Category: this is south africa

Last Of The Summer Braaiin’?

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That is a legendary title for a post. And yes, I recognise that I announced the onset of winter a couple of weeks ago, but after that dreadful day, apparently summer sobered up, had a bit of a sit down,  realised it missed us all and popped back to prolong itself a bit.
That’s why last week we had this:

While today we were treated to an absolute cracker, with cloudless blue skies, not a breath of wind and temperatures of 30°C.

Perfection.

Mindful that these meteorological conditions have other places to be and can’t stick around forever, we used the time wisely to get in a nice early evening braai:

And while, to the untrained observer, it may appear that there is some sort of breeze blowing, this is Cape Town: our smoke is so used to being moved rapidly in a northwesterly direction that even in flat calm conditions it just comes out of the stack and heads that way automatically.
It is Pavlovian smoke, but you don’t even have to ring a bell to influence its behaviour. This is good because I don’t actually own a bell.

With dwindling supplies of braai wood, now comes a tricky seasonal decision. One must balance the amount of wood one owns, because while on the one hand, you don’t want stacks of wood getting wet and being useless during the winter month, on the other, there will be days when you just need to braai and you just need to have the requisite materials to hand.

It’s a fine line, generally best trodden, I find, by sticking two bags of rooikrans in your garage and having some briquettes on standby.

I shall arrange this tomorrow.

I’m (Still) Not Finished With You.

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Big News today is that Liepollo Pheko has decided to lay a charge of intimidation against Andre Visagie.

Who they?
Well, they were some of the parties involved in the notorious “Touch me on my studio” incident back in April 2010. You can see the video here, but in case you had forgotten, Times Live has a handy reminder for you:

In April 2010 Liepollo Pheko and Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging secretary-general Andre Visagie were debating race relations in post-apartheid South Africa on the set of Africa 360.

When neither would let the other speak Visagie lost his temper, pulled off his microphone and started walking off the set. He turned back, walked towards her and said “… and you won’t dare, you won’t dare interrupting (sic) me…”.

Host Chris Maroleng intervened, during which he famously ordered Visagie not to “touch me on my studio”.

And then, as Pheko classlessly smirked, came Visagie’s pièce de résistance:

Visagie walked around the desk at which he and Pheko had been sitting, turned to face Pheko, and said: “I am not finished with you.”

Those words struck deep, it seems. So deep that only now, 1096 days on, Pheko has realised that she felt intimidated by Visagie.

Heaven only knows how she has carried on with her normal life, of being a policy analyst, social entrepreneur, senior executive, thought leader and social activist plus Managing Director and co-owner of  management consultancy, Four Rivers Trading and Executive Director at NGO/think-tank, the Trade Collective, in the intervening period.

Quite what Mr Visagie had – or perhaps has – in mind for Ms Pheko is unclear. That’s probably why at each and every public event she has attended in the last 3 years, she must have been hugely concerned that the aging Mr Visagie would perhaps turn up and talk loudly at her in broken English some more.
In some ways, maybe she was almost desperate for it to happen, praying for that defining moment of release when Mr Visagie, having said his piece turned to her and added “Now I am finished with you”. But that moment has never come and it seems that the last three years have been nothing but a waiting game for Ms Pheko – and indeed for Mr Visagie, one would imagine.

And so, after somewhat belatedly realising that she was being intimidated back in 2010, Pheko is to finally lay a charge of intimidation against Visagie. These cases do tend to go on a bit, so one wonders exactly how long it will be before she is finished with Mr Visagie.

It should be noted that the timing of her decision has everything to do with the constant worry she has felt since Mr Visagie informed her of his lack of closure back in 2010 and nothing to do with her name being put forward as a possible presenter on Given Mkhari’s new Gauteng based radio station Power FM.

Nanny State goes mad!

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A few weeks ago, we brought you news of Cape Town’s new and stupid liquor bylaws. We’re still waiting for some sort of rational explanation as to how those make sense, but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon in that a public participation process seems to be being set up to discuss “possible amendments” to the bylaw (which, don’t forget, is already in force and will continue to be during these potential discussions).

