Category: this is south africa

Loads of loadshedding coming

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“We are likely to load shed on most days in the near future”

Yep. Here’s a slide from the Eskom briefing this morning. That legend up at the top reads as follows:

Green days: Adequate generation capacity available to meet demands and reserves.
Yellow days: Constrained generation capacity with sufficient supply to meet demands and reserves. Moderate probability of loadshedding.
Red days: Insufficient generation capacity unable to meet demands and reserves. High probability of loadshedding.

eskom

A rudimentary count from next Monday gives us 102 days of which 11 are green, 20 are yellow and 71 are red. That means that until the end of April, SA will have a high probability of loadshedding 70% of the time. Even more worrying for the economy is that there are only three working days which are not red, and none of those three are green.

This is summer, when demand is lower, meaning that in some ways, we’re getting off lightly. But there’s no indication that come May, some magic bullet will have solved everything. No quick fixes here.
So yes, we’re screwed whichever way you look at it. But I think the time for recriminations is done now (I actually think that the time for recriminations was done a long time ago). Spilt milk. This has happened, it’s how it’s dealt with now that matters.
And that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to help out. Switch off what you’re not using, use high-wattage equipment less and try to make some sort of difference.
Do your bit in trying to turn a red into a yellow or a yellow into a green.
It really can’t do any harm.

Just a reminder that you can view the Cape Town schedules here. These are due to change on the 1st February, and we’ll keep you updated when that happens.

Excellent Gumtree couch ad

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I tweeted this last night, but it probably deserves a post of its own. So here goes.

First off, here’s the ad, although I believe that these things have a distinctly finite lifespan, so that link won’t last forever. Hence, I suppose, the additional need to screenshot and reproduce the blurb here.

gumt

And then seller “Mark” waxes lyrical:

Once, when we were much younger, thinner and fond of unsecured credit, we bought a Coricraft couch (the seemingly ageless “Santorini” model, still going strong today).

Over time, we bought another, and matched slipcovers so we had 2 Santorini couches (and now one spare slipcover). In the same period of time, we produced two children (boys) and obtained 2 dogs (beagles). It’s not clear who was more responsible, but our generally beige/brown couches became more camo than any one particular colour, and was invariably covered in food, drink, wet dog and occasionally humans.

Over time, as the slipcovers have been washed and the dogs (or kids) have buried things in the bowels of the couch, they have begun to look a little more worn out that expected, and they don’t really smell very good. They have a number of tears, rips and general good natured family wear-and-tear that one would expect of these furniture workhorses (Big up to Coricraft – they really are the Toyota of the couch world. Pity they don’t have a trade in program). The only thing still solid is the frame, and that’s only because the dogs don’t have opposable thumbs or own a jigsaw.

We have now reached a point where the difference between re-covering these couches (to us furniture lay-folk) and buying 2 new couches is very little; so we are going to do precisely that. Which means our trusty family couches, complete with all the lego, biscuits, doggie chews, more that a few lost remote controls and whatever wildlife has made it’s home in the nether reaches are now up for sale.

You would think that by now we would just give them away, but for both sentimental reasons and because the gent at the store assured us they still have a value and we could totally sell them – these couches are now available for the very reasonable price of R1500 for both (less than the cost of a dinner for 12 at the spur, or one of those 4 slice toasters that can reheat bagels).

This is your chance to own a piece of history (and more than a few pieces of fossilised food). This would ideally suit students with minimal money and a strong immune system, or someone with access to upholstery skills and some spare time (must go as a set, sold as is. you have been warned about the condition. spare slipcover, or whats left of it, included. no takebacks. beagles not included.)

You can see one of those beagles here. My experience of beagles is that they don’t actually require opposable thumbs or a jigsaw in order to be able to destroy everything you own (including the frame of otherwise sound furniture), but despite the “condition could be optimistically described as poor” comment, Mark has obviously got off lightly in the destructive beagle stakes.

All Mark wants to do is sell his couches and get a bit of brass in pocket. He didn’t need to give us his life history, nor the detail about the filth that the buyer can expect to find within their new purchase, but I’m very, very glad he did.

Thanks Nix

No thanks to Noah

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The first mosquitoes of the season moved in last night. To be fair, we’ve had a good run: usually, we’ve been roundly devoured several times over by the beginning of January, so I shouldn’t really complain, despite the fact that certain members of the family are sporting several (or more) red blotches this morning. Yesterday’s hot weather, coupled with a unusual lack of wind, meant that conditions were perfect for the little bastards to buzz around us like an even more irritating Robert Marawas constantly blowing tiny vuvuzelas over our beds. If, like me, you have a musical ear and decent pitch, once you have heard one in the room, you can constantly hear one in the room, even if the offending insect has gone elsewhere to bite someone else.

