Thought for the day:
Is it true that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, or is it just one of Granny’s myths?
Category: that’s a bit mad
Nice guy
Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Commercialism gone mad, preying on the young lovers of the world, or the Feast Day of St Valentine who lived in the 3rd Century.
How about both?
Busy guy, too. Aside from his caring for the poor and weak during his brief time on the planet, he’s also got himself a number of sponsorship deals Patronages. in the afterlife. He does Terni – a somewhat nondescript city in Southern Umbria in Italy. And he does Lesvos – the Greek island famed for featuring a diverse, mountainous landscape with olive groves, medieval castles, and a rich, traditional culture, and offering a quieter, non-commercialized alternative to popular Greek destinations.
His other gigs? Well, happy marriages and affianced couples, obviously.
And then… Epilepsy, Beekeepers, Plague and “against fainting”.
I never knew that you could have a Patron Saint “against” a bad thing. And if you can – and you clearly can, because he is – then why not add (in this case, at least) “against” Epilepsy and “against” Plague to the list? Because this dichotomy does make it look like he’s actively supporting those two afflictions.
And while we’re at the whole “religion is a bit weird” thing, how is St Valentine depicted? What are his Attributes? As in – when you see an image of him, how can you identify that it’s him and not some other random 3rd Century clergyman/martyr?
The list starts off fairly routinely: Birds. Roses. A priest giving sight to a blind girl.
We move on to more specific things: A bishop with a crippled person or a child with epilepsy at his feet
Some modern day social media stuff: A priest holding a sun.
And then (perhaps somewhat predictably), it goes a bit nuts:
A bishop with a rooster nearby.
What sort of radius are we looking at here. Is it a small rooster, or is it far away?
A bishop refusing to adore an idol.
How do you even begin to depict that?
Is looking away really the same as “refusing to adore”?
Or does the audience have to do a lot of hard work connecting the dots?
A bishop being beheaded.
A priest bearing a sword.
I feel that we need to know if these two are connected. Is this some sort of Christian coup?
And if it is related to his actual martyrdom, well, they’ve missed a bit:
Valentine was arrested and dragged before the prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270.
Yeah. Probably not something you want to see at your local art gallery.
Ice Road news
Great news for anyone wanting to travel between the Estonian islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa, but who hasn’t been able to get a ferry because of all the sea ice in the… er… sea.
The authorities have opened a 17km ice road between the islands – specifically between Tärkma on Hiiumaa and Triigi on Saaremaa – over the frozen sea.
This is pretty cool (no pun intended), as it’s an official ice road, sanctioned by the government and maintained by a private contractor. You can even check on the current status of the ice road on this website.
The really good news about this official ice road is that it’s safe, simply because it’s sanctioned and maintained. But Estonians are a wild bunch, and so authorities have had to warn against individuals using several unofficial ice roads (no sanction, no maintenance; no Pirlo, no party).
That does come with some risks:
“The concern is really about this uncontrolled situation. The risk is high. Right now, one might think the danger is not great since the weather is so cold. Because right now the road is unclear and not everyone knows exactly where to go. You definitely have to monitor the road. There is just one spot where there’s a crack with water, but otherwise it’s totally passable.”
Oh, just the one spot where the freezing, dark, salty water of doom is creeping through?
That’s perfectly ok then.
The list of rules for the official ice road is long, involving weight limits, visibility constraints, distance between vehicles and banning overtaking. Also:
Seat belts must be unfastened, and vehicle doors should remain easily openable.
But why? Oh, wait.
Oh.
Right.
But it’s not like they haven’t thought this stuff through. How about this for a directive:
The recommended speed is up to 25 km/h or between 40–70 km/h (speeds between 25–40 km/h may generate a resonance wave that could damage the ice).
I wonder how they found that out?
I think that it’s unlikely that ice roads will ever be a thing here in SA. Mainly because of the weather, but then where would we go to anyway? Robben Island? That’s really about it for local offshore land around here. But it’s probably just as well, given our dodgy driving reputation.
Honestly though, this Estonian version sounds like something that you should experience at least once in your life. Or just do an unofficial one and make it the last thing you do in your life.
I could live here
It’s Denmark, which is the most boring of the Scandinavian countries I have been to (n=3), but still – look at this:
This bar will give you a free beer between 12 and 1pm.
There’s no catch, no obligation to buy another beer or any food or any other product. You just turn up and ask for your free beer, please. And then you can leave, although I’d advise you to drink the thing once you’ve ordered it, obviously.
The only T&C here is that you are only allowed one per customer per day, and that seems a bit tight perfectly reasonable.
As a loss leader for the bar, one presumes that it must work, otherwise they wouldn’t be running it. And – according to the guy who shared this – it’s not a limited promotion either. This has been going on since New Year already, and shows no sign of stopping.
I’ve seen beer offers before, but they’ve always come with the inevitable hidden catch. There isn’t one here. And for reference, a bar-bought 500ml Tuborg costs about 60DKK in Denmark, which is a terrifying R127, so this is a pretty sweet deal.
Sadly, the price of flights alone make this one a bit of a non-starter for us here in Cape Town, but if any of the local pubs are reading this and thinking that something along these lines might be worth a bit of a trial run… well… let me know and I’ll see you at noon tomorrow.
Upload
Great news: TLC have decided to upload the new series of Mock The Week onto YouTube.
You can find it here.
Not so great news: You need to be in the UK to watch it.
Of course, there are many ways of being in the UK when you’re not actually in the UK, and so that’s not too much of a problem.
And I’ll also be using some of those techniques to enjoy the Winter Olympics over the next couple of weeks, given that our national broadcaster can’t afford it and the local Sports TV service has decided not to buy any rights either.
But that’s reasonable, because it’s only the cold places and the big countries that pay for that sort of thing, right?
Well, if I lived in Curacao or Afghanistan, I could watch.
Micronesia, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau are all broadcasting them, as are Yemen and South Sudan.
Cold. Big. Nope.
In fact, it seems like SA is just about the only place on the planet that is not showing any Olympics.
And so local residents will have to rely on the Olympics YouTube channel (not great) or digitally fly to some other place (like Yemen) to watch.
Which is absolutely ridiculous in 2026.