Category: this is south africa

Rain Prayers planned “soon”

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Religious leaders in Cape Town have said that they will get round to praying for rain soon.
The city is currently in the throes of its worst drought for decades, and Mayor Patricia de Lille had appealed to senior figures from across the religious spectrum to pray for precipitation as dam levels continued to fall. However, with no significant rainfall in several weeks, there are some individuals who are beginning to doubt that the praying was having any effect.

But now there has been widespread shock as a Cape Town newspaper investigation has revealed that most local religious leaders haven’t actually been praying for rain at all.

Tamboerskloof vicar Rev. Denise Woodhouse stated that she had been instructed by her senior clergy to hold off any specific reference to rain in her Sunday prayers “until April or May”.
When it was pointed out to her that this was rather convenient timing, given that that’s when the seasonal rains usually begin anyway, she replied, “Yes, isn’t God amazing?” and hurried off to help with pouring the tea at the Women’s Auxiliary meeting.

In Rondebosch, Minister Peter Mulhearn echoed Rev Woodhouse’s words: “Apparently, God’s got a lot of stuff on His plate right now,” he said. “There are wars all over the place, there’s the ongoing plight of the rhino, and this whole Donald Trump thing is probably taking up an awful lot of His time. I think we need to give Him a break on these very local matters until at least mid-Autumn time. Then we’ll put forward Cape Town’s case for rain. And you just watch – He will surely deliver.”

And it was much the same story from Wynberg Imam Iqbal Sadiq, who told us: “Now is not the time for panic. We are aware of the Mayor’s request, and have scheduled a Salat Al-Istisqa’ (prayer for rain) for early winter. We are sure that Allah will provide.”

When questioned about the apparent delay in prayers for rainfall, a city spokesperson stated: “Obviously, we can only ask. It’s in the hands of religious leaders as to if and when they choose to pray for rain. And it’s only one of the many sensible strategies that the city has put in place to deal with the water crisis. We’re hopeful that the our unicorn-powered pumping station in Kraaifontein will pick up the shortfall in the meantime.”

Eclipse later today

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In Southern Africa (or Patagonia) this evening? Don’t miss the partial solar eclipse later on today.

Weather permitting, Durban, Johannesbeagle, Cape Town and the rest of SA will all able to see a bite-shaped chunk missing from the side of the sun as the moon passes between us and it.

The Astronomical Society of South Africa website has all the details you need, including (but not limited to) this gif:

Yes, I was a bit concerned when the sun suddenly fell out of the Durban sky first time I saw it, too. Everything’s ok though. It’s just that we get a bit more eveningsworth for our money in the Mother City.

PLEASE, PLEASE! check their “How Do I Look?” section for hint and tips on safely watching the eclipse. It’s never safe to look directly at the sun, even if it’s almost half hidden.

And please share this post far and wide so that others get the chance to see the eclipse too. Thanks.

Beer

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What’s your favourite beer? I did a post about the plethora of local microbreweries that have sprung up recently and the damage that their desire for individuality and uniqueness is doing to the taste of their product. I are not a fan of that beer.

But now there are two different, new beer products on the market.
Beer products that I had never heard of before:

I had to do some rudimentary research, and it seems that Graft Beer falls into three distinct types:

a) Beer which has taken an awful lot of hard work to create.
b) Corrupt beer corrupt practices used to secure illicit advantages or gains in politics or business, or
c) Beer which is applied to the skin after a burn injury to replace damage flesh and stimulate regrowth.

Daught Beer (also pronounced with a sharp, Yorkshire ‘a’) is foolish, ridiculous beer.
If you drink enough Daught Beer, you will also become foolish and ridiculous. In that way, Daught Beer is very much like every other sort of beer.

Both Graft Beer and Daught Beer are available from 11:00 til late at the Twisted Fork in L’Agulhas.

That was the weekend

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A bit of an odd one. It seemed busy, but still rather relaxed. The jobs list was approached, but not really ever adequately dealt with, meaning a chore-related hangover for next weekend.

There were two braais, although neither of them were the one we thought we were going to. There was beer, gin, vodka and there was wine, although it wasn’t actually one of those weekends.

There were two seven hour playdates, leaving the kids happy, but broken.

There was a spot of flying, but not as much as I wanted and not where I wanted. I need to find an accurate map of just what is owned by Table Mountain National Park and what isn’t. I need details.
South Africa has 2,798 km of coastline, but the vast majority around us seems to be owned by TMNP. Their no-fly rule (which I’ve stated before that I completely accept) still proves limiting.
Anyway – photos:

…because one should always make the best of a bad situation.

And so to bed. Well, not quite. There is some football to catch up on and some brandy to add to the list of beverages above.

Because all’s well that ends well, right?

Right.

Unplanned

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The day off was unplanned, but welcome. Once I knew it was going to happen, I made lots of plans, the principal one amongst them involving two of my most favourite things: my Mavic and a lighthouse. Ka, as they so rightly put it, boom.

What I actually ended up doing instead was standing in a large warehouse building in Stikland as the temperature approached 40ºC.
Things had obviously gone badly wrong with the plan. My Mavic was 32km away and the nearest lighthouse was (I’m guessing, anyway) at Woodbridge Island – dangerously close to (Uns)Table View.

The warehouse in question was the Police Vehicle Clearance Centre, somewhere I needed to be because we had a vehicle that required clearance by the police. Bureaucracy and red tape never go smoothly, are often frustrating, and are generally a whole lot less enjoyable than flying your Mavic around a lighthouse, and so it proved today.

Still, needs must, and as long as I didn’t think too hard about where I could have been and what I could have been doing, the weeping was kept to a minimum. And there were more positives, because with that mammoth task out of the way, I could move on to other massively important things, like buying some velcro and taking that crappy pedestal fan back to Builders Whorehouse.

These are the bits that Casey Neistat never shares. He buys velcro too. He stands in queues to get forms stamped (although admittedly probably not in Stikland). He just never tells you about it.
Honesty, ne? Appreciate it.

Now though, with the sea breeze blowing just ever so slightly too hard for my videography requirements, I am home, and while I should be working on some writing, I’m eating a mango, drinking a damn fine Bloody Mary and blogging.

It’s strange how these things work out, hey?

The lighthouse and the Mavic will be available another day.
Another day soon, I hope.