No-one is quite sure how mosquitoes managed to get through the ancient trial of Noah’s Ark. Why would he allow something so pointless, annoying and destructive (malaria, anyone?) on board his Ark? Some opine that he was struggling with mental issues brought about by stress at the time: hearing booming voices in his head, building a huge boat, worrying about the inclement weather forecast, wondering where he was going to put all the dinosaurs (something he never managed to find work out, obviously). It seems likely that he just made a bad call when he signed off on the mozzies, a bad call that inadvertently resulting in the deaths of millions of people, primarily infants across Africa. Oops.
Perhaps we shouldn’t blame Noah though: maybe his hands were tied with overly politically-correct rules and regulations. Maybe there wasn’t time for a full hearing of the local Equal Opportunities Committee to be convened before the flood, thus meaning that the mosquitoes’ objection to their omission on the passenger inventory couldn’t be heard and they were therefore entitled to board. To be honest, they could have just sneaked on anyway. Unlike the Brontosauruses (RIP).

Fast forward several million a few thousand years, and mosquitoes have evolved (“no they haven’t” – Creationists) to become one of the most bothersome species on Earth, a title willingly contested by the likes of the Herpes virus, Maltese poodles and Steve Hofmeyr. Fortunately, while the Cape Town wind sadly has little effect on those other three, it does at least seem to deter the mosquitoes from successfully getting into our bedrooms. It’s windy today and my sleep-deprived body is glad of that.

Tonight, the mosquitoes will be going sideways past the window, rather than wandering in and eating bits of me. Tonight, I shall sleep – no thanks to Noah.

An Open Letter to writers of Open Letters

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Dear Writers of Open Letters,

I trust this finds you well.

What a 2014 you had, hey? Barely a day went by in South Africa without someone, somewhere, writing an open letter about something to… well… to everyone.
We had open letters to white South Africans, open letters to black South Africans, open letters to Julius Malema, Jacob Zuma, Helen Zille (and every political party and organisation in the country, often), open letters to Oscar Pistorius, to Muslims, to Woolworths and Pick n Pay. Khaya Dlanga wrote open letters to everyone, Richard Branson didn’t write an open letter to the EFF and Thuli Madonsela wrote an open letter to herself.

There was even an open letter from an injured tourist to South Africa.
All of it.

Such was 2014, and we shall remember it thus.

But this is 2015, and digital guru (he’s good with his hands) Mike Sharman has spoken:

If Mike’s right, “folks”, then not only is 2014 dead and gone, but with it, the alleged curse of the open letter. But let us note that Mike made his announcement as a PSA in a tweet. And (as Mike knows full well) a PSA in a tweet is basically just a short open letter.
Sure, nous sommes Charlie so he’s welcome to his (incorrect) opinion, but he’s trolling us as he makes it. And that smarts a bit.

My message to you, open letter writers of South Africa, is to keep on writing. How else would we know that you have a very important viewpoint on any given subject if you weren’t to scribble it down on a bit of keyboard and send it to news24 so that everyone else can read it too? Yes, gone is 2014, and it may indeed turn out to have been the heyday of open letter writing, but this is an art form that must not die. Because gone also are the days when it was good enough to send a private email or – god forbid – an actual letter in an envelope straight to the individual or organisation concerned. And look where getting rid of that got us: now, apparently everyone needs to read your dirty laundry and your grubby opinions. You seek support and validation for your views and actions and someone out there will give it to you, just as long as they know you’re angry about the same thing that they’re also angry about.

In this world of myriad communications, a personal letter can easily be overlooked. Indeed, cynics will tell you a personal letter expressing upset, anguish or annoyance will be overlooked. But it’s very, very hard for an open letter which has been shared on Facebook by Auntie Edith and her Bridge Club and by the lady that left SA for Perth and/or Canada in 1994 to be overlooked.
No, open letters are routinely ignored, not overlooked. So don’t expect any response from the party you’re actually writing to. That’s not going to happen. The response will come as a groundswell from blog followers, from the grunting hoards of news24 commenters (if you’ve stooped that low) or, if you’ve been particularly radical, in the form another open letter from someone who has equally radical opinions which radically disagree with your radical opinions.

Talking of radical opinions, open letter writers and fans of the same, Mike Sharman has just told you (and everyone else) that you are unwelcome to continue your beloved hobby into 2015.

I think you know what to do…

Best retards,

6k.xx