Category: this is south africa

Exactly wet

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Look, it has been raining a fair amount in Cape Town over the last few days. This is to be expected. Cape Town’s 3½ annual months of winter have begun and September and the spring that it allegedly brings with it seems a long way away right now.  
Kirstenbosch had over 50mm of rain yesterday and they’ve added to that with some frighteningly heavy stuff overnight.

So what will the rest of the week bring?
Step forward the South African Weather Service website:

Not great, hey?
But then check out that rain for tomorrow. A 30% chance of 6.8mm. 6.8. Six. Point. Eight.
Not six point five. Nor seven point zero.
Nope: to go with Steers’ infamous Wacky Wednesday – the day each week upon which one is able to purchase twice as many of last week’s least popular burger than one could have done last week for the same money as one would have spent on said burger the previous week if one actually had any inclination to buy it – SAWS have made tomorrow Super Accurate Tuesday.

I’ve done some rudimentary calculations and I reckon that to increase the height of the rainwater column collected in a standard pluviometer (which would have an 8″ or 20.32cm funnel arrangement), you would need around 67 large (3.6–5.1 mm) raindrops.
Now that might seem a lot, but when you think about how many raindrops fall in the average heavy shower (we’re talking literally hundreds of millions), it’s really not.

This suggests to me that either SAWS have invested heavily in highly accurate and expensive rain-measuring equipment (when really the money would have been better spent on a decent website) or, more likely, that they are just messing us around and we can actually expect a whole 7mm of rain tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in other weather news on the SAWS site, be on the lookout for NW winds gusting to 51.358kmh which may result in waves with heights in excess of 7.046m between Cape Columbine and a specific rock 1.967481km west of Plettenberg Bay.

Reuters joins the bandwagon

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Oh PLEASE!

Tourists in South Africa including soccer fans heading to the World Cup must guard against mosquito bites and avoid contact with raw meat due to an outbreak of Rift Valley fever, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
Many tourists visit South Africa’s game parks and the WHO warned visitors to avoid contact with dead animals — another way of catching the disease.

Yes. Do avoid the dead animals which litter South Africa’s game parks. Indeed, last time I was in a game park, I couldn’t move for dead animals. There are so many of them that they use them to make the roads and houses out of. Dead animals. Everywhere.
What Reuters and the WHO fail to mention is that death may also be caused by several of the live animals in these parks as well. In fact, I would argue that this is far more dangerous than having contact with the dead animals. Which are everywhere.

Officials in South Africa, the host of the 2010 World Cup from June 11 to July 11, have reported 172 human cases of the animal viral disease this year.

172 cases, eh? Out of a population of 46 million people. Truly Hectic. 
What they neglect to mention is that ALL 172 WERE FOOTBALL FANS! Because that is the high risk group for Rift Valley Fever.
I know this because I’m a microbiologist. And a football fan.
But I’m safe because I wear one of those suits like Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak while I’m wading through the thigh-deep heaps of dead animals in the local game parks.

The virus can be transmitted through the handling of animal tissue during slaughtering or butchering, assisting with animal births, veterinary procedures or from disposing of carcasses.
Herders, farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians are at higher risk of infection.

Sorry, that should obviously read:

Herders, farmers, slaughterhouse workers, veterinarians and football fans are at higher risk of infection.

Especially if those football fans are going to watch some footy in our amazing new stadiums and then go and do some herding, farming, abattoir and veterinary work. Which, after all, is what football fans usually do after games.

Ah yes, it brings a tear to the eye as I remember watching the mighty Red And White Wizzards at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane and then hurrying, along with the other 30,000 spectators, out along the A630 and the A57 out into Derbyshire to assist with animal births, handle some animal tissue (careful now) and dispose of some carcasses.
I mean, it’s like a ritual for most football fans, isn’t it? A quick pint before the game, 90 minutes of exciting football with a dodgy pie at half time and then off to do some veterinary procedures.
Right.

So yes. You might get Rift Valley Fever if you interact with dead animals in South Africa.
So don’t interact with dead animals in South Africa.

And if you believe this sort of thing poses a genuine risk to you. And the thing about the earthquakes. And the supposed race war. 
Then just don’t come. Really.

We won’t miss you.

