Imaginative

With the kick off of the 2010 World Cup just 279 days away, the Green Point Stadium in Green Point seems set to be renamed. Originally, the name mooted was the African Renaissance Stadium, but who wants to play football in an ARS?

Thus, the Cape Town City Council have proposed that the new name for the new stadium should be (and I hope you’re sitting down for this):

The Cape Town Stadium

It’s both brilliantly simple and straightforward and really, really unimaginative. However, there is apparently method in their madness:

On Wednesday the mayoral committee approved the naming of the stadium going for public consultation after agreeing that “Cape Town” would offer the most brand value, together with flexibility in selling commercial rights for optimal financial and marketing benefits for the city.
Other stadiums in South Africa have either geographically linked, commercial, cultural or heritage names. It was noted that a cultural, heritage or personality name would restrict the selling of commercial rights.

Either way, this latest photo released from the 2010 Organising Committee on their twitter feed shows just how well work is coming along:

cpt
Amazing.  You just can’t fault a setting like this.

We’re almost through winter and still ahead of schedule for the official completion/handover date in December. I’m hoping that my study will be completed by then as well. Although I doubt that Jacob Zuma will come to the opening of that.

At least, he hasn’t RSVP’d yet.

Ruth Archibald: A brave, brave woman

In a country in which white people “stick out like sore thumbs” and “are persecuted by black people”; a country in which “there is a hatred of what we did to them” and “it’s all about the colour of your skin”, I give you The Canadian High Commissioner, Her Excellency Ruth Archibald. (She’s the one on the left).

Ruth

Quite how the Canadian Government could put a white person in such danger by posting her to South Africa, I don’t know. In doing so, I feel it demonstrates “clear and convincing proof of that state’s inability or unwillingness to protect her”.

Please someone – anyone – send the helicopters and SWAT teams to get her safely back to Ottawa.

More serious note: Image from SA Army site, detailing a ceremony honouring two SANDF members who had saved the lives of Canadian soldiers serving in Sudan. Worth a read.

Huntley never laid charges with cops

Oh dear. The Brandon Huntley case just gets worse and worse and worse for him, for Canada and for the hundreds of paranoid expats who have jumped on the negativity bandwagon, as the Mail & Guardian reports:

Brandon Huntley, the South African who was granted refugee status by Canada, never laid any charges with the police to back up his claims that he was attacked seven times in his home country.
He told immigration officials in Canada that black people had attacked him on seven different occasions and that white people were not safe in South Africa.

More evidence that this whole issue is a complete farce. 

“I’ve opened people’s eyes,” Huntley told the Star.

You certainly have, Brandon. To the fact that you are a ill-educated, unemployable, desperate, lying, racist cock.

White bloke moves to Canada: makes news

I really wasn’t going to follow this up, because it’s utterly stupid (if it’s even true), but I have had a lot of emails and this blog is yours*, so here goes.

This was on news24.com yesterday:

Ottawa – A white South African man has been granted refugee status in Canada, after an immigration board panel ruled he would be persecuted if he returned home to South Africa, the Ottawa Sun reports. This is the first time a white South African has been granted refugee status in Canada claiming persecution from black South Africans, the newspaper said.
Brandon Huntley, 31, presented “clear and convincing proof of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him”, the Canadian immigration and refugee board panel ruled last Thursday.
“I find that the claimant would stand out like a ‘sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of the country,” tribunal panel chair William Davis said. 
Huntley’s “subjective fear of persecution remained constant and consistent” up to the time he made his refugee claim, Davis noted.
The Canadian newspaper reported that Huntley – who grew up in Mowbray, Cape Town – claimed he had been attacked seven times by black South Africans. He said he was called a “white dog” and a “settler”.
“There’s a hatred of what we did to them and it’s all about the colour of your skin,” Huntley reportedly said.
He first went to Canada on a six-month work permit in 2004, and returned in 2005. He stayed on illegally and made a refugee claim in April 2008, the Ottawa Sun reported.

And of course, the people who hate South Africa, many of whom have actually left and only get selective news snippets like this, have jumped on the bandwagon with glee. And they are shouting about the “white dog” and the “state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him” as if the Canadian immigration board panel is an expert on the situation in South Africa. Which they are obviously not.
If they were, then why would they make statements like “I find that the claimant would stand out like a ‘sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of the country”, which is completely laughable, but will be conveniently ignored by the desperate and baying expat masses overseas because it doesn’t fit their agenda.

The whole thing is nonsense.

What about when Jeremy Clarkson went to Johannesburg and caused a sh!tstorm of note in SA by telling us that it was completely safe? The expats and their wannabe mates over here dived right in, screaming that “he didn’t go to [suburb]” and “he had an armed guard” etc etc, once again ignoring the rest of the column which detailed how lions in Kruger National Park were contracting HIV from the Mozambicans that they were eating. Now, despite my best efforts in searching, I didn’t see a single whining whitie complaint about that little gem, so I’m assuming that they fully agreed that it was true.
Which just shows you selective their vision is and how Looney Tunes their blinkered viewpoints are.

But back to the story at hand.
Brandon Huntley comes from a suburb about 5kms from where I live. It, much like South Africa, is a melting pot of many different colours and cultures. I would happily walk around there: it’s a safe, friendly and open place. In fact, the only minor issue is that it’s full of students. Maybe he was actually trying to get away from them (which I could completely understand), but then even Ottawa has a University, so that’s a non-starter, Brandon. Sorry.

At the end of the day, if Huntley had anything to offer Canada, he would have been welcomed with open arms. That he slipped in illegally through the back door means that SA is better off without him and his strangely paranoid views.
As for Canada; well, if you can just make stuff up about where you came from and they’ll believe it, then her doors are open. I would imagine that Brandon is already making plans to enjoy their extensive benefits system.

As I’ve said before… Good riddance.

* is it hell…

EDIT: Update here:

On Monday evening Russell Kaplan, Huntley’s legal representative, told Beeld that reports in South African newspapers concerning the problem of crime, among others, was used as proof.

I don’t know about you, but I believe absolutely EVERYTHING I read in the newspapers.
More selective vision, more cherry-picking the sensationalist stories and soundbites. The fact that the board believed it proves that the Canadian immigration procedures are an absolute joke.

EDIT 2: Another update here.

World of Birds revisited

It had been a while since we had been out to Hout Bay’s World of Birds and been crawled all over by squirrel monkeys, so we met up with friends and headed out there yesterday. Maybe it’s because we’re nearing the end of winter now and not yet into tourist season, but I have to say that the place needs some TLC desperately. Muddy paths, broken cages, damaged signs and bins, overgrown bushes. Nothing huge, but  the whole place just needed a good clean up and some work and money put in to it.
And, at R155 for the three of us (K-pu was a freebie) they should really have the money to do something about it. Although maybe they’re suffering in the credit crunch as well. Some big corporate sponsorship wouldn’t go amiss. Investec World of Birds, Woolworths World of Birds or maybe Rainbow Chickens World of Birds. Or maybe not.

That said, the animals all looked well kept, happy and healthy as ever and the kids really enjoyed themselves, and at the end of the day, I guess those are the things that are important. Thus – for me – it still remains a recommended attraction for visitors to Cape Town – especially those with kids. Alex was particularly taken by the parrots and the promise of an ice cream at the end of the visit.

I tried to get photos with the “new” camera, but it’s tough when you have your own little monkey hanging off your arm and another one chasing a turkey. Here are my best efforts. I particularly like the Kookaburra shot.
I’m no big fan of things Australian, but I’d love to taste one of them for real.