Category: economic issues

New Wine Tour

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Now this looks like a good plan.

During the Christmas break, we took the kids (and ourselves) on the Cape  Town Sightseeing bus. We did the Waterfront, the CBD, Table Mountain and Camps Bay, before taking two exhausted, happy kids home. For some weird personal reasons, maybe you don’t believe me, so here are some photos and a blog post to prove it. See? Your issues, not mine. Get some help.

Anyway, incoming PR from Cape Town Sightseeing tells me that they have now added a couple of wine farms onto their Peninsular “Blue Tour”. Nice idea, peeps.

Claus Tworeck, the CEO of City Sightseeing, explains that the new Wine Tour has been launched as an added free value extension to the existing Blue Mini Peninsula Tour, and offers visitors and locals alike the chance to experience a true Cape outing.

“The Cape is synonymous with its wines and Groot Constantia, which has been in existence since 1685, not only offers visitors the chance to taste and purchase top quality wines but to also experience the grandeur and history of this beautiful estate and its surrounds!”

The list of things to do at Groot Constantia is impressive and, amongst other things, includes a fascinating tour of the historical Cape Dutch manor house, a cellar tour and wine tasting, the unique vineyard walk, the option to eat lunch at the restaurants or order a pre-packed picnic. Alternatively, bring your own.

“This is a wonderful day out for the entire family, and the estate is extremely child friendly. Kids can run around under the oak trees, visit the ducks in the pond and generally have a great time whilst their parents enjoy some wine tasting and a meal.”

And Claus is right. I think that the Constantia Wine Route is one of the most underrated attractions in Cape Town and if this helps it gain a little ground in the competition against its (admittedly also lovely) counterparts in Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek, then I’m all for it.

Add that to the other attractions on the blue tour: Kirstenbosch, Hout Bay and Camps Bay and you’ve got yourself a big day out. With wine. What’s not to like?

The “hop-on, hop-off” buses for the wine tour depart from the Waterfront stop (at the 2 Oceans Aquarium) every 35 minutes from 9am. Tickets are R120 for a day tour or and extraordinary R200 for two days consecutive tours – and if you book online, you will save R10 and R20 on the prices respectively.

Remember: Stuff found in the 6000 recommends category comes personally recommended. I don’t recommend stuff that I haven’t personally used and enjoyed, no matter how much cash people offer me to do so.

No boom boom

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After the recent events in Japan – most notably the er… “issues” at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility following the earthquake – the public in Cape Town and surrounds has been warned not to panic if they see steam apparently leaking from the Koeberg Power Station just up the road from the city.

The public are advised not to be alarmed at steam issuing from the Koeberg nuclear power station during the next few days.

“Given the events in Japan, we want to assure the public that perfectly clean steam will issue from next to the reactor during the routine shutdown,” spokesman Tony Stott says.

He says that this was part of the cool down process of unit two, which began on Monday at 1.30am.
The unit will take two to three days to cool down enough for it to be opened for workers to begin the refuelling, maintenance and inspections.

Stott went on to say that the shutdown would last around 55 days, during which Unit One would continue to operate at full power.

Let’s hope that this operation goes off (poor choice of expression, sorry) better than the tests Eskom ran at the Duvha Power Station (not nuclear), where a turbo generator apparently malfunctioned during an overspeed test, exploded and caught fire in our own little homage to Fukushima. You only have to look at the photos to see that this was a very big bang. Eina.

This has effectively shut down (probably permanently) the 600MW facility at Duvha and with one of Koeberg’s 900MW reactors out of commission for a couple of months, there’s going to be a lot more pressure on a grid which was under a lot of pressure anyway.

So it looks like we must save electricity or once again face load-shedding.
Please help and do your bit, because no-one likes being loadshod.

What’s the point of…?

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It struck me over the weekend that there are two questions I need answering.

1. What is the point of Somerset West?

Yes, what is the point of Somerset West, exactly?
Most Capetonians will know Somerset West as the place that ruins your weekend getaway plans by delaying you so much on Friday night that you arrive in your Overberg or Garden Route destination later than you wanted to be, tireder than you wanted to be and a whole lot more pissed off than you wanted to be. You curse the name of the wretched place and it gets back at you by making your return journey even more hellish, by allowing you to see the delays that face you all the way down Sir Lowry’s Pass.
And even with the multi-million Rand upgrade of the N2 passing through the place, they haven’t managed to make things much better, since there’s still about 500m of ridiculous single lane traffic on the way into the town.
And an extra set of traffic lights.

Hello? McFly????

It’s not in Cape  Town, it’s not in Stellenbosch, it’s not really a town but it’s also not really in the countryside. It’s not even by the sea.
It seems to me that the only thing that this ugly combination of dual carriageway and several sets of traffic lights is good for is to act as some sort of premature rumble strip, slowing the traffic down before it hits Cape Town. It’s marketed as being “The Gateway to the Overberg”, but why do we need a gateway to the Overberg? Why can’t we just drive to the Overberg, gateway-free? What they forget to inform you about “The Gateway to the Overberg” is that there’s only one car allowed through it at a time. And like the fat Afrikaners lining up at the automatic doors at Canal Walk, that’s going to slow your journey down considerably.

It’s screaming out for a bypass, but I’ve got a better idea. Why not save the dangerously high costs of building an expensive road by simply knocking the whole place down?

I suspect that only the inmates unfortunate enough to live in the damned place would have any objection at all to that.

