Category: economic issues

Playing with fire

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Fox hunting, hare coursing, seal culling and bull fighting. A range of trendily unpopular pastimes which I actually don’t have a huge problem with. And before you stop reading in simulated and dramatic disgust, if you eat meat, if you wear leather – in fact, unless you’re a total  and absolute vegan – then you’re being hypocritical in wanting any bloodsport banned. Animals live, animals die.
I’m not saying that watching a greyhound taking down a hare is particularly pleasant to see. It certainly doesn’t ring my bell.
But if you find that equally unappealing, then you shouldn’t enjoy your bacon sandwich just because the chop chop squeal squeal goes on behind closed doors.

And just occasionally, nature gets one back – it might just be the bovine equivalent of a 90th minute goal when you’re already 5-0 down – but it’s still one back.

That same hypocrisy is running through the ranks of the greenies who are aghast at the extent of the damage caused by the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Again, an environmental disaster is not something I want to see – who does? – but unless those whining greenies are 100% self-sufficient, then they rely in some way on oil. So while their complaints that BP should (could?) have done more to prevent this from happening may be justified to some extent, their insistence that we should boycott BP because of the Deepwater Horizon incident is frankly laughable.

This could have happened to any oil company, anywhere in the world, at any time. Any company producing oil for everyone on the planet.
While watching Sky News earlier, the irony of the video taken from the Greenpeace plane flying over “Ground Zero” as they called it, wasn’t lost on me. While the commentary lamented (in a hugely annoying voice) that big business was ruining our oceans with its constant thirst for oil, I was left wondering if the plane they were in was powered by. Fresh air? Fairy dust? Or some fraction of the crude oil that was spilling out of the seabed below them? I wonder.

You’ve used more aircraft fuel than I have this year, Greenpeace, so stop trying to lecture me on the moral rights and wrongs of my drive to work. Bugger off.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
And those greenies are full of shit.

“Flying down stock from Jo’burg”

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One of the most annoying things that has been particularly annoying me lately, aside from all the other annoying things that have been annoying me (and there have been a few) is the whole “we’re flying down some stock from Jo’burg” thing.
I’ve come up against this wall a couple of times in the last fortnight – namely with my cellphone (thanks for absolutely nothing again, MTN) and with a new PCB for my burglar alarm. Neither item is available in Cape Town, but it won’t be a problem because they’re “flying down some stock from Jo’burg”.

Right.

I have a couple of issues with this. Firstly, why isn’t there any stock in Cape Town already?
If I were living in Uitenhage or Umtentweni, I could understand it. There’s not going to be a huge call for cellphones or burglar alarm PCBs there, because to have demand, you need people and there are no people in Uitenhage or Umtentweni. That’s how they roll. Emptily.
Cape Town, however, is a bustling metropolis of over 3 million residents. It’s therefore statistically more likely that there will be more of a demand for… well… everything, really. And cellphones and burglar alarm PCBs fall neatly into that “everything” category.
Why then, is there no stock here?

The second issue I take exception to is the location of this “Jo’burg” place. At first, I thought it was just short for Johannesburg, the much… er… “misunderstood” city up in Gauteng. But it has rapidly become evident to me that this is not the case. If this were the case, then “flying down some stock from Jo’burg” would take about 2 hours, because a flight from Jo’burg to Cape Town takes about that long. Be reasonable and add organisation and transport at either end and you could knock it up to 24 hours. Remember that you’re in South Africa and add another 48 and you’re looking at a 72 hour turnaround.

Needless to say, this hasn’t actually been the case for the cellphone or the burglar alarm PCB, neither of which have yet arrived in Cape Town. This leads me to believe that the “Jo’burg” that they are “flying down some stock from” is actually not short for Johannesburg, the misunderstood city in Gauteng.
No, this alternative “Jo’burg” is a mythical place where little elves and goblins ride flying pink unicorns and Julius Malema is sane.
It’s a place where cellphones aren’t required because all you have to do is shout really accurately into huge yellow spoons and the sound magically echoes into your correspondent’s ear. They have no need for burglar alarm PCBs either, because alternative Jo’burg is the ulimate socialist society, where everyone shares everything with everybody else anyway and there’s more than enough fairy dust to go around.
The elves and goblins and unicorns spend their days lying in the sunshine, drinking vodka Martinis served by angry rabbits, nibbling on cocktail snacks and chatting about the latest tennis results – doing anything, in fact, except for sending my bloody stuff to Cape Town. And the chances are that when (if?) I ever see my new cellphone and burglar alarm PCB, they will be covered in glitter and unicorn spit (the combined acidity of which will obviously render them completely useless.)

I’ve been through all the usual stages. Anger, Denial, Despair, Anger, Depression, then some more Anger. I’ve shouted and cried and banged my head against both metaphorical and literal brick walls. I’m almost ready to give up and I need some of that magical Jo’burg fairy dust to keep me going.

One final question. This can’t just be a Cape Town thing, can it? There must be other places in SA which don’t have stock of stuff they really should have stock of and try (with varying degrees of success) to fob you off that they are “flying down some stock from Jo’burg”. And you buy it – at least initially.
But what of people in Jo’burg? Does Jo’burg have stock of everything? Always?
Because the old “we’re flying down some stock from Jo’burg” thing isn’t going to work on them, is it? So what’s the substitute line? 
It can’t be “we’re flying up some stock from Cape Town”, because we haven’t got any bloody stock in Cape Town.

