re his perfect audience member.

Eish. What a day.

Oh. Wait. I mentioned poor service as well, didn’t I?

Well, the kitchen is still. not. finished. And they haven’t turned up to do anything about that this morning.

This week, and I say this with some degree of (probably misplaced) confidence, can surely only get better.

.

Right?

A crazy day

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Happy Valentine’s Day, if you’re one of those people who celebrate such things.
Or even if you’re not. I don’t like to discriminate.

I know what you’re going to ask: is the kitchen work finished?

No. Of course it’s not. That would be far too straightforward. And so we’re stuck without a sink and a cooker and a hob for at least another 24 hours. The pile of washing up is now hiding the beagle out of sight, and some of the stuff from last week is growing some beautiful Aspergillus spp..

To be fair, apparently the hob guy did turn up this morning, but he didn’t tell us that he was coming. Therefore, when he arrived in the middle of loadshedding, the doorbell didn’t work and our local Vodacom tower was having a nap as well.

“I did throw some stones at the window,” he said.
He should have sung up at the balconette. Julliet would have let him in.
As it is, I shall have to check the front for broken panes.

Eish.

So we’ll try again tomorrow. And maybe we can wrap everything up in one go.

Just like we were supposed to have done last week.