They came, they saw, they went all around Table Bay and Robben Island.
And then they left, on flight 666 once again.
Observant people will have noted that it was basically 54 minutes before they actually went anywhere. The cost of flying a Boeing 747-400 for that long? Somewhere around $25,000, or just under R400,000.
Just to play in the sky over Table Bay.
But then, if you had that money, a 747 and a day like today – why on earth wouldn’t you?
This afternoon, we had fun with a crystal ball. I bet you didn’t see that coming.
This is the naturally beautiful Derwent Valley, inverted through my new glassy toy.
You can expect several (or more) images of this kind over the coming days, weeks, months or years.
When it snows (in the other world, not in this South African one), the authorities put salt on the roads. This lowers the melting point of the ice and snow, meaning that it melts even if the temperature drops below zero. Thus, it has to be colder for there to be ice and snow on the roads, meaning that generally, there will be less ice and snow on the roads throughout the winter. Thus, fewer accidents. Or so the logic goes, anyway.
In the cities of the USA, about 19.5 million tonnes of salt is spread across roads in this way each year, and a lot of it comes from a dried-up 400 million year old sea about 2000ft below Ohio. There are some photos and some stories of the mining process on Wired and they’re rather interesting:
Apparently, when anything breaks down, deep underground, it’s simply discarded there. Why waste time, energy and money in getting it back up to the surface just to throw it away anyway?
I foresee some extremely confused archaeologists somewhere way down the line.
Tenuous a-ha link: Name of salt mine in question is Morton. Oh, and effect of the salt is surely to Stay On These Roads, ne?
And by that earlier post, I mean this one. It was only when I sent the concert information to Mrs 6000, who is was looking forward to our Bergen trip , that she put two and two together and worked out that the concert in question was to be staged outdoors.
Perhaps it was this bit that did it:
Remember that you should at outdoor concert! Dress practical and according to weather conditions. Check the weather forecast! Wear comfortable shoes, there are long standing. Do not forget that the concert will take place in Bergen and dress accordingly. If there is a chance of rain, bring a raincoat, then the umbrella is not allowed in the concert area.
Google translate with the assistance there. I can see we’re going to be playing with that a lot while we’re away: Min norsk er forferdelig. My English isn’t much better.
But that line about “dress accordingly for Bergen”? Well, that would be because of this sort of stat:
Compared with Sweden and Finland, Norway has a much more humid and rainy climate. It is impressive to note that the precipitation in some areas of the country may reach the impressive 3000 mm per year, which is one of the largest quantities in Europe.
Here you can find the city of Bergen, which is considered to be the rainiest city on the continent.
Oh joy. Tell me more, Wikipedia:
Bergen experiences plentiful rainfall in all seasons, with annual precipitation measuring 2,250 mm (89 in) on average.
Cape Town’s annual average is about 450mm. Exactly one fifth as much.
It’s still a way off to the concert (in weather forecasting terms), but I can tell you that the weather in the lead up to the main event looks somewhere between utterly dismal and bloody awful. It’s cold, it’s wet and it’s windy. Add the wind chill and the temperatures are remarkably stable at 1ºC. Having grown up in Yorkshire, I am untroubled by this sort of thing. Having grown up in Cape Town, Mrs 6000 is less keen on the whole “chilly weather” thing.
The Norwegian for “divorce lawyer” is “skilsmisse advokat”.
