Category: this is south africa

Day 412 – Slowly does it

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Hello. Sorry for the delay in replying. I was photographing snails.

read the message.

And it was very accurate too, because I was photographing snails instead of responding to my Whatsapps this morning. Here’s one of the photographs I took.

In this photograph, I’ve made the snail look really small by including a lot of background around it and restricting the actual snail to a minimal part of the image. But that was only partly by choice, because the snail in question actually was really small. The usual way of describing the size of something is to compare it to something that everybody knows the approximate size of. Like a double decker bus.

This snail was much smaller than a double decker bus.

You’d probably guessed that anyway though, given that if it was anywhere near the size of a double decker bus, I would have had to have been an awful long way away to get the shot above and that fact that there was a snail about the size of a double decker bus wandering around the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town probably would have made the news.
And rightfully so. After all, who among us could forget the great Fishhoek lettuce famine of 1958?

Double decker buses weren’t going to help here, so I employed a different standard, thus:

That’s a regular matchstick, and the snail is much smaller than it.

But dynamite comes in small packages (well, unless you buy it in bulk), and this little guy (and/or gal – cos hermaphrodites, innit?) didn’t see the matchstick as an obstacle: more as a wholly surmountable challenge.

I may have found the world’s first (and smallest) showjumping snail.

Now, I need to get back to those Whatsapps.

Day 410 – A goodbye

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Friends of ours emigrated to the UK this morning. Everyone seems to be emigrating at the moment. So much so that I’m wondering if we’re going to be the only people left here soon. Almost a case of “will the last ones out please switch off the light”, although that happens fairly regularly anyway. This particular emigration was foisted upon the family in question by the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m quite sure they’d still be happily here if it weren’t for the nastiness of the last 18 months.

But I digress.

I know how hard it is to leave friends, your family and your home country behind. I had a bit of last minute assistance in that regard in that the weather on my way down to Heathrow was absolutely filthy and most anyone who had the option to leave the country for sunnier climes would likely have done so as soon as they possibly could.
Cape Town was nowhere as near as helpfully persuasive this morning.

Eina. Fancy that being your last view (for a while, at least) of your hometown.

And then having to fly to Johannesburg. And then (eventually) to London. I mean, obviously, the place has its perks and positives, but sunrises over the Simonsberg like this? Not so much.

Good luck out there. I’ll keep the photos coming in case you miss the mountains.

Day 409 – Racehorsing

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I’m not a gambling man. Except for the golf, obviously. But we went along to the horseracing yesterday, and you can’t do that without a bit of betting.

I didn’t win on many races, but when I did win, I won (relatively) big.

So, after a great afternoon with a lot of laughs and fun, I still came home with more money than I set out with.

And a smile on my face as Sheffield Wednesday got relegated.

It was a good day.

Day 407 – I had to check the rules

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But there it is, in black and white:

(b) Conferencing, dining and entertainment facilities are subject to a limitation of a maximum of 100 persons or less for indoor venues and 250 persons or less for outdoor venues and if the venue is too small to hold 100 persons indoors or 250 persons outdoors observing a distance of at least one and a half metres from each other. then not more than 50 percent of the capacity of the venue may be used

UnlEsS yOu ArE a LoNg-eStAbLiShEd StEaK rEsTaUrAnT iN rOnDeBoSch!

I was at one such restaurant last night. It was RIDICULOUSLY crowded, with patrons almost literally climbing over each other to get to their tables and seats. They’re hosting a superspreader party each and every evening. Virus? What virus?

I know that restaurants and other leisure places have had a really, really hard time, but this just feels like another one that’s doing their level best to score a phat own goal.

Day 406 – More SA politics fun

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SA politics is rarely dull. Some people might say that this is a good thing, and represents a young, vibrant democracy, constantly evaluating and questioning itself. And yes, that would be a good thing, but it does seem to be mainly widespread corruption and intra-party mud slinging which is taking the centre stage, while actually serving the country (which really, really needs serving), falls by the wayside.

The most recent infighting is within the governing party, the ANC, who are happily fiddling while Rome has no decent housing, a disastrous education system, zero unemployment prospects, an upcoming third wave of Covid-19 (now closer than ever) and plenty of crumbling infrastructure.
Still, while we’re concentrating on their petty squabbles, we’re not talking about all that other stuff, are we?

And I don’t use the term “petty squabbles” lightly, because while the consequences of their collective actions might be very serious indeed, it’s hard not to crack a faint grin at their playground posturing.

The latest episode (coming a whole day after the previous episode) concerns ANC Secretary General Elias “Ace” Magashule. He’s likely bent as a 12 Rand note, having been charged with fraud, corruption and money-laundering. Taking decisive (cough) action, (some of) the rest of the ANC leadership gave him 30 days to step aside from his post for the duration of his trial. That 30 days has just expired and Ace is still there. And so the President suspended him.

And Ace then suspended the President. “Lol”.

Cyril is having none of it. And rightly so, it seems, because while Ace says that Cyril has no right to suspend him, Cyril does have (the majority of) the NEC on his side. Ace has… well… himself. And constitutionally (that’s the ANC Constitution, not the National one), he doesn’t even have himself, because he’s been suspended.
Ace has as much power to suspend the President as my beagle has.

Lots of enthusiasm, lots of noise, zero understanding of how the actual political system works.

Loves free treats.

And so the ANC fragmentation merry-go-round continues, with some heavyweights and branches coming out in support of Magashule, more of them defending Ramaphosa, and local political commentators wasting no time at all in invoking Godwin’s Law.

All of this chaos must be like manna from heaven for the opposition, right?

Well, sure, if they were able to utilise it to strengthen their position. Sadly (I say sadly because a decent, strong opposition is hugely important to any country, and not because of any personal political affiliation), they are so incompetent that they’re actually going down in the polls despite the complete and utter fuckshow happening up top.
And why? Because of crap leadership and… gosh… political infighting within the party.

It all comes down to the cult of personality over actual ability to do the job they are elected and mandated to do. In a recent small scale study, an orange TV host was elected President of a powerful North American country, despite having no demonstrable political ability at all. The world watched on.

It did not end well.

I’m not saying that we’re quite at that level of disaster yet, but until we get leaders who are more concerned with leading the country than their own parties and personal position and wealth, we’re going nowhere except backwards.

It’s very frustrating, hugely costly and thoroughly depressing.