Category: this is south africa

Shrien coming back?

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Self-confessed nutcase Shrien Dewani has lost his latest battle against extradition to South Africa to face charges over the murder of his wife in Cape Town in November 2010.

The 33-year-old, who has depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, strongly denies any involvement in his wife’s murder.

His risk of suicide is real but not immediate, and while he remains moderately depressed he is better than he was, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

Dewani was seeking to delay his extradition on account of his mental health.

He now has 14 days if he wants to appeal against the decision.

Again, I have been surprised by the aggression and vehemence of opinion amongst twitter users in South Africa with regard to this case, but I can completely understand it. The country was still on an all time high post the amazing 2010 World Cup and this was a harsh, stark, and unnecessary reality check.
As I commented here – before any of the allegations of a hitman being hired – the initial story we were given of the “hijacking” never sounded plausible:

Something isn’t quite right with this “detour into Gugulethu to see the nightlife” story in my mind.

We were brought down to earth with a bump, the country’s reputation was dragged (further) through the mud, and – if the case against Dewani is proven correct – with absolutely no good reason.

Perhaps because of this, South Africa public opinion has generally been that, rather than suffering from any sort of mental disorder, Dewani is merely seeking to avoid facing justice. Many have already made up their minds that he is guilty, which is no surprise, given that in the intervening period, Mziwamadoda Qwabe, Zola Tongo, Monde Mbolombo and Xolile Mngeni have all been tried, found guilty and sentenced for their parts in the crime. Indeed, Qwabe, Tongo and Mbolombo admitted their guilt  – and implicated Dewani – in return for lighter sentences.

It does seem that Dewani is slowly running out of options and if he does get extradited to SA, I don’t foresee a particularly friendly welcome. Because we’re fine with slagging off the country on a daily basis from within, but when someone from overseas makes us look bad, well, that’s different.

Telegraph likes De Hoop

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Just dropping this (rather dated, but still) article from the Telegraph (UK)about De Hoop Nature Reserve in here.

With so many whales on display, where are the people? There are only a handful of us at Koppie Alleen (an area surrounded by massive dunes and the best place to view the whales) and earlier we drove through the park without seeing another soul for hours.

“Most tourists go to the town of Hermanus to see whales,” explains De Hoop’s assistant manager Sebastien Jones, who attributes some of the town’s success to its extensive marketing campaigns and proximity to Cape Town. “But while the tourists go to Hermanus, the people from Hermanus know to come here to watch the whales,” he adds.

Those readers blessed with pachydermesque memories will probably recall that Koppie Alleen was the subject of this blog post earlier in the year.

There are apparently A LOT of whales about this year, which will please my mum no end, as she likes whales.

Royal Baby Excitement: An Explanation for (some) South Africans

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There were a lot of people getting very excited about events at a London hospital yesterday. And there were a lot of locals here who didn’t seem to understand why there were a lot of people getting very excited about events at a London hospital yesterday and they actually got quite annoyed about the people who were excited.

I’ve never really understood why if something doesn’t interest people, they feel that they have to aggressively criticise it. To me, it suggests some sort of insecurity. Who knows?

Anyway, I fell into the middle of the two of the groups. I wasn’t hugely excited about the birth of the royal baby, but equally, I didn’t have a problem with the people who were.

So here’s a way I thought of explaining it, in a journalists outside a hospital kind of way.

Compare this line (much used yesterday as a reason to belittle those excited people):

“It’s just a baby. Hundreds of women have babies every day.”

with this line:

“He’s just a patient in a heart hospital. Hundreds of people are patients in heart hospitals every day.”

Which is a pretty ridiculous sentiment for anyone* in South Africa to accept, because Madiba has almost deity-like status here. He’s a special person. His is a public interest story. So yes, there are many other heart hospital patients around, but Madiba is South Africa’s heart hospital patient, and that’s why his hospitalisation is different.

Well, the birth of the royal baby is Britain’s version of Madiba’s hospital stay. You can see that it matters to “us” in the same way that Madiba matters to SA simply by looking at the similar scenes outside the Pretoria Heart Hospital and St Mary’s in London.

It’s not an ideal analogy, but it’s not far off.

Live and let live: whether it’s babies, former presidents or excited punters.

 

* 99%+ of people, anyway.

Double Vision

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We’re heading back to the Tips page of Popular Mechanics for this one. It won Top Tip for July 2013.

Double Vision

As time moves on and we get older, some of us are faced with the loss of our close detail sight. Fading eyesight is usually addressed by purchasing reading glasses from a chemist (I have pairs of these dotted all over the house and garage). However, sometimes the magnification of these glasses is just not enough for close-up work.