2. What is the point of Infecting the City?

I’ve never really got over being asked “Is money spent on arts a waste?” by an interviewer at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. While my immediate reaction was to scream out “Yes, of course it bloody is!”, I felt that she was probing for a deeper, more considered answer than that, but probably with the same conclusion. As it was, I fudged it and still got offered a place on their General Microbiology course, which I immediately declined as it was being taught in Wolverhampton.

But I digress. Often.

Infecting the City is the “new” “name” for the Spier Public Arts Festival, which is now based in Cape Town. As their website tells us:

Infecting the City 2011 emerges from the bricks, flagstones and pavements of the City to challenge Cape Town’s idea of art, itself and its streets.

and it does this, according to a Cape Times story today, by spectators being treated to performances and artwork free of charge:

City “treasures”, including King Edward’s statue on the Grand Parade, were covered in clingwrap and trees on the station forecourt were draped in toilet paper.

Now, call me a philistine if you will, but I think that on any other day of the year and in any other context, that’s called “littering”.

And yet, somehow, they have attracted some fairly big names to support this nonsense, including Cape Town Tourism (partially funded by the City of Cape Town), the CCID (supported by the City of Cape Town) and er… the City of Cape Town.
Yes, folks – those loo rolls in the branches are paid for with the help of your taxes. Oh joy.

The “Is money spent on arts a waste?” question rears its ugly head once again with rather greater vehemence here. To fund clingwraped statues and loo rolls in trees when there are so many other issues facing this city seems, to me, a little misguided.
Even the corporate sponsors could surely find something more worthwhile to spend their CSR budgets on. Why not help build some houses, or, if you’re already doing that, why not help build some more?
Don’t fund 500m of cling wrap for some weirdo from beyond the Lentil Curtain to wrap up a statue. Maybe to wrap up sandwiches for hungry schoolkids, but not a statue. That doesn’t help anyone.

And yes, I recognise that anyone involved with the organisation of Infecting the City will probably defend it by telling me that I am being “challenged” by the concepts and that by raising this issue on here, I am participating in the festival and if that’s how they want to feel, that’s just fine, cos comment is free.

At least I’m not wasting public money chucking bog rolls into trees.
Seriously, WTF?

Footnote: Don’t even get me started on the Design Indaba… Eish!

Read this and help (if you can)

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Be warned: If you are a parent – especially one with young children – you are about to spend some money.

I was alerted to this via twitter this morning. I think you should read it and (if you can) help out.

My phone rings. It’s J. She needs to talk, she says. We met on Saturday, she’d come along to the Young Moms group with her friend who’d been before. They live together in Ocean View.

I ask if she’s okay, but she’s not. She doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it. She’s embarrassed, ashamed, asking a stranger for help.

“We don’t have food, Tracy. We’ve got nothing.”

She’s waiting for her grant but it hasn’t come through yet, because she moved and had to reapply. Is it just a sob story? How can I really tell? I can’t.

Can you help us?

And there you go, that’s the question. Can I help her? I don’t have cash lying about, every cent of my salary has a home to go to, and by the 14th of the month, I’m starting to look forward to payday again.
Then I remember the chocolate I had yesterday. The fancy cheese I didn’t need. The expensive school fees and the safe roof over my children’s heads – not my very own roof, sure, but a warm home and family nevertheless . The iPad I was lusting over, even though I know I’d never afford one, it’s still on my radar.

I have everything I need, and some things I don’t. There are many things I want and don’t have. But we’re safe, well-fed and healthy.

Tracy is Tracy Engelbrecht and details of the Young Moms Support group are here.

You can argue all you like over who is responsible for a 2 year old child going to bed hungry. Is it the Government, is it the parents, is it the system or is it society?
But while you’re arguing, that 2 year old child is still going to bed hungry. And that’s not right.

People like Tracy are going out there and making a difference and for that they deserve our admiration and our support.

You can donate here (Paypal in US$ – which make an even bigger difference at the moment) or contact Tracy at tracy@tracyengelbrecht.com.

Please spread this post as far and as wide as you can: facebook, twitter, email, skinner over coffee – whatever. Even passing it on may make a difference.
The more people that can help, the more help these Moms get.

Cape Town e-Toll Calculator

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As Gautengers gear up for hefty tolls on their new state of the art car parks roads, those lovely people at ensightnetworks have launched a handy e-Toll calculator so that you can see just how much extra it’s going to cost the Vaalies to sit in queues all day get from one place to another.

Obviously, this e-Tolling is going to have a big effect when it is introduced later in the year and so I felt it was only right that Capetonians should also be aware of how much it will cost them to live and drive around the Mother City as well.
I can like to assist with your financial planning for 2011.

We do actually have a toll road in Cape Town – the vastly over-rated and often closed Chapman’s Peak Drive – but since it’s tucked neatly away behind the Lentil Curtain, I’ve chosen to ignore it. Otherwise, your journey from A to B – and quite possibly to C as well – will cost you nothing. But if that’s not quite clear enough, I’ve done some rudimentary calculations and come up with this quick table to assist you:

From: Anywhere in Cape Town
To: Anywhere else in Cape Town
Cost: R0

However, there may be some supplementary costs for Cape Town drivers:

Views of the Mountain from roads: R0
Use of roads that go to beaches: R0
Use of roads that don't go past mine dumps: R0
Opportunity for Dukes of Hazzard jump from unfinished freeway in town: R0

But it looks like there aren’t.

All of which begs the question: Why on earth do people continue to live in Jo’burg?