But, my friends, no sooner is there light at the end of that tunnel, then we leap salmon-like from frying pan to fire. Because the Nanny State – so often negatively associated with the UK – is still here and it’s alive and well, having set up a summer holiday home in Camps Bay. OH, AND ANOTHER ONE IN OUDTSHOORN WHERE IT HAS ONLY GONE AND REGULATED OSTRICH RIDING!

OMG!

I know, right? Unbelievable.

Once common, traditional practices like having 200 bottles of wine on your premises, buying Milk Stout at 6:01pm and riding ostriches without a permit – let alone all three – will sadly die out under these new draconian laws and all we’ll have left to show for them are happy memories, a slight hangover and some peck marks.

Yes, try riding a big bird these days without the appropriate permits and Papa wag vir jou. And by Papa, I mean the Performing Animals Protection Act, the one that even the NSPCA admits “may be misleadingly named”:

It specifically regulates “the exhibition and training” of animals and states that anyone intending to do so must be the holder of a licence in terms of that Act.

How utterly ridiculous.
Fortunately, they then go on to assure us that:

The application process is straightforward and forms can be obtained from animalethics4@nspca.co.za.

God alone knows what animalethics1, 2 and 3 were about. Probably remembering to polish your tortoise or something.

Anyway, I’m going apply for my ostrich riding permit straight away. I don’t actually have any ostriches to ride, but I can only imagine that come the day I get one, I’m not going to want to hang around for three months waiting for some jobsworth somewhere up in Pretoria to stamp a few forms so that I can ride it legally.
What I get up to in the privacy of my own back garden is my business, anyway. It’s not like I’m planning to ride it to work or anything. This is purely a leisure activity.

Please. If you, like me, have ever ridden an ostrich, you’ll appreciate the tight bond twixt bird and jockey, a bond that shouldn’t be sullied and cheapened by paperwork and misleadingly named paternal legalities. Sadly, this is merely another unnecessary intrusion into our daily lives by the powers that be; powers that are already overworked and failing to enforce the rules and regulations already imposed upon us.

I’m not calling for protests or a campaign of civil disobedience here. I would hate you to be brought to book because you decided to unlawfully ride your ostrich on my account.
Just please, no more silly laws about beer and wine and ostriches, complicating people’s lives simply for the sake of it.

P.S. Don’t forget to polish your tortoise this evening, lest the NSPCA come a calling.

Dillon Marsh’s Invasive Species

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“In 1996 a palm tree appeared almost overnight in a suburb of Cape Town. This was supposedly the world’s first ever disguised cell phone tower. Since then these trees have spread across the city, South Africa and the rest of the world. Invasive Species explores the relationship between the environment and the disguised towers of Cape Town and its surrounds.”

So says photographer Dillon Marsh.

Here’s the palm tree in question:

Invasive Species, Brackenfell South (2009)

And yeah, that’s really not fooling anyone, is it?

And yet many of our cellphone masts are disguised in an equally unsubtle way to “blend in” with their surroundings, just like this one doesn’t.
I’m not saying that cellphone masts are particularly pretty or anything, I’m just suggesting that their appearance is not necessarily improved by this sort of attempted concealment.

There are more examples of how camouflaging these structures doesn’t really work on the link above.

You may also enjoy Marsh’s Giants Among Men set, featuring – amongst other things – the giant strawberry near Spier and the infamous Spotty Dog from down the road in Retreat.

Done ’em

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I promised photos upon my return to Cape Town and I’ve stuck some up on Flickr – my first set in ages thanks to this.

Following on from yesterday’s striped theme:

In fact, there are a lot of animals and birds in the set, because we saw a lot of animals and birds over the last week or so. They’re not the best photos ever, because I’m not the best photographer ever.

They do serve to document our activities for those elsewhere though, which is primarily their aim.
So I win at that.