Category: sport

More blogging for me

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Because my most important reader is me, I’m blogging this. It’s old news in SA now, but not all my readers are South African and I’m pretty sure it’s something that I will always enjoy coming back to, like Nhlanhla Nene falling off his chair, mid-interview.
I know a lot of people are going to click that link and relive that 23 second clip again. Quality impromptu slapstick comedy by the head of the Finance Portfolio Committee.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ras Dumisani and his rendition of the South African national anthem before the France v SA rugby match in Toulouse last Friday:

(* note inverted SA flag at 0:42. That’s because SA expats don’t know much about the SA flag.)

But tuneful, it ain’t. The jokes have been doing the rounds about the amount of weed Dumisani had smoked before he sang etc etc. But there’s a serious side to it all. Ex-bok Supersport rugby guru Naas Botha blamed the poor Bok performance (they lost 20-13) on the poor Dumisani performance.

“It was sad that we lost the game,” said Botha. “But after that absolute disaster of a national anthem, everything went wrong. It was shocking and definitely didn’t assist in creating a calm atmosphere for the team, as it should have. Someone has to be taken to task for this disaster. The government should assist in getting to the bottom of this.”

Yes. Bring the Government in. That will help. Jacob Zuma can hop into his time machine and go back to urge Ras Dumisani to practice a bit more. Or at all. Whatever.  Or maybe he could pop a wig on and take Dumisani’s place.
Jacob has got a bald head, but he’s got a lovely singing voice. We’ve all heard him doing Umshini Wami. It’s inspiring stuff.
And Botha is probably right about it being the sole cause of the Bok defeat, as well. I know that when I’ve been listening to Sicky Dion, I get all my line-out calls wrong, forget how to tackle and commit far too few players to the breakdown. So that’s probably what happened.

It was bad though. So bad, in fact, that Julius Malema hasn’t even blamed the fuss on racism.

Yet.

Snails, Cheese and Wine. And Rain. And Footy.

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It’s been a wet weekend. Very wet.
Latest figures from Kirstenbosch suggest that they weren’t really expecting rain at this time of year and forgot to put the rainfall gauge out. But if they had have done, it would have been full. And that’s a lot of water.
I would look it up on the SA Weather Service site, but since it got “upgraded” it’s worse than useless.

Aside from a trip to the supermarket, we stayed in. As you would have done as well.
Mrs 6000 and her chums were due to take some horses out through the vineyards in the spring sunshine, but after the spring sunshine failed to pierce the thick grey clouds above and all around us, apparently even the horses were moaning about it being cold and wet (98% relative humidity 13.8°C at 3pm), and thus a semi-impromptu cheese and wine party took the places of the ruiterkuns. Which was nice.
Especially since we didn’t invite the horses.

The wet weekend flickr set.

Snails, cheese, wine and bathing the kids gave me limited opportunity to watch Chelsea and Man U, but I did get to see the goal and yes, it was a foul; no, Drogba wasn’t offside and no, he wasn’t interfering with play anyway. And yes, actually I am a qualified referee, so **** you.
I’m sure Fergie and the Man U fans won’t be happy, but to be perfectly honest, who really gives a toss about what they think? Deep down inside they’ll be happy to have something to moan about, anyway.  

And so it’s onward and upward (the stairs, to bed), with a week full of grey, wet weather to look forward to. Happy days.

Sweet smell of success

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After a good deal of fun, some out of date Jack Black Beer and no small amount of success (R1,500 worth of prizeware for us) at Cafe Roux’s JDI Charity Pub Quiz evening last night, many of the male attendees crowded around the bar and the small, yet perfectly formed flatscreen TV therein to watch the worst Bok pack ever being taken to the cleaners by Leicester Tigers.
The results of the quiz evening and the score at Welford Road may have come as a surprise to many, but I don’t count myself amongst that number.

I accurately predicted our overall second place as soon as I saw the Garth the tall quiz genius walk in (ducking slightly) and take his place with another team. Damn nice guy, but absolutely devastating to be quizzing against.
Either he has a photographic memory or he reads stuff 24/7. Or more likely, both.
There’s a marked difference between defeatism and realism, and thinking that you’re going to win a quiz when he is around is like thinking you might just sneak in ahead of Nelson Mandela in a list of Greatest South Africans. Seriously, only Julius Malema would think that he could defeat the might of Garth and Madiba. (Although he may have been let down by the surprisingly testing Woodwork round last night).

