Category: annoying people

Day 201, part 2 – Book Bok

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Thanks to my mystery subscriber (or just through sheer good fortune?), I have once again begun receiving pleading emails from Afrikaans “entertainer”, Bok van Blerk (see also here and here).

Today’s missive tells me that “Bookings are now open again”. Presumably, there has been some issue whereby bookings weren’t open and somehow, the situation has improved or been reconciled such that bookings are now open once again.

Great news: let’s get to it! Because even Bok himself looks mildly confused as to why you haven’t booked him yet.

(I actually have a long list of reasons, but let’s save those for another time.)

“Special rates for performances under newest Covid regulations,” it crows, conveniently omitting detailed information as to whether they are special cheaper rates because he needs to sell shows, or special vastly increased rates to make up for the recent dearth of opportunities.

Contact us now!

Indeed, you’d better be quick. Business must be good if they have the time to email random, English, Cape Town bloggers who have unsubscribed from his mailing list 74 times.
That sort of action certainly certainly doesn’t smack of any sort of hopeless desperation.

Right. I’m off to unsubscribe yet again.
Wish me luck.

Day 200 – Some lockdown thoughts

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Compare and contrast my Day 200 thoughts with my Day 1 thoughts by reading here.
And… er… then reading here as well:

 

It’s Day 200 of the lockdown in South Africa.

Not that you’d really know that we’re in a lockdown. The measures now are so very lax that it’s hard to distinguish anything from normal BTV life.

I’m not allowed out of the house between midnight and 3am and I can’t buy alcohol to take away on the weekends. Other than those two bizarre rules, there really is nothing else directly affecting me. I’m not sure how either of those limits the transmission of the coronavirus in any material way.

Tourism, however, continues to be roundly buggered. No visitors allowed from the UK* or the US (and a whole handful of other countries) and suddenly that’s a good three-quarters of our local business shafted. The Waterfront, Robben Island and other tourist sites have been rapidly and happily re-de-colonised by the locals, but we don’t have the numbers or the spending power to make up the international shortfall.

And no matter how welcome the peace and quiet, it’s difficult to enjoy it when you know how people are struggling because of the situation.

Perhaps it’s the lack of rules now that means that people feel the local version of the pandemic is over. It’s very much not, and they are exacerbating that exact issue by behaving as if it is. Currently, for example, hundreds of schoolchildren at several local, private privileged schools are in quarantine after an inadvertent “superspreader” party at a local nightclub.

It’s difficult to comprehend just how blasé and how stupid you would have to be to think that chucking a couple of hundred kids into a poorly ventilated, confined space with loud music (meaning that they have to raise their voices and get even closer together to talk) is an ok thing to do at the moment.

But then you only have to look at the people still wearing their masks around their chins or around their wrists to see just the calibre of person we’re dealing with.

And of course, most of those kids will be absolutely fine. Completely asymptomatic, even.
It’s just their grandparents that will kick the bucket in a couple of weeks after the family lunch on Sunday.

Hell of a party though, I believe. Did you hear that Tarquin and Ashley finally hooked up?
So probably all worth it, right? Unless you’re Tarquin’s gran.

I’ve said before that while we’re fortunate in having a seasonal advantage over the Northern hemisphere with regards to the timing of the pandemic, we still really need to be mindful about what’s going on. This isn’t over – no matter how it sometimes feels – but we do still have the option to limit the spread of any second wave. It only requires people to just think before they act and to not put themselves in high risk situations.

But therein clearly lies the problem.

 

 

* although weirdly, BA59 still arrives from Heathrow every morning at 10 past 10…

Day 196 – A new challenger approaches

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Wandering through that Manx group this morning on Facebook and suddenly was stopped by this:

Technically, this doesn’t count as an RBOSS, because it’s Douglas Bay, not Ramsey Bay.
So this is a DBOSS.

It’s not quite on par with the master’s work, but we’re very much heading that way. And it’s worth noting that there’s no suggestion of that “this is just how it came out of the camera/mobile phone” BS. This is merely overdone and unpleasant, not overdone, unpleasant and untruthful.

But I have to ask – what is it about the East Coast of the Isle of Man that brings the Saturation Slider insanity out in people?

Really. No need.

Day 193 – Never go Full Sharples

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We’ve been here before.

My camera doesn’t work the same as Ian Sharples’ camera. My camera produces reasonable, lifelike images, not like the spectacular stuff that “comes straight out of the camera” Chez Sharples.

Stuff like this:

or this:

or this:

Sweet Jesus.

Well, it must be a very special camera. Or a very broken camera. Because sunrises over Ramsey don’t look like this. They often look very nice and very pretty, but they don’t look apocalyptic. I know this because I have friends whose homes overlook Ramsey Bay and who take photos of the sunrises because they look nice and pretty (the sunrises, not necessarily the friends) (shall we park this one right here and move on with the rest of this post?) (yes, we shall).

Their photos don’t look like these ones.

And so we can deduce that the images above are the result of one of three situations:

1. A massive nuclear explosion over England, which lies to the east of the Isle of Man.
2. A massive saturation explosion performed on Ian Sharples’ computer, or
3. A completely unique camera which our protagonist possesses which produces blindingly oversaturated images like these.

