Breakdown

Listicle time. (Sorry). But those with children will surely recognise something from these (and here I quote):

34 Hilarious Photos Of Kids Losing It Over NOTHING

Indeed:

kid2

To be fair, I would have reacted in pretty much the same way.

kid3

Ataxia should not be mocked. This is sick.

kid1

Argh! The frustration!
And that wooden swan lamp would be enough to make most people throw a wobbly, anyway.

My best (worst?) experience of this was probably the occasion when my 3 year old son was crying because he didn’t know why he was crying. This vicious circle was only broken after about an hour (it felt like 8) when he ran out of energy and fell asleep. It was both very annoying and highly amusing at the same time, which I suspect is exactly why these parents took the photos above.

justboristhings

I love Boris.

Boris Johnson is the incumbent mayor of London and he’s a polarising figure. I think he’s great, and I’m not alone in that – he was recently revealed as (easily) Britain’s most popular politician, albeit that the competition wasn’t up to much, consisting, as it did, exclusively of British politicians.

Boris is undoubtedly a star attraction in British politics and the Conservative Party will be pleased to have him onside in 2015. A Tory that can win in London is a rare thing and what makes Boris so attractive within the Party.

Some of the stuff he does and some of the soundbites he comes out with make me cringe, others make me wish that Cape Town’s mayor, Patricia de Lille, had a bit more personality and a bit more gees about her. But her attitude is more to toe the party line. Boris’ attitude is not to give a flying toss about the party line. He’s a law unto himself, but if you believe that there’s nothing behind the apparent buffoonery of his outward image, I think you’re mistaken. You don’t get where Boris is by being a buffoon. Acting one, perhaps – being one, no.

Here’s his latest offering, regarding the recent defections from the Conservatives to UKIP:

Speaking to Conservative Party members, he suggested UKIP should throw its weight behind the Tories in order to defeat Labour and secure an in/out referendum on Britain’s EU membership in next year’s general election.

He told the rally: “The EU commission wants to ban vacuum cleaners on the grounds that they are too powerful. If you do not handle your vacuum cleaner correctly, you may end up inhaling the hamster – the budgerigar through the bars of the cage.
And I have read that there are some people – probably the type who are thinking of defecting to UKIP – who present themselves at A&E with barely credible injuries sustained through vacuum cleaner abuse.”

Yes. He’s basically saying that his political opponents have intimate relations with electric cleaning equipment.

Next. Level. Stuff.

Spectacular. It’s weirdly similar to (a classier version of) Julius Malema’s immaturity (and without the charges of racketeering and 52 other allegations, including fraud). Whether it will work any better than the EFF’s very vocal, but wholly ineffective shouty parliamentary behaviour remains to be seen.

Either way, I love Boris.

 

P.S. Incidentally, for the record, I don’t think you get where Julius Malema is without being fairly clever, either.

Up high

We’ve all had the feeling when you wake up in the morning and find – with disappointment – that your palms aren’t at all sweaty. It’s annoying and potentially upsetting and, but what many people don’t realise is that it’s easily cured by looking at just a few urban climbing photos.

These young people know no fear (although, interestingly, you never see an urban climber past the age of about 21, do you?) and they do the hard yards (upwards) so that your palms can sweat from the comfort of your own laptop.

Right – checked your palms? Let’s go:

high3

I don’t know if it’s because I have a rational brain, but I find that I can easily (and graphically) envisage what would happen if something were to go awry and this bloke was to slip from here. (And in this case, ‘here’ is the crane at the top of this). *dry heave*

But then, there’s some sort of nature thing at play here too, because even on the Boomslang yesterday, ‘only’ 12 metres high, I was worried about the kids. Not about me. Just them. And that’s got big railings up the sides of it. Not like some ledge on the side of a building 70-odd storeys up. Which begs the question, WHAT IN SWEET JESUS’ NAME IS THIS GUY THINKING??!?!?

high2

I can’t even grip my mouse anymore. Bring tissues! (careful now)

If this hasn’t butterflied your tummy enough and got those palms weeping, then there are plenty more where those came from, and that place was here.

Crime: sorted

Incoming: Great news from SAPS (The South African Police Service)!

After a weekend which will inevitably be filled with murder, rape, burglary and violence across South Africa, all will be sorted from 10am on Monday, when the police service hold their prayer day. Yippee!

According to the media release:

 The prayer will among other things focus on the following:

  • Safety for police officers
  • Reduction of crime in general
  • Reduction of gender-based violence

But will it work? Well, apparently, yes it will, because they tell us that:

A collective prayer has the power to protect and save police officers and preserve the nation. Police officials are responsible for protecting the community and our prayers can help save our police officials from harm.

It does make you wonder why, given the power that a collective prayer obviously possesses, no-one has come up with this idea before. Why waste time with community intervention, detective work and shooting miners when we could all come together, say a few words and kill all those birds with one stone, thus finding ourselves all leaving in a harmonious utopia?

Except, they have tried this before: last year:

The SAPS’s National Prayer Day is at the SAPS’s Tshwane Training Academy in Pretoria West from 10:00 to 12:30 on Tuesday, 13 August 2013. Employees of the South African Police Service are encouraged to attend this worthy event. It is through the divine intervention of the Almighty that we stay protected and reach our goal in the fight against crime.

Yep – the divine intervention of the Almighty will sort everything out, starting at 10am on the 13th August.
So, how did that work out for them, then? Well, here are a few lines from a synopsis of the crime stats released last week:

  • For the first time in 20 years the number of murders and the murder rate has increased for a second consecutive year.
  • This means that there were 809 more people murdered than in the previous year.
  • There has been an increase in all categories of robbery over the past year.
  • Vehicle hijacking increased by 12.3% to 11,221 incidents. This means that 31 motor vehicles were hijacked every day on average in 2013/14.

Oops. And, tragically:

Between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014 a total 68 police officers were killed in the line of duty.

So, one has to ask where this confidence in the power of the prayer “to protect and save police officers and preserve the nation” has come from?
Perhaps, like the big guy upstairs that their prayers are aimed at, it’s all just made up.

The media is cordially invited to attend the prayer service.

No thanks.