That’s what started this whole bloody problem off, remember?

The other Icelandic export

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The spotlight this week has been firmly placed on Iceland. Iceland is of course, best known for giving the rest of the world two things: Volcanic ash & Björk. Its major import is money from investors across Europe, which it loses and doesn’t give back. With my psuedo-Viking heritage, it’s somewhere I have always wanted to visit. One day, I shall, and I will enjoy a meal or two of their other lesser known export: puffin.

Yes, these comical little seabirds are actually eaten over there. Living in South Africa, with its proud history of braai’ing anything and everything one can find, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about this.
And who can blame the locals for utilising anything as a food source when you look at the barren volcanic landscapes that surround them?
Needs must and all that.

Come now – it might look cute – OK, it does look cute – but it’s basically just a chicken with a funny beak. And you don’t have any issues with eating chicken, do you? So there’s no real difference between you visiting KFC or RFP (Reykjavik Fried Puffin), is there?

Of course, they don’t do anything quite so vulgar as rolling it in breadcrumbs and giving it to some gormless high school dropout to boil in dirty oil. No, there are traditional recipies that have been followed by the Icelandic people for many years:

4 puffins
50g smoked bacon
50g butter
300ml milk
300ml water
salt to taste

Puffins should be skinned or carefully plucked and singed. Remove the innards and discard. You can use the breasts alone, or cook the whole birds. Wash well in cold water and rub with salt, inside and out. If you are using whole birds, truss them. Draw strips of bacon through the breasts. Brown the birds on all sides, and stuff the birds tightly into a cooking pot. Heat the milk and water and pour over the puffins. Bring to the boil and cook on low for 1-2 hours (test the birds for softness). Turn the birds occasionally.

It sounds delicious – and it looks like this:

As flickr user wili_hybrid says:

We brought back ten smoked puffins from our trip to Iceland. My brother’s girlfriend Jenni combined some traditional puffin recipes and came up with a delicious variant where the puffins are boiled for hours in a mixture of milk, beer and bacon, and served with a variety of different jams and jellies. The meat was much more game-like than what I expected (the taste almost resembling that of a reindeer) as the puffins I’ve tried before have tasted rather fishy.

Sadly, there are no puffins in South Africa. However, they are fairly closely related to penguins and we have plenty of them – as my daughter happily points out.

I’m quite sure that I could slip one into a bag at Boulders and then into a pot at home…

Pick n Pay are redefining imperial measurements

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South Africa uses the metric system of measurement. There are two main reasons for this – firstly, to confuse British people, and secondly to make the village of Port Elizabeth seem just a little bit further away from Cape Town. Safety in numbers and all that.
But there are disadvantages as well: after all, who wants to read a blog called 9656.064 kilometres from civilisation…?
Catchy, it ain’t.

But is size really that important? Popular local supermarket, Pick n Pay, have decided to exploit the fact that no-one in SA knows about feet and inches by introducing their own new version of a footlong roll.

Footlong

One foot is 30.48cm in anyone else’s language, but Pick n Pay have reduced that by at least six and bit centimetres for their awesome 0.764435696 of a footlong rolls. However, given that the new nomenclature is about as catchy as that kilometre blog thing I mentioned earlier, I can see why they left it as “footlong”, even though it blatantly isn’t.

I’m guessing that it was a man that had that idea. I wonder if they do that with their sausages too?
(PicknPay, I mean. I know that men do.)

Google Ads Cat’s Eye Love

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Since my excitement over the wonderful new road-based traffic lights in Lower Buitengracht, my google ads (subtly placed all over the site for your clickthrough delectation) have been going crazy for all things cat’s eyes. The company that seems to have benefited most from this sudden new trend is NightSight LED products. It’s a niche market and I guess that these sort of ads are aimed more at technical websites in the construction sector. 
You know, the sort of people who should be blogging about cat’s eyes.
In the same way, the Korean marine safety products that google put all over the post on the Fishhoek shark attack were aimed at the shipping sector and not about a commentary on someone getting eaten in Fishhoek bay. (It’s worth pointing out that none of the Korean marine safety
products advertised would have helped the unfortunate swimmer, incidentally.)

NightSight have got some really odd stuff in their 2008 catalogue (which seems to be the most recent available).
For example, what is “fibreglass nosing”? 
They also have some awesome stuff: who in their right mind could resist the “Glow Mining  Helmet” or the concerningly-named “Solar Road Flares”? Not me – I’ve ordered several of each. 
This company is undoubtedly the first place you should visit before your next outing to a fancy dress party dressed as any sort of robot or individual with a shiny helmet. You’ll be the talk of the jol.

I’m going to start paying more attention to google ads from now on. Obviously, I’m not allowed to click through my own (nor can I suggest that you should either), but my new aim in life (apart from the obvious world domination thing) is to find the weirdest products advertised by google ads.

I would guess, from what I’ve seen so far,  that the competition will be quite stiff.