Stop thinking

…and a good deal on Flickr.

Spotted online, this cartoon:

And with all the existential dread going around, the crow’s reaction is completely understandable.

Less thinking, people.

On a more positive note, I decided to cancel my Flickr subscription today. It’s expensive and so I either had to use it more or I have to move on, and I haven’t been using it more, so…

I’ve still got a few months left on my existing subscription, but when I told them I was going to cancel, they offered me 65% off my renewal. I’ve taken the offer, but if I don’t start using the service more between now and then, I might cancel anyway.

I’ll think about it.

Bits and Pieces

It’s Curry Club this evening, so I’ll likely be enjoying a Jal Frezi rather than blogging in front of the fire. In the meantime, please enjoy some (or more) of these snippets which don’t quite deserve a blog post of their own, but equally don’t deserve to be completely ignored, either.

The last phone boxes
5 million phone calls are made each year from the UK’s remaining 20,000 phone boxes. I think that both those numbers seem ridiculously high. This is a lovely long read about phone boxes and their place in an ever-changing society.

Hike
The Boy Wonder is hiking the Lion’s Head tonight, with the promise of hot chocolate on the summit. It’s actually getting ridiculous how many Bootlegger coffee shops there are in Cape Town now. (Substitute Costa in the UK or your local ubiquitous high street coffee outlet in to make this “joke” work for your country.)

Ironically, there is usually a Vida e Cafe truck parked at the gate to the Lion’s Head hiking trail.

UCL Draw
Once again, Sheffield United have missed out on a place in the group stages. I might still pop over to the UEFA Youtube page to watch the draw for the 2022/23 competition live this evening though. 5pm BST = 6pm CAT.

With no apologies to Elvis
…John Cooper Clarke’s (You Ain’t Nothing But A) Hedgehog

“You ain’t nothing but a hedgehog
Foragin’ all the time
You ain’t nothing but a hedgehog
Foragin’ all the time
You ain’t never pricked a predator
You ain’t no Porcupine”

“Hedgehogs! Leave some hedge for everyone else!”

And…
August is nearly over. So, in a mall near you:

It’s a very seasonal thing:

And, as you can see from this graph of interest in that song on Google, the interest in that song is very much waning. This is great news, but it’s also worth noting that even if people aren’t quite as bothered as they used to be, history shows that we are likely to see the annual uptick beginning in the next few weeks.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Baby Lemon Dove

A second quota photo for this weekend, taken last month at Kirstenbosch. A fledgling Lemon Dove (Columba larvata), working on the assumption that it becomes completely invisible if it doesn’t move.

You can see an equally visible brother or sister in the background.

We went back a couple of weeks later, and I’m pleased to report that both the chicks were doing really well, despite their terrible ideas about what constitutes good camouflage.

Day 719 – This guy, tho…

Happy Birthday To You…! 😉

A wander around Kirstenbosch, a wander around Intaka, and then a brief wander along the beach today. And that was all before lunchtime.

I needed the cobwebs blowing away after last night, to be honest.

Pick of the pops from the shots today was this guy:

The bird hide at Intaka was full of real ‘toggers, so we ended up standing on the bridge, and then this little fellow decided to play just a few metres away, right in front of us: ironically, we were far closer than any of the guys in the hide.
So a total bread and butter shot, but very pretty and always a pleasure to see these little ones playing up for the cameras.

Today’s photos

Day 678 – AGM tonight

I have an AGM to attend tonight, and I’ve had a frustrating day in the weird (but welcome) Cape Town drizzle. The AGM is online, but still requires my time, and dinner isn’t going to cook itself (because we’re ordering burgers).

So… quota photo time.

This one is another from the top of the mountain. I was trying to sleep when some of the others came back from an (alleged) trempette maigre and told me to get out of bed, find my camera (and tripod) and shoot the moon. I clearly wasn’t going to find any peace and quiet until it was done, so I just got it over with, thus:

Go look at it here too.

You have to wonder who designed and built the monstrosity of a second house next to the original Victorian cottage, but in its defence, it’s got amazing views over Cape Town from the deck, and it makes for an OK silhouette on moonrise photos.