Category: in the news

It’s happening again

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Four whole days before the start of the next football season, and we’ve just decided to sell one of our key players.

But that’s fine, because we have more than adequate back up and squad depth for that position.

Oh. Wait. No. No, we don’t.

OK, so maybe not at the moment, but there are still [checks notes] a whole four days before the season starts. We can surely find exactly the right player(s), get them signed, registered, trained up and adapted to our system in the next 72 hours, so that they’re ready to go on Saturday evening, right?

Well, probably not.

But at least we got a HUGE sum of money for him.

Considerably less, you say? Like what?

Oh, so like less than half what you originally told us, and now some of which we have to give to another team?

Great. Just great.

When we’ve sold players just before the start of a season before, things have gone hideously wrong.

Obviously, things could be much, much worse, but then that’s not a good bar to aim for.

Can we please not mess up this season before it’s even begun?

Sheeps on a train

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Not quite the excitement or peril of Samuel L Jackson wrestling with venomous reptiles at 35,000ft, but a worthwhile sequel nonetheless.

Thing is, it seems like there’s no specific rule that forbids you from taking a sheep on a train in Scotland. I found this out from this news article in which a man took a sheep on a train in Scotland, and the railway company said that it was fine for him to do that.

Mr Gibson said the lamb, whom he calls NJ, was the latest of many pet sheep he has cared for over the years.

What an odd relationsheep.

ScotRail’s policy on animals on onboard trains states domestic pets are welcome and that includes dogs, cats or tortoises.

Ewe must put them on a lead or in a cage, though.

He says he has been travelling by train with his pet lamb because he cannot drive due to suffering from blackouts.

And the sheep is too young to get its licence.

Honestly. I’ve herd everything now.

Barcelona closes two cruise ship terminals

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Obviously, they’ve been reading 6000 miles…, and have decided that action is required.

Ostensibly, this is – as you can see – a plan to fight the city’s overtourism problem. And we’ve heard a lot about the clashes between tourists and locals recently. Must be equally nice and awful to have that sort of problem. But I’m not sure that Barcelona needs the money quite as much as Cape Town does. So shutting down two of your seven!!!!! cruise terminals might be a viable option to cut tourist numbers to some degree.

But then look down at that last paragraph: green power supplied to cruise ships while they are berthed. And while that doesn’t remove the tourists (the two closing cruise terminals do that) or the visual distractions, it might at least reduce the amount of pollution that these ships add to the ports in which they are staying.

Perhaps, since Cape Town is seemingly (and reasonably) anxious to grow our local cruise ship business, we should be looking at providing a similar green energy policy and hook-ups for the cruise ships visiting the Mother City? We have wind, we have sunshine, and we could place something right down in the port area without the need for extensive infrastructure like power lines.
Given how much money the cruise ships bring into the city, surely some it invested in making them a greener way of accessing Cape Town – and protecting the health of the local population – would be no bad thing.

Preserving our heritage (or “Give peas a chance”)

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News from back home about a plan to save a Peas Sign.

Ghost signs are silent storytellers, etched into the very brickwork of our communities. These faded, hand-painted advertisements offer a nostalgic glimpse into bygone eras, snapshots of commerce, culture, and everyday life.
One striking example lives on the gable end of the Cocker and Carr building: the “Natural No. 1 Processed Peas” sign. Timeworn but enduring, it speaks volumes about the area’s local identity and trading history. Its survival is thanks to the resilient oil-based paints of the past, whose pigments have weathered decades of wind, rain, and urban change.

Wow. Quite the intro.
And yes indeed, there is an old sign advertising processed peas on the gable end of the building in question:

There used to be an advertising board on that gable end, and when it was taken down, the previous advert – for No.1 Processed Peas was revealed.

I’ve no idea how old it is, but we’re probably looking at some time in the early/middle bit of last century. Sadly, it seems that the manufacturers never considered just how vague their product name would be in an internet search. Frustrating.

And great news: the plan is now to find some means of safeguarding this piece of urban heritage, so that it remains as a reminder of the past – even if it is just an ad for some tinned peas.

Preserving it is more than just restoring a wall, it’s about protecting a piece of living heritage.

I couldn’t agree more. We’re far too quick to destroy and discard these sort of historical pieces. And while stuff like this might be a bit mundane, it’s also completely irreplaceable. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
It’s not doing any harm up there on the wall. It’s not offending anyone or getting in the way of anything, so why not preserve a bit of history?

(And while they’re at it, maybe tidy up the rest of the wall, too?)
(Just a thought.)

There’s actually a heritage building being restored very close to our home here in Cape Town, which I’m delighted about. It certainly beats having 8 soulless townhouses squeezed onto a tiny footprint like they’re doing everywhere else. And once it’s finished, it will be a real icon – alongside a wonderful family home – and will be preserved for generations to come.

My only issue is that saving heritage housing does apparently seem to be a rather noisy endeavour.

If they could do something about that, it would be nice.

How to listen to BBC 6Music (and all the other BBC radio stations) if you are outside the UK

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Hey, Music Lover! I wrote this back in July 2025. It’s now November 2025 and if you want to use the BBC Sounds app from overseas, pop over to this new UPDATED post to find out how.

The original post continues below:

We knew it was coming.

The BBC Sounds app has closed for me and the other people living outside the UK. I’m sure that you could slip in the back door via a VPN, but the BBC are (allegedly) rather good at spotting those things and not allowing them to work.

The signs of trouble were there this morning when I was in the gym, as the app glitched onto Radio 4 Xtra, and gave me a bit of Steptoe & Son while also still playing Hit by The Sugarcubes on 6Music:

Sample lyrics:

I’ve been hit, with your charm.
How could you do this to me?
You dirty old man!

But mixed messages aside, just a couple of hours later, it really was gone:

Ironically, when I clicked through onto that new app, I found that Radio 4 was about to broadcast this show: 6. The Only Friend That Mattered.

Ouch. Way to rub it in, guys…

But don’t worry. Hakuna matata. Nem panikus.

There’s still a perfectly legal, perfectly straightforward route to listen live to your favourite BBC radio stations – including 6Music, wherever you are in the world: here are the details.

Let me save you some time: here’s the direct link for the 6Music feed through your internet browser. And it’s working for me.
Three dots in the top corner, save as shortcut to your home screen, Bob are your uncle. The logo even looks the same.

Sadly, there is no obvious route to listening on catch-up or for downloading shows for those of us outside the UK. Aside from trial and error with a VPN. And (allegedly again), that can often be rather hit and miss and somewhat tedious. Or so I’m told, etc etc.

I’ve also just tested whether I can still get 6Music on my smart speaker (IYKYK) and yes, even right down here in the far bottom corner of Africa, that’s still working fine. Whether that will continue (I actually don’t know from where it plays it, it just plays it), I just don’t know. Time will tell.

This hasn’t been a clean break: some of the links from the new feed pages don’t work, although the actual feeds are fine. If the site thinks you’re in the UK, it tries to take you to the app, but then the app doesn’t work. There are clearly some issues that need to be ironed out, and whether that will affect our ability to continue to listen from overseas remains to be seen.

Or… er… heard, I guess.