Category: economic issues

Weren’t we lucky in 2010?

Posted on

Can you remember all that time ago, back to those Halcyon days of Portugal v North Korea, France v Paraguay and no load-shedding? June 11th to July 11th 2010 was one of the finest months South Africa has ever had. No crime, seamless organisation and an amazing advert for the country in front of a worldwide audience.

It could all have been so different. Imagine, if you dare, that final at Soccer City. Howard Webb with his whistle, Nigel de Jong with his studs up and Andreas Iniesta going on another mazy dribble to absolutely nowhere, before falling over theatrically. The eyes of the world watching, enthralled…

And then the power goes out.

It’s a disaster. The country is a laughing stock and… and… well, look, it’s just a disaster, isn’t it?

But it didn’t happen. Despite the fact that we’ve long had power woes – 2008 in particular stands out as being load-shedtastic – we made it through that month with not even a flickering hint of a blackout. How?

Well, the answer comes – some 3½ years later – from a one Nelson Thabo Modupe, of Lichtenburg, who now tells us that:

he prevented power cuts during the 2010 Soccer World Cup through his prayers

You almost want his third name to be Jacob, don’t you? Just as long as his fourth one isn’t Julius.
Anyway, I digress. Often.

The fact is that Nelson saved the country from ridicule and deserves some sort of reward. He’s attempting to claim that now in the shape of a R250,000,000 (that’s about $6.09 at current exchange rates) payout from Eskom:

because he saved the power utility the burden and humiliation of load shedding

And, given the global audience and the hugely damaging effects of a power outage in any of the 64 World Cup games would have had, I think he probably deserves it. Cough up out of your phat R12.24 billion profit for the six months to September 2013, please Eskom. Give the man his money.

But before Nelson disappears off back to the North West province to buy heaps of precious metals with his newly-gained moola, just let’s hold on a bit.

Because with great power (and let’s face it, getting God to help Eskom out of tight spot is great power), comes great responsibility. And that’s where I think Nelson has let us all down.

How could we forget the infamous fake sign language interpreter at the Nelson Mandela Memorial service held at…wow… Soccer City, just last month? Yes, with (potentially even more of the) world’s eyes on us again, on the big stage – the biggest stage – we were internationally embarrassed. What an absolute shambles it was, start to finish. There were pieces in Time magazine, Sky News, the BBC and, Oh Sweet Jesus, even the Daily Mail – LIKE THEY NEED ANY MORE AMMUNITION?!?!?!?!???1!!

Nelson. Oh, Nelson (no, not that one, this one)… You could have prayed and you could have prevented this burden and humiliation of the fake sign language interpreter. You had the power to do this, Nelson, and yet you chose not to? Why would you expose us all to this ridicule, Nelson?

You have let the country down, and we deserve and demand compensation. Perhaps unsurprisingly for the purposes of this blog post, I feel that about R250,000,000 should see us suitably placated.

And now we know what you are capable of – and we freely admit that the whole Eskom thing was a truly remarkable effort, Nelson – I’ll give you until the end of February to have a word upstairs and get rid of that terrible Zuma bloke. Otherwise, I expect to see your cheque book out again.

I hope we’re clear on things now, Nelson.

Where did all the good guys go?

Posted on

Short on time, but felt that this deserved (at least) some passing comment. It’s sportingintelligence.com’s Big 5 player producer analysis. By Big 5, they mean teams in top-flight clubs in Spain’s La Liga, England’s Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, Germany’s Bundesliga 1 and France’s Ligue 1 and by “producer”, they mean “spent 3 or more seasons developing players when aged between 15 and 21”.

It makes very interesting reading, especially the English table, which has Sheffield United at 14th place, ahead of 8 Premier League teams.

engpro1

(you’d be a fool to overlook the mighty Skelmersdale United in joint 40th as well)

It’s a good indication of the draw of the Premier League and the issues that plague smaller clubs. While the talent flows ever upwards, in search of money, fame, fortune and glory, there’s scant compensation for the little guys who have spent time and money developing the the players in question. Sheffield United’s academy regularly provides 3 of the back 4 for England’s national team, but we’re still strapped for cash and disappointingly languishing at the wrong end of League 1.

I can only hope that we rise again to our natural haunt in the Premier League and become one of those clubs which pillage the talent of the lower league clubs, as soon as possible.

Panic on the streets of Cape Town

Posted on

Dublin, Dundee, Humberside.

