7 weeks

It’s just seven weeks until The Killers play “Cape Town” and that might explain why my whole family was dancing around the new study to the dulcet sounds of Brandon Flowers this evening before bathtime. We were both Human and Dancer, before you ask.

But it’s the brilliant cover they did of Dire Straits’ Romeo & Juliet that I’ve decided to share with you this evening. This was an amazing song to begin with and they have more than done it justice.
I know that the band are regular readers of this blog (who isn’t?), so guys, please can you play this one just as the sun is setting over the Franschhoek mountains, please?

This may or may not mark the beginning of a regular Killers-related Sunday blog post feature leading up the the concert.

Where are you going to stay?

With almost all the teams now confirmed for next year’s FIFA World Cup, excitement is beginning to mount and people are suddenly realising the need to start making plans. Flights are getting booked up, rental car agencies are running short of rental cars and flag sales are up to their highest levels since before the world flag crisis of 2003.

Of course, your most immediate requirement as a visitor to South Africa is somewhere to stay. And if you’re looking for a decent place to rent, you’re obviously (obviously) going to head to SA’s premier property group: Pam Golding Properties.

PGP have a specialised 2010 rental department and they have released a portfolio of some of the Cape Town properties that they have on their books for next year’s tournament. In addition, if you’re in Cape Town, you can rent out your property. Just make sure it fits the bill.

These properties have been carefully selected for their outstanding locations and superlative features, all promise first class accommodation with all the added extras.

Check out that first one. Fresnaye. R30,000 per day. Per. Day.

pgp

Even with the Rand doing extraordinarily well at the moment, that’s still $4,000 or £2,500 per day. Don’t even ask how much that is if you plan to stay for the whole 31 days (although you can work it out using mental arithmetic or a simple calculator)*.
But if you are staying the whole month, then you might be able to get in a harvest from the private vineyard it boasts, make some wine and offset a bit of the cost.

Of course, you don’t have to spend all that money. Last time around in Germany 2006, loads of people camped out. But then, during Germany 2006, it was summer. Good luck with finding your tent after we get a traditional Cape cold front coming through.
Start looking halfway to Antarctica.

* If you arrive the day before the first match and leave the day after the final, that’ll be a cool R1,000,000 please.

DIY Big Screen Telly

I am constantly poking Mrs 6000 in the direction of a big screen telly, but she remains disinterested. That’s because Mrs 6000 doesn’t actually watch a lot of television. She only watches on Friday evenings because there’s some god-awful American programme with a plethora of bimbos throwing themselves at a bloke from Watford.

But I digress. The reason that is what is watched in our household on Friday evenings because there is no footy on. Which brings me to the second reason that Mrs 6k is against the big screen telly idea – that I would end up watching more sport.
This is an utterly ridiculous suggestion. I couldn’t possibly watch more sport than I do now. Unless they start regularly screening football matches on Friday evenings, of course. But if the payoff for a smart new TV was a continuation of Friday nights being crap American telly, even when Brentford v Swansea is on 203, then that’s fine by me.

And then there’s the money. Red wine is an expensive business and when you’ve got to bring up two kids on top of that – well, you can see that there’s not going to be much to spare. And then you have to buy them food as well. And pay for electricity, which is going up again next week/month/year/all of the above. It never ends.
(Incidentally, a big screen telly is pretty power hungry, but I’d be willing to limit the amount of time it was on by switching it off on Friday evenings.)

Of course, there’s actually nothing wrong with the telly we have at the moment. It’s just not very big. And no matter what they say, size is important.

Step forward Brian Micklethwait:

If I want a big screen telly, I move my small screen telly nearer.

Which sounds fine in principle, but it would be a little hypocritical of me to do that, since the kids aren’t allowed close to the TV screen and are constantly being chastised for it, drawn in by the gravitational spell of CBeebies (and not just Sarah-Jane Honeywell, like their dad).

So that leaves only one option, then. Shrink the furniture.

It never rains…

That’s a complete lie. It rained all day today and it also rained a bit yesterday, even though the sun was shining at the same time.
Apparently, in the UK this is known as a “sunshower”, although I’ve never heard that expression. Still, I only lived there for 30-odd years.
In Cape Town, where the weather is just plain weird, this sort of thing happens far more often. It happened yesterday and I photographised it.

I have been told that the phenomenon is known as a “Monkey’s Wedding”. However, I have never dared use that phrase, just in case it was one of those Old Skool racist things that were “perfectly acceptable” to use “back in the day”, but that one – quite rightly – can’t say now.

However, having done a bit of research (ie.I googled it), I have discovered that the phrase comes, in fact, from the isiZulu umshado wezinkawu , meaning (perhaps unsurprisingly) “A wedding for monkeys”. There is no further explanation as to why this is the case. However, it would seem that I am safely able to use the phrase from now on without fear of prosecution.

There’s also an Afrikaans version, which Wikipedia tells me is jakkelstrou or “Jackal’s Wedding”.
This, it seems comes from the dainty little rhyming couplet:

Jakkals trou met wolf se vrou,
As dit reen en die son skyn flou.

Which actually makes perfect sense, because I did notice that there was a jackal in the back garden who seemed intent on marrying the wolf’s wife while the rain fell and the sun shone faintly. With hindsight, that probably would have made a more interesting photo than the one above.

I’ll try to remember that for next time it happens. Sorry.

Flying high

We went to a rather windy Cape Town Kite Festival this morning. Of course, when you are attending a kite festival, wind is good. Otherwise it would be a string and colourful rug festival. Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with celebrating string and colourful rugs, but that’s not what we went there for and it’s not what we got.

Despite all the colour, my favourite shot of the day was this one:

One of the big “3D” kites which was tethered at ground level so you could get a really close look at exactly how it worked – which seemed to be somehow wind-related. You can find more black and white goodness here and a whole lot of colour in the Flickr set.

It was a cheap, fun day out, all in support of a good cause and I would fully recommend it: especially if you have kids.
The forecast is bright and breezy for tomorrow, so give it a go!