The continued existence of England tells us that it’s not number 1. All sense, logic and reason tells us that it’s number 2. But Ian tells us that it’s number 3. So why – apart from the fact that all sense, logic and reason tells us that it’s number 2 – wouldn’t we believe him?

Well, it’s just that he also occasionally takes photos of other things which aren’t blindingly oversaturated. Admittedly, not sunrises, but why would his camera not blindingly oversaturate everything, not just the Ramsey Bay sunrise images he posts for likes on Facebook?

It’s just weird.

My camera doesn’t work the same as Ian Sharples’ camera. My camera produces reasonable, lifelike images. If I want to make images of sunrises or whatever else that look like Ian Sharples’ sunrise images, I have to use software and drag several (or more) of sliders all the way to the right*.

This takes time, so I have created and saved a preset called Half Sharples:

You’ll see that I have a couple of other presets there too: Astro fix, which helps me with images like this one; Project Orange Bright Light fix which assists with photographs taken in and around orchards in the midday Mpumalanga sunshine, and Full Sharples, which I’ve never dared use.

I’m not sure my computer could take it.

There’s simply a limit to the processing power of my laptop. Just as there is a limit to the cerise pixel quotient on my fancy screen. And then there are my eyes. I only have two and they’ve got to last me all my life. Basically, the expense of replacing your motherboard, GPU and monitor, and the medical costs of mending your retinae is simply not worth the risk.
Even if you do want a few more likes on social media.

Save yourself.

Just say no.

Not even once.

Never go Full Sharples.

 

 

* just like he does

Day 188 – Football is ruined

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Football. It’s ruined.

For me, at least. It could be that other people are still enjoying football, but if they enjoyed football a few years ago, I simply can’t see why they would still be enjoying football now.

Because it’s ruined.

Not all the reasons behind this ruination are football’s fault, but equally, some of them certainly are, and football would do well do look at the stuff it can control and then control it better. Especially since the causes of football’s ruination are cumulative and so removing some of those causes would make things a bit better.

Let’s run through a few of the things which have ruined football. And while doing so, let’s also remember that this is a sport that I – like many others – have loved for several (or more) decades. It pains me to see it this way and it pains me to write this post. (I’m quite sure it pains you to read it too, but that’s nothing to do with football.)

The crowds are gone. And football without crowds is crap. Whether it’s 33,000 at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane or 120 up at Sandygate, it’s amazing the difference that having supporters at games makes. The novelty (if there ever was any) of hearing the players and managers shouting expletives at one another has well and truly worn off. And the fake FIFA20 noises were briefly amusing but are now very annoying. And haven’t improved in their accuracy.

This one isn’t changing any time soon. March 2021 before they even risk trying again, I’m told.

The commentators‘ desperate efforts to keep the audience engaged in games which are very dull because the standard is poor or because it’s 5-0 with 2 minutes remaining are becoming ever more irritating. Yes, they need us to hang around so that we can boost the figures for viewing their adverts, but phrases like “there’s still time for a miracle comeback” should only really be used on Easter Saturday outside a cave in Jerusalem, and are plainly completely inaccurate when Fulham need to score 4 goals in 25 seconds to scrape a draw.
Or 4 goals in any length of time, to be honest.

And the co-commentators are getting worse as well. Thankfully, it seems that David Pleat is only dug up from his vault and briefly semi-reanimated when everyone else is busy or infected these days, but hey, step forward Jim Beglin stating the bleeding obvious with gems like:

Yeah, well Arsenal will be hoping to keep a clean sheet this evening.

and (on Arsenal’s goalkeeper):

Yeah, well I think he’ll be glad he was in that position because it came straight at him.

No shit, Sherlock. Thanks, Einstein.
I’m so glad that they’re paying you the big bucks for insight like that. Honestly, I would pay almost as much never to hear your irritating, talent-free, Irish/Scouse voice polluting the air in my living room ever again, you lousy, utterly clueless goon.

And I’m clearly not alone. Because how many other co-commentators have their own Facebook group like this?

No. I didn’t set that up. It’s real.

Then there are the changes to the handball rule. Utterly ridiculous. I don’t want to get technical here (and so I won’t), but the rules are crap and they’re being applied poorly.

Even  with helpful synopses like this:

and this:

… it just all seems like randomised, inconsistent guesswork from the referees.

And while we’re on the subject of refereeing, even those who hate VAR have (to some degree, at least) welcomed the new guidelines instructing referees to use pitchside monitors during games this season. It’s just that they don’t seem to be using them very much, or very consistently. It’s massively frustrating, especially when everyone except them can see that they’ve got a big decision wrong and the technology is there to put it right and… isn’t used.

There could be a lighter, happier side to try to balance out all these ills, but as discussed earlier, that’s not there right now either. And yes, of course that just makes the whole thing even more miserable.

It all adds up and now it’s got to the point where my FOMO at not watching games has been easily overcome with my desire to just go to bed. I haven’t watched a single minute of this last weekend’s Premier League football and I haven’t missed it at all.

Big wow? Yes, big wow.

You need to understand just how scary that is for a guy that will watch literally every minute of every live game he can, no matter how arbitrary or pointless those matches may seem to be.

There is a hole in my life where football-based enjoyment used to be and it’s making me very sad.

Football is ruined and needs to be unruined as soon as possible. Will someone please sort it out?