Category: this is south africa

Here and There

Posted on

It’s no surprise that it’s around this time of year that the meteorological differences between my hometown and my adopted hometown are at their most distinct and obvious. That said, it’s always something of interest when there’s concurrently snow in Sheffield and a heatwave in Cape Town. Yesterday was one of those days.

IMG-20160116-WA0013

rsz_dsc_0028_7
That’s Sheffield on the left, by the way.
Eagle-eyed readers with knowledge of the False Bay coastline (it’s a small subset, but it must apply to someone), will already have noted that Fishhoek, Simonstown and the rest of the Peninsula are missing from the horizon on that apparently rather washed out second shot. That’s due to the thick smoke from the fires currently burning in Elgin over the weekend, (as you can see from the helpfully annotated image below).
Sadly, I don’t think this view will be quite the same a it was a couple of weeks ago.

12376375_897549720358422_1963235261811104593_n
 12523067_897367933709934_8975691868522486156_n

Meanwhile, as Flickr friend SheffDave’s photostream confirms, things were altogether colder and whiter in the Steel City.

Personally, I don’t particularly mind either sort of weather, as long as I know it’s coming. The effects of the snow and cold can be overcome with warm clothing (or finding a pub with a fire); the somewhat unpleasant heat by wearing fewer clothes (or being lucky enough to live in a house with a swimming pool).

How much does your country like its president?

Posted on

(Not that I’m suggesting for a moment that this necessarily represents the view of the entire country. Or even the city. I think that I can safely say that it probably represents the view of the person that decided they wanted to put it up, though.)

Political leaders of countries are infamously unpopular – taxes, policies, disappointment often seem to get in the way of the love. But when was the last time someone put up a 6-storey high poster (just round the corner from Parliament, nogal) suggesting that your president “should resign from office”? (I’m sure it’s not as unusual as we in SA think.)

CYwJmFJWcAAf2tR  CYwJmFMWAAEucm8
Initial reports suggest that the billboard (which usually is home to adverts for airlines, fast food restaurants and cellphone companies) could cost up to R200,000 a month to hire. Ironically, if the individual(s) involved are paying in dollars, it’s likely that they probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it without Zuma’s intervention, since that amount will have more than halved since JZ came into power in 2009.

There are people on twitter are asking when someone is going to “claim responsibility”, like it’s some sort of terrorist attack. It’s not. It’s just three words. Three words from someone frustrated with the current status quo, who has money to waste. I’m not sure how long it will remain up there, but given that it doesn’t seem (at first sight, at least) to be breaking any laws or regulations [see below], I’m not sure why it would need to be taken down anytime soon.

In the meantime, the local Photoshop experts are going to have a field day.

UPDATE: It appears that the billboard HAS broken some local by-law or other:

But, I think job done, as far as the allegedly guilty party is concerned.

Riding

Posted on

Mrs 6000 took the kids horseriding this afternoon. I went along to meet them as they finished, only to find that they were running late and hadn’t even started. I then walked for an hour through dusty vineyards in the searing heat wearing flops and full length 501’s. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned.

Still, the kids had a great time and Cape Town was showing off a bit with the weather and the vines. I had my camera with me, so I was able to document things and you can see some of the results in the (now almost completed) summer holiday album here. If they ever upload. Things are slow this evening. 0.28Mbps slow. Ugh.

Such exertions left us all tired, hungry and thirsty, so in order to sate at least two of those issues (and to say goodbye to the holidays because we have commitments on Monday and Tuesday evening before the kids return to school on Wednesday), a visit to Col’Cacchios was called for. They sell pizza and beer, and neither has ever been more welcome.

Slow News Day?

Posted on

When there’s not much serious news around (or maybe when there is, but you can’t bring yourself to face up to it (see the opening lines of yesterday’s post)), you end up getting stories like this:

Fullscreen capture 2016-01-08 123344 PM.bmpI have to say that for this to have made the national press in the UK, someone must have been trying very hard (no pun intended) to avoid anything to do with politics, the economy or ISIS, because it only really looks a bit like a PENIS. In my humble opinion, anyway. Limited experience. And stuff. Perhaps see a doctor if yours looks like that. I dunno. We move on.

Of course, Cape Town is far less racy than Northampton. No news site here is going to share images of cuts of meat which vaguely resemble male genitalia. No, when we’re avoiding real issues, we talk about the stiff breeze blowing through the Mother City yesterday, with what might just be the biggest non-“news” story ever:

Fullscreen capture 2016-01-08 124210 PM.bmp

Yes, sights/sites.

But basically:

Some people come to Cape Town CBD.
It’s rather windy.
They’d rather it wasn’t.
Soon it won’t be.

Behold the excitement.

It’s almost enough to drive you back to all the dramas of the real world.
Maybe that’s the idea.

Van Ryn’s

Posted on

I don’t actually know who Mr or Mrs (or Mx) van Ryn was (I could look it up and I may well do so, just not right now), but I do know that s/he/they/it makes exceedingly good brandy.

After a busy day in the lab, with further commitments this evening, a quota photo of that distillery’s beautifully presented brandy and chocolate pairing is just what is called for.
Later, actual chocolate and brandy may also be called for, but that’s an entirely different story.