It seemed that I was the only one even mildly happy about the rugby result that followed. That was because, having predicted that Leicester would win by 5 points in my SuperBru league, I was virtually assured of taking maximum points when Leicester actually did win by 5 points.

Player: Flo
Pool(s): Pool 176

Game 3: Leicester Tigers v South Africa: Leicester Tigers by 5

And like hitting a four off the first ball of the over, that takes the pressure off predicting the big crunch game between Portugal and Namibia this afternoon. Which was a toughie.

Tonight – rest and recuperation as we head into yet another cold, grey Cape Town winter. Which I know we’re not, but the weather doesn’t appear to know that. It’s dark grey and it’s blowing a gale out there. Believe me, the rain is but minutes away.
And you know how good my powers of prediction are right now.

Bring forth a warm TV and that 2002 Nelson Estate Cab Sauv/Merlot blend.
As you do.

Alone

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She waltzed out this morning, said she was heading to the airport, to Jo’burg, to see other people.
I wasn’t too upset. She’ll be back tomorrow, mark my words. She always comes back.
And I slipped a slab of Dairy Milk into her laptop bag. So she won’t go hungry.

The cruel reality of the situation is that I have a night with the kids. Alone.

Both of them are sleeping reasonably well at the moment. Just not very concurrently. 
At the moment, Alex tends to not go to sleep too quickly and he’s up early, K-pu goes to sleep quite easily and wakes up late, but is often disturbed during the night. Which is all well and good when there are two of you to spread the load. However, by crude extrapolation and use of maths and stats only a mother could love, I predict that I will sleep between 10pm – 11pm and 4am – 5:30am. Except for the 10pm – 11pm bit, because I’ll be watching UEFA Cup Europa League footy.
Should this alarming prediction prove to be accurate, I can only advise you that it would be foolhardy to cross my path in any way, shape or form tomorrow.

Yesterday evening was spent playing (and winning) a dramatic football match under peachy skies. And, as this photograph completely fails to illustrate, in gale force winds. There’s a grating sound each time I blink and I’m still crying grit. However, on the plus side, I now feel that I am in a position to recommend sand-blasting as an excellent method of exfoliation.
Just as long as you have control of the process and can halt proceedings before it gets down to the bone.

More Football Evening photos.

DIY Big Screen Telly

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I am constantly poking Mrs 6000 in the direction of a big screen telly, but she remains disinterested. That’s because Mrs 6000 doesn’t actually watch a lot of television. She only watches on Friday evenings because there’s some god-awful American programme with a plethora of bimbos throwing themselves at a bloke from Watford.

But I digress. The reason that is what is watched in our household on Friday evenings because there is no footy on. Which brings me to the second reason that Mrs 6k is against the big screen telly idea – that I would end up watching more sport.
This is an utterly ridiculous suggestion. I couldn’t possibly watch more sport than I do now. Unless they start regularly screening football matches on Friday evenings, of course. But if the payoff for a smart new TV was a continuation of Friday nights being crap American telly, even when Brentford v Swansea is on 203, then that’s fine by me.

And then there’s the money. Red wine is an expensive business and when you’ve got to bring up two kids on top of that – well, you can see that there’s not going to be much to spare. And then you have to buy them food as well. And pay for electricity, which is going up again next week/month/year/all of the above. It never ends.
(Incidentally, a big screen telly is pretty power hungry, but I’d be willing to limit the amount of time it was on by switching it off on Friday evenings.)

Of course, there’s actually nothing wrong with the telly we have at the moment. It’s just not very big. And no matter what they say, size is important.

Step forward Brian Micklethwait:

If I want a big screen telly, I move my small screen telly nearer.

Which sounds fine in principle, but it would be a little hypocritical of me to do that, since the kids aren’t allowed close to the TV screen and are constantly being chastised for it, drawn in by the gravitational spell of CBeebies (and not just Sarah-Jane Honeywell, like their dad).

So that leaves only one option, then. Shrink the furniture.