Spandau Ballet tonight

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Off to watch these Golden Oldie legends of the 80’s this evening at Grand West this evening:

I’m pretty sure that they’ll do this song and their other really big hit True. Hopefully the somewhat upbeat tempo of the former won’t break the aging members of the band and prevent the rest of the gig from taking place.

Supporting them on stage for the Heart 104.9 “Awesome 80’s” evening are German Synthpopsters Alphaville, who are famed for their hit Forever Young. They never really hit the heights in the UK, although apparently, they were Big in Japan. And also very popular in South Africa, which isn’t quite as amusing.

Hello Winter, my old friend

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Winter has suddenly and viciously arrived in Cape Town. Just [does the maths] 72 hours after that sublime day out in Franschhoek, with its cloudless skies and 27 degrees, there are suddenly many inches of rain and a plethora of Beauforts. The pressure has dropped below 1000mb for the first time this year and the temperature is only just troubling the mid-teens.

Of course, this is actually no great surprise. Winter comes in May and this is May. It happened last year around this time and again the year before. Personally, I can see a pattern emerging, but that’s probably just down to my intensely-trained scientific mind, so don’t worry if you haven’t spotted it yet.
However, the moaning has started already. This is also no great surprise. Despite the fact that there are plenty of great things to do in this weather (hide under blankets, drink buckets of red wine, watch World Cup football), there are two activities that Capetonians are unable to do in the cold and rain: go to the beach and drive.

The beach thing is fairly obvious. One goes to the beach to enjoy the sun, the warm sea air and the chicks in their bikinis.
One does not go to the beach to get hypothermia. Not even the Brits do that. So, no. No beach in this weather, thank you very much.
The driving thing is more mysterious. It has been well documented that the phenomenon occurs, but no-one is really sure why. And there’s no one way in which Capetonian drivers get worse when it rains. It seems to be that they just do everything rather badly: no indicating, late braking, nipping through red lights, crossing solid white lines, complaining about how other people can’t drive etc.
It’s like everyone suddenly thinks they’re driving a BMW.

This appalling roadsmanship obviously has a profound effect on the traffic flow around the city. When it rains, my journey to work will take twice as long as usual or even increase by as much as 100%, time-wise. And I really don’t think I can be the only one who experiences this. I’ve done some rudimentary calculations and worked out that when it rains, businesses in and around Cape Town lose out by a really big number of Rands because their staff, supplies and deliveries are all caught up in the traffic.

It’s at this point in many blog posts that one might expect to find a few suggested solutions to this problem and who am I to disappoint. Having been daubed with the paintbrush of positivity after seeing what has been managed by local engineers in the form of the all new Hospital Bend and the magnificence that is the Cape Town World Cup Stadium, I now believe they can do anything.
Which is why they can build the huge sponge on the top of Table Mountain.
If I was better with Photoshop (OK, if I even had Photoshop), I’m sure I could show you just how that would look. As it is, you’ll just have to imagine Table Mountain with a sponge on top of it. A huge one. Probably in yellow.

Hopefully, this would absorb any rain that was due to fall on any of Cape Town’s roads and would thus prevent the entire city driving like tossers on wet days. The obviously massive costs of this huge project would be offset by the enormous financial benefits to the city of people actually being able to get to their offices and start work before ten o’clock.

Add a really big heat lamp and we could solve the beach thing too.

Five years

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Yesterday, Mrs 6000 and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary and – having survived the meal I cooked for us last night – we headed out to Franschhoek for some real food at Delaire on the Helshoogte Mountain Pass between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek this lunchtime.
And wow. What a treat.

The architecture, the views, the ambiance, the food, the wine, the service all rated as five star. Sure, it was expensive, but we could have paid the same for a meal in one of the Waterfront’s tourist traps and only got three stars for our money (at best). And we really don’t get the chance to do this sort of thing very often: memorably, our first anniversary was spent looking after a five day old baby. Our third was spent with the wife too pregnant to enjoy any sort of celebration. I remember having to drink all the wine that day and I did my best to relive that experience again today.

The journey home along the N2 was punctuated with 130kph photo opportunities, all of which seemed irresistible thanks to the 750ml of Rainbow’s End Cabernet Franc 2007 I had imbibed.

Seriously though, if you’re looking for somewhere a bit special for lunch, I cannot recommend Delaire highly enough. We’ll certainly be returning for a longer visit (involving more food and wine tasting) next time we’re out Franschhoek way.  

More photos from today are on Flickr.