First lit 175 years ago

Happy 175th Birthday to this old place:

A sandstone tower 27 metres high, it was first lit on the 1st of March 1849, it’s been lighting the way around the dangerous Cape Agulhas rocks ever since (well, it took a bit of time out between 1968 and 1988, but we don’t mention that). From burning sheep tail fat (1849 -1905) to an oil lantern (1905 – 1929) to a petroleum vapour burner (1929 – 1936) to an electric light bulb (1936 – [1968 & 1988 – shhhh!] to the present day), it’s a National Monument, a Western Cape Heritage Site and an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Phew!

And as the sun sets in Agulhas this evening, it’ll be on duty again: its lamp and first order Fresnel lens generating 7,500,000 candela, flashing white every five seconds, piercing the darkness for 30 nautical miles (56 km, 35 miles).

Happy Birthday, old chap.

What a load of BS

I’m not planning to go into the city centre today, and that’s a good thing, because parked up in the harbour right next to that city centre (and right next to the Cruise Terminal, nogal!) is the Al Kuwait: a 190m, 16,110Mt livestock carrier owned by Croatian company Korkyra Shipping and stopping over from Rio Grande in Brazil as she heads east.

And she stinks.

According to Marine Traffic, the Al Kuwait is currently reporting a draught of 8.8m, which means that she is fully laden with livestock. This amounts to 23,474m2 of cattle. That’s about 50,000 studio apartments worth of space. And so it’s no wonder the residents of the CBD are up in arms over the whole situation – it’s not just about the smell, it’s clearly pure jealousy about all that extra space, as well.

Pity help the passengers of the Azamara Pursuit

…who have paid a ridiculous amount of money to sail into the Mother City and experience the fresh, clean Cape air, only to be parked next to this stinking floating farm truck (seen here under her previous moniker, Ocean Shearer – named after the Newcastle United football star’s daughter):

And now social media is alive with the cries of people desperate for the SPCA to board the vessel and check on the wellbeing of the 23,474m2 of cattle, as if this were the first time that a livestock carrier has ever docked in SA.

There are dead, decomposing animals on board

suggested one commenter, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Aren’t human beings just the worst?

decried another keyboard warrior, who only found out that cows went on ships when a smelly boat parked up near her flat last night, but now thinks that the entire thing is terrible and must stop immediately.

Which is all fine, but is also such a kneejerk reaction which you can bet will likely be forgotten by tomorrow, by which time the Al Kuwait will be well on her way to her next port of call, taking her stench with her.

Beeg Chicken

Spotted earlier on a satirical page on the Facebook. They were taking the mickey out of the Telegraph for – and here I quote – “having another normal one”.

But given that the actual story is about concerns over the maltreatment of the birds – 20 million of which are eaten each week in the UK – the horrific environmental impact their farming has on local rivers, and the worry that “mega farms” are fuelling the incidence and spread of bird flu, I think I’m quite happy to take the amusing cartoon as the illustration, thank you very much.

The more realistic alternatives would surely be less fun.

Great timing

Thursday was the day that Climate Scientists announced that the world had made it a whole year with an average global temperature >1.5oC above pre-industrial levels. And if you click through on that link, you’ll be able to read about many of the other records that have recently been broken as mankind does its best to trash what’s left of the planet.

It probably wasn’t the best day that the UK Labour party could have chosen to announce that they were dropping their £28bn a year “Green Prosperity” plan, halving the funding due to “the economic climate”. The actual climate isn’t the only climate that is struggling, then.

When you are an opposition party, it’s easy to make grand statements about how much you are going to spend, and all the plans you are going to carry out once you’re in government. No-one can hold you to them, because you can’t do them anyway, because you’re not in power. But suddenly, with Labour surely almost certain to win the upcoming election in the UK, they’re having to backtrack on their promises.

But with the world experts crying out for more funding for environmental and ecological issues, more buy-in and more commitment from governments, the perfect timing of this climbdown was a disaster.

Talking of disasters…

During his 2024 State Of The Nation address on Thursday evening, President Ramaphosa talked up the progress that the government had made in tackling loadshedding, which was running at Stage 2 throughout his speech:

“Since SA’s renewable energy programme was revived five years ago, more than 2,500MW of solar and wind power had been added to the grid, with much more in the pipeline. More than 120 new private energy projects were in development after regulatory reforms enabled private investment.
These are phenomenal developments that are driving the restructuring of our electricity sector in line with what many other economies have done to increase competitiveness and bring down prices. 

Through all of these actions, we are confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load shedding is finally within reach.”

About an hour after he made that statement, loadshedding was raised to Stage 3.
And three hours after that, it was raised to Stage 4.

And now we’re on Stage 6. No electricity for 12 hours each day.

Again, absolutely wonderful timing.

“…we are confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load shedding is finally within reach”

Utter nonsense. Any light at the end of the tunnel has clearly got nothing to power it.

United & Off The Pitch

My beloved Blades sent out a press release this week. They’ve teamed up with a company called Off The Pitch. OTP appear to do data analysis around the business of football. I’m not into business data of any sort, but I do know when there’s some corporate BS being used, and this press release was full of it.

But of course it was, because when I went to the ABOUT US section of OTP’s website, I was greeted with this:

Did someone drop the word “media” in there just for shits and giggles? Or am I missing something to do with the English language here? Because however I try to phrase this punctuation-free header, I can’t get seem to get it to make sense.
At the very least, surely if you’re going to use “is”, you have to use “medium“, right?

Basically, it seems to me that we’re buying this package so we can pay less for our players and pay our players less in the future.

But then the press release is packed full of boardroomisms and buzzwords:

Carl Shieber, Sheffield United’s Head of Football Administration, expressed his enthusiasm about the partnership: “Our partnership with Off The Pitch opens a realm of opportunities for Sheffield United. It provides an invaluable platform for benchmarking against other clubs, both domestically and internationally. This alliance is a step towards a more analytical approach in our business, commercial development, and player trading strategies.”

“Alliance”, “Platform”, “Benchmarking” and “Strategies”. Nice try, Carl.

But then OTP CEO Mads blows him away with this spiel:

Mads Meisner Christensen, Co-founder and CEO of Off The Pitch, shared his thoughts on this significant agreement: “We are excited to equip Sheffield United with a diverse range of tools to enhance their operational efficiency. This partnership is set to provide Sheffield United with a strategic edge in the transfer market, helping them to identify and leverage market inefficiencies for optimal results.”

Blimey! “Leverage” alone is worth 10 points! “Optimal” and “Strategic” are just the icing on the cake.

The thing is, how are we supposed to have any sort of edge – strategic or not – in the transfer market, when it seems like most of the clubs in Europe are using this same system? Did we pay more for the gold edition or something?

I don’t pretend to get it. I don’t have to get it.

But if we could just use plain English from now on, I would have more chance of getting it.