My simple solution: acquire a second pair of reading glasses (perhaps from your wife), place one pair over the other and hey, presto! You may look like a character from Revenge of the Nerds, but it really works!

Ian Ruinaard
Kenilworth

Why has no-one else thought of this?

Ian has obviously got a keen mind. Perhaps, in these winter months, he noted that in order to be warm, he could put one jumper on, but in order to be warmer, a second jumper, place over the top of the first, was required. Or, potentially, he had to get something down from a particularly high shelf and became aware that while standing on one box got him closer to being able to reach said object, it took another box, place on top of the first, to make it possible for him to actually get to the shelf.

These may seem like simple observations, because they are, but let’s face it, none of us took these observations and applied them to optics and the correction of age-specific deterioration in vision, now did we?

Ian did. He did that.

And then he wrote to Popular Mechanics about it.

What Ian did then, though, is deeply puzzling. He stopped. He halted in his extrapolation of this great idea. Why he chose to do this is unclear, because surely for a great mind like that of Ian Ruinaard, merely sating himself with having the vision to complete close-up work would not be enough. Surely an exploratory continuation into this 1+1=2 phenomenon could have yielded further amazing results?

Ian stopped. But that didn’t mean that I had to.

Right. So. What if we took Ian’s 1+1=2 idea and made it 1+1+1=3?

Three pairs of chemist-bought reading glasses, perhaps acquired from the wife – perhaps selected from the pairs dotted all over the house and garage, it really is up to you – placed over each other and hey, presto, I could see LOADS OF STUFFS.
This gave me another idea. I quickly acquired an extra pair from the wife and then collected all of the pairs that were dotted all over the house and garage. Then I burgled the local chemist and chucked all the pairs on top of each other.
And then I looked.

Oh. My. God.

The results were remarkable, if a little scary. It appears that I had created a nerd-like (but rather effective) face-mounted microscope. With incredible power.

We’ve all heard how many bacteria there are on a kitchen dishcloth, right?
Well, now I could count them.
Individually.
From my bedroom.

This was fantastic, and I’ve already applied to the local patent office to ensure that no-one steals my idea.

Indeed, the only issue I could see (geddit?!?) with this marvelous new-found vision-accentuating device was that my field of vision was now sadly some distance beyond my field of reach, making it rather difficult to actually utilise this undoubtedly exciting and potentially life-altering ability.

“Now, if only I could somehow change that,” I thought, as I pulled on my gloves and headed out into the cold.

This will probably not end well

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There are people who have examined the complex politics of South Africa in minute detail and there are others who have studied the mining industry of the country for many, many years.
These people have earned the right to use the moniker of “expert” in their particular field.

I are not these people.

I can, however, like to venture my opinion on the current situation regarding the wage demands and negotiations surrounding SA’s gold mining sector. And my opinion is that I don’t think things are going to work out very well.

That’s because generally, wage negotiations in SA seem to go pretty much the same way:
Employer offers low percentage – let’s say, for example 5%. Unions demand higher percentage – maybe 13%.

There are strikes, strife, usually a bit of violence and some threats. And then, after a while, and a lot of posturing, they meet halfway. Which would be 9% in this case. The overall increase just about enough to drive inflation up a bit further, but for the individual workers, not usually enough to make up for the pay they missed out on while they were striking. Perhaps the latter is why they then demand a bit more the next time around.

Of course, if I can work this out, then the employers and the unions are probably also aware of it. Thus, they come out with more extreme percentages as their starting points. Which brings me neatly back to current events in gold mining.

The employers – citing falling productivity, the lower price of gold and spiraling costs – have suggested 4%. Not a massive decease on their usual offerings, but then they don’t have a lot of space to place with. That’s not the case for the unions though. Although they have certainly outdone themselves – and each other – this time.

Solidarity (not the Polish one) has demanded 10%.
The NUM has demanded… *drumroll* 60%! Lolz all round.
Oh yes, and AMCU has asked for 159%.

I’d like a pay increase too. 10% would be lovely. 4% would even be quite nice. But with this news, I’m tempted to hold out for 159%. And once I go for it, I will only back down ever so slightly (and maybe I’m guilty of showing my hand a little here, but no further than 158%).

But seriously, with the parties starting so very far apart, the upcoming mining wage negotiation are going to take a while. And all that time, tensions, frustration and desperation are going to increase. And just in case you have no memory, there is history here.

Colour me pessimistic, but I really can’t see this working out well.