Not really, obviously. That’s just a borrowed line from a song by The Smiths. I actually have no idea over the prevailing mindset of the residents of those latter three areas. But I do know that there is some concern mounting over a possible protest march in the CBD this coming Friday.
The reasons for this concern are twofold:

Firstly, the alleged protest is allegedly organised by the same guys that allegedly organised the last protest march in the CBD, at the end of October. That allegedly resulted in widespread criminal damage and looting of shops and informal traders in the centre of town and was only dispersed by the onset of a sudden rain shower, which apparently made the protesters realise that their grievances weren’t actually that grievous at all and they’d all rather head off to somewhere drier.

Secondly, the idea that the alleged march could turn nasty has been seized upon by doom-merchants and fearmongers in an effort to merch doom and monger fear. A digital pamphlet is being passed around on Facebook and by email, warning of “major traffic chaos” and “possible associated protests on the N2”, in much the same way as urban myths are shared by the same means. This plays right into the protesters’ hands, given that their only real objective is to disrupt normal life and get some publicity.

After the October 30th march, infamous alleged poo-flinger Andile Lili warned that there would be 250,000 at their next effort. Given that there were between 3,500 and 6,000 protesters on October 30th, this is either extremely optimistic on his part, or frankly rather worrying. Actually, perhaps it’s both.
Then add to that the fact that the alleged march has not been given permission to take place, given the problems of the previous one, and you have an interesting situation with Lili et al talking it up and the City not even acknowledging that anything might happen. At least, not publicly.

So who knows? To continue the tenuous musical links at the beginning of this post, it could be Del Amitri’s Nothing Ever Happens or it might all go a bit Kaizer Chiefs’ I Predict A Riot. 

You might argue that the protesters have already won, given the amount of concern and the number of changed plans that their alleged action has generated. But given the amount of damage that was caused last time out and the likely increase in numbers this time around, maybe they have their sights set on something a bit more spectacular than just making Cape Town’s Friday a bit difficult.

I’ll be watching from a distance. But will you be avoiding the CBD on Friday or will you run down, to the safety of the town?

Jerm’s Zuma the Gaul cartoon is very clever

Posted on

Here’s Jerm’s cartoon for today, on the subject of our esteemed leader and his taxpayer funded security complex:

jerm-asterix-zuma-nkandla

Nicely done, and plenty of food for thought in the comparisons between the current situation in Nkandla and the last of the Gauls hanging on against all the odds in the face of  the overwhelming might of the Roman Empire.

I wonder what Zuma’s Getafix (Mac Maharaj?) has been giving him to make him think that he’s going to get away with this? (Although much like Asterix and crew, I have a sneaky feeling that he actually is going to get away with this.)

Welsh Wind Turbine Fails To Impress

Posted on

This just in from the BBC News website:

A wind turbine that cost the Welsh government £48,000 to buy has been generating an average of just £5 worth of electricity per month.
The turbine has been at its Aberystwyth office since it was built in 2009. It was one of several features that contributed to the building being rated “excellent” in an independent assessment of its sustainability.

At today’s exchange rate [weeps as he looks it up], that’s R82.48 worth of electricity each month from a wind that cost R791,762.21 to buy and install.

Oops.

But amazingly, the Welsh Government have defended the turbine’s performance, indicating that a mechanical error meant that it was only operating at 26% of its capacity:

Some improvements have been made and as of January this year it has been operating at 68%. But if it continues to operate at 68% capacity then it will generate 55.25 kWh per month – electricity with a value of £8.84.

Oh, well that’s SO MUCH better.

At that rate it would take around 452 years to offset the cost of buying and installing the turbine.

Magnificent value for money.

Apparently, the true issue lies in the siting of the turbine, away from clean air flows and… well… wind. And apparently, the Welsh Government were warned of this before the turbine was installed. But they went ahead anyway, probably on the grounds that:

1. It looks trendy.
2. It got their building a better green rating, and
3. It wasn’t their money that they were spending.

Mxm.

UPDATE: Maybe it got up to a tenner given the weekend’s weather:

A clean-up operation is under way after huge waves damaged Aberystwyth seafront and dumped shingle on the promenade during the weekend’s storms.
Local photographer Keith Morris said the scene resembled a war zone on Sunday morning with some seafront businesses hit by flooding.

Wales battled winds of 89mph (143kph) at the storm’s height on Saturday.
Gusts brought down trees and power lines leaving 10,000 properties across south and west Wales without power.

“I have not seen a storm as big as that for decades in Aberystwyth,” said Mr Morris. “There were big granite blocks lifted feet into the air. It did look a bit like a war zone on Sunday morning.”

(If it’s still standing, that is.)