Category: in the news

Numbers

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A few things I have seen recently.

The latest offering from Enid Blyton looks rather depressing:

And if you thought that the five link was a bit random, then how about this six?

Maybe spare yourself from the pictures in that article, by the way. Literally the most positive thing about the whole episode was this:

“We are also aware of the allegation that dog food was being used to produce the sausage. Contrary to footage circulating on social media, our EHPs found no evidence of dog food on the scene.” 

So it could quite clearly have been even wors.

I’m so sorry.

According to this page, 186,000 people arrived in Finland in November last year.
Brave souls, but what a welcome when you get there:

OK, so this was actually for a tech conference in 2016, but as the “best tourist slogan ever”, it absolutely still works.

Still awake? Not for long once you get into this article, I promise you.

Why? Because it’s 2,536 words about the nomenclature of the UK’s highways. And not actually that, but the highways that were incorrectly named.

Look out for The Maybole Disaster:

You could argue, of course, that it doesn’t matter; the old road through Maybole has a number, and few people will pay much attention to it no matter what it is. Call it B77, or B770, or B7700, or B7777 (all of which are available for use), and life will go on. Well, yes, of course it will.

But the point of the exercise was to move through traffic to the new bypass – to encourage it to follow a different path, where the road now divides, and take an unfamiliar route around the west of Maybole rather than the familiar way through the middle. The point was to make it clear that the A77 is now over here, and this road you used to go down is now something else.

Spoiler: They called it the B77, and ruined everything.

Or The Accidental Motorway:

Until it was downgraded to an A-road in the late 1990s, it held the fantastically grand number M41.
We’re talking about numbering mistakes, but M41 was quite a good fit: it was in motorway zone 4, and the number wasn’t used elsewhere, so was technically valid.
The mistake was that it was supposed to be called M14.

Fascinating.

Goodnight.

About today

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I ducked out of football tonight after a weekend with an iffy viral thing. Nothing too bad – I just slept a lot. And while I’m feeling much better now, I tried a run this morning, and there’s not an awful lot of energy in the tank. Almost 30 seconds per km slower than usual, and the hills left me broken. So better to prudently withdraw, rather than try to push things too hard and give myself even more from which to recover.

I did get the opportunity to try out my new running jacket, though: this time in proper rain. Because it actually rained quite hard today. And it handled it perfectly. That Water Column Rating of 10 000 mm (I don’t know what this means) really worked well, and the Breathability: well, I know it says 10000 g/m²/24h (again, no idea how this works), but it genuinely felt so much more.

In other news, things are starting to end for the year. Exams are done (finally), piano lessons finished yesterday, art school today. The last singing lesson is on Thursday, and there are only 6 more days of school: mainly for exam paper handbacks, prizegivings, and general end of year celebrations.

We’re away for a few days at the end of next week: a place somewhere in the Swartland with a pool and a hottub and very little else, and I can’t wait. I’ll be working doubly hard in the run up to that little trip so that I can get some blog posts pre-written and ready to go, leaving my time free for relaxing and braai’ing. Some exercise wouldn’t go amiss, perhaps a spot of photography, and there might just be some olives and a wine farm or two on the cards as well, given the region’s outstanding reputation for Shiraz.

It would be rude not to.

But more on that nearer the time.

This evening: United at home to Oxford – one of my old stomping grounds. It’s going to be another late one, but I hope it’s another good one too.

A good night out – unless you are South Sudan*

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* or you needed more than 4½ hours sleep.

We went down to the DHL Stadium in Cape Town last night for the AFCON qualifier between South Africa and South Sudan. As I mentioned yesterday, this match didn’t matter too much, with SA already qualified, and SS already… not. And so it was a bit of a free hit, and an opportunity to celebrate both the qualification and the first Bafana Bafana game in Cape Town in 9 (nine) years.

And although the early kick off made it tough for a lot of people to get there on time, the stadium did fill up and there was a really joyous and jubilant atmosphere. A properly fun occasion.

Cape Town didn’t miss out on the chance to show off, as well.

It finished in a (more than) comfortable 3-0 win for the hosts in front of a passionate crowd; South Sudan almost being too bad to play well against. And – once the traffic had cleared – we made a quick trip to the Dark Horse for post-match drinks and bar snacks (OMG, the Prego Bruschetta!).

I’m not saying what time I got home (or in what sort of state), but you’ve seen the footnote beneath the title, and you know that I’ll be in bed by 8:30 tonight in an effort to make up for any lost time in Sleepsville, Western Cape last night.

On That Whale

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A dead humpback whale was brought ashore onto Hout Bay beach this weekend. This is very unfortunate, but is also just one of those things that happens. You don’t need to blame climate change or toxic oceans here: animals sometimes die, and animals sometimes die in the sea close to a shoreline. And if they are a 14m, 35 tonne humpback whale, you’re possibly more likely to notice them than if they were a small crab. Sadly, they can also be a bit of a hazard. Aside from the smell and the health risks, whale carcasses on the shoreline can also attract sharks, and so removal of the carcass is something that needs to happen timeously.

Usually, the whales which are washed up around the Cape Town coastline are taken – by truck – to the landfill site at Vissershoek. This is a fairly unusual thing, but we’re probably looking at a few every year, so it’s hardly unheard of.

This one seems to have caused a bit of stir though. Maybe because it was moved on a weekend and a nice day when people were out and about.

And just look who commented! With that emoji.

It’s always sad when a family member passes on. Sorry for your loss.

But it was the Reddit post referenced in the link above that really got me laughing.
The original question here:

Was answered in typical Reddit form by a super helpful local user:

“Probably dead”? Amazing.

You think?

Not just popping out of the water and onto a low loader for a Township Tour of Imizamo Yethu and a drink or two in the Constantia Valley before being dropped back into the Atlantic, then?

Dead, you say?

Yes, I think you might be right.

Probably.

Today’s chuckles

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We had a lovely school concert last week (as briefly documented here), but what if school concerts were like festivals?

I mean, no offence intended, but yeah, you might think twice.

We’ve been through this one before.

Just with slightly different terminology. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

In fact, if anything, the mental images conjured up by these descriptions are actually more accurate.

Look, Climate Change is a real thing…

But don’t worry. Whoever the Big Orange Goon puts in charge of the USA’s Environmental Department will surely sort it all out. After all, President (Elect) Spanky McLiarface is doing wonderful work already, putting a rabid anti-vaxxer in charge of Health, doubling the number of wankers in charge of Government Efficiency, and putting this tosser as head of Defence:

Of course, he later claimed he was joking about that (you decide), but he’s still deadly serious about…

Women in the military:

“I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” he explained. “Our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where traditionally—not traditionally, over history—men in those positions are more capable.”

About who he thinks is going to command the military:

He wrote that “affirmative action posts have skyrocketed, with ‘firsts’ being the most important factor in filling new commanders. We will not stop until trans-lesbian Black females run everything!”

About how stupid Ivy League graduates are:

“I have a new rule, the more elite the university and advanced a graduate is, the dumber they are. If you went to an Ivy League, prove that you have any common sense at all.”

Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard, which actually does kind of prove his point.

And about how he just wants to get along with everyone:

“Next to the communist Chinese and their global ambitions, Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world. It cannot be negotiated with, coexisted with, or understood; it must be exposed, marginalized, and crushed,” he wrote in American Crusade.

Wait. What?