Category: learning curve

Red Hot Chili Peppers in South Africa in 2013

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Yes, apparently this time the rumours might be true: The Red Hot Chili Peppers are set to tour South Africa (ie. visit Joburg and Cape Town) in 2013.

We’ve all heard that the Chilis will be playing in South Africa in 2010 before the World Cup and in 2010 after the World Cup and that they also are playing in South Africa in 2011 and, of course, who could forget those several times in 2012 that the Red Hot Chili Peppers will be playing in South Africa?

However, this new information (much like all the other information), which pushes the potential concerts back still further to 2013 comes (apparently, allegedly) straight from the horse’s mouth. And the particular equine in question is Attie van Wyk, founder of Big Concerts. This demonstrates the sheer desperation of the social media music scene in getting very excited about a band whose biggest hits wowed us just 21 years ago who may or may not play a concert which may or may not be happening in South Africa in the next 23½ months.

If the tour does happen, they will be supported (ever so ably, I’m sure) by The Parlotones. Tickets – to our great surprise and annoyance – will be available from Computicket, whose website – to our great surprise and annoyance – will crash on the morning that sales open.
The concerts will be well attended, the beer will run out after 20 minutes and the sound at the Cape Town Stadium will be a bit crap.

See you there!

Poor choice

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Back in December when we arranged the repairs to the pool and the pool area, the weather was pretty rubbish in Cape Town.
But we couldn’t have foreseen that we’d choose to have it done during the hottest week in living memory.

image

It’s a job that has to be done during the summer months, because the lower water table in the drier seasons lessens the risk of your pool literally popping out of the ground. (On first hearing about this possible phenomenon, I was desperate to see it happen – then I saw how much it was going to cost me if it did.)
But the summer months have weeks that are in the mid-20s, which would have been fine. Right now, in an effort to get any sort of comfort, I’m writing this from next door’s pond.

Pylons

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All weddings should come with [several] Carling Black Labels, some Moer Coffee and a scary looking shooter or eight. It makes you lose your pre-conceptions and langarm to Kurt Darren.

Wow – I said that like it was a good thing. Meh – it was fun evening: good food, good company, crap music.

After yesterday’s near miss when it came to getting up the West Coast, today’s return journey was rather unexciting, tinged with heat, more heat, a lack of sleep, some heat and a mild hangover.

Passing Koeberg

Mrs 6k drove and I looked out of the window at the scenery passing by at *cough* 120kph. This grey one sums up how I’m feeling this evening – distinctly lacking colour.

The bread is made, the uniforms are ironed and it’s back to school for our two tomorrow. Back to some sort of normality here too – but right now, I need my bed.

Excellent Quiz Question

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As heard yesterday evening on Cape Talk – here’s one for you:

There are four countries in the world which end in a letter which no other country does. Can you name them?

For clarification, none of them are Canada – that’s because Canada ends in an A and other countries names also end in an A. Botswana, Algeria, India for example (and there are a lot more besides).

OK, so I’ll give you one (ooer!): Iraq.

Iraq ends in a Q and no other country’s name ends in a Q.

So now you have 1 out of 4.

  1. Iraq
  2. ?
  3. ?
  4. ?

Can you name the other three?

Don’t comment here (in fact, I’ll switch them off for this post), rather click here and send me an email.
No prizes, save for maybe getting your name up here if you are one of the first to get it right.

Oh – and no googling either, ok? Think, rather.

UPDATE: Answers now published if you can’t get that brain working!

H&S – African style

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The ‘Elf an’ Safety people in the UK (who are not actually as bad as Jeremy Clarkson and the Daily Mail would have you believe) would have a cadenza if they saw this on a building site over there.

In this image, you can gauge ground level from the guy in the bottom right corner of the photo. The gentleman in the yellow cap and his companion are busy rendering the outside of a newly-built house. But the two units of scaffolding that they’ve brought along to the job just doesn’t cut the mustard as far as height goes, so – in a typically African way – they have adapted the setup so that the mustard is cut.

For the record and in case you can’t see (although you can view a larger image here), here’s a detailed run down of what they are standing on:

  1. Four bricks, which are balanced on
  2. A plank, which is balanced on
  3. Four more bricks, which are balanced on
  4. Another plank, which is balanced on
  5. Two barrels (prevented from rolling by four more bricks), which are balanced on
  6. A third plank, which is balanced on
  7. Two units of scaffolding.

Thank goodness they are all wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets.

Seriously though, this does sum up one of the major differences I have noted over here. The willingness and ingenuity to make do with the materials available. In the UK, they’d still be waiting for two more units of scaffolding to be delivered to the site. (Or, yes, they may have been more organised in the first place and just brought 4 units out). Here, they just found a way of getting to where they needed to be and getting the job done.

I was just disappointed that they didn’t start juggling while they were up there.