British Journalist Speaks Sense About South Africa SHOCK!!!!!

It seems that Chief Football Commentator at The Times, Patrick Barclay, thinks that England can win the World Cup in South Africa next year. And he may well be right. They’re playing some great football and getting some great results. And, of course, the 2010 World Cup will be held in the middle of winter in South Africa… 

Now the strength-sapping summer heat of Italy, France, Japan and even Germany gives way to an English footballer’s dream: the coldest World Cup since records began.

…bringing with it the probability of weather conditions which will play right into England’s hands. We like the cold; the Portuguese (if they even manage to qualify) – don’t. Shame.

Barclay’s comments on South Africa were refreshingly honest as well. After all the hysteria which has surrounded South Africa’s preparation for the World Cup, the allegations that stadiums would not be finished, that the infrastructure couldn’t cope, that a lack of security would mean that everything was shifted to Oz at the last minute; well, here is a viewpoint from someone that’s actually been here and watched football. At last!

In Germany — not to mention Japan — trains were a fine method of getting about. In South Africa, forget it. Put yourself at the mercy of the roads and inevitable match-day congestion, get organised into bus-loads with local guides (though security should be less of a worry than some suggest, only a fool would take undue risks) and allow four or five times as long as is recommended for every journey.

To be fair to the hosts, most of the traffic jams we encountered were because of road improvements designed to ensure a smoother flow next year. But do reset your watch to take account of the time-difference between aspiration and reality. Then it can be fun; I have especially fond memories of a day in Soweto, which is keen to take budget guests and will, I was assured, be safe (unlike downtown Johannesburg, which apparently is full of bloody foreigners and hence crime-ravaged).

This isn’t Japan. It certainly isn’t Germany (thank goodness – do you really think I’d be here if it was?). This is South Africa and when in Rome, do as the Romans and expect everything to take longer than it would in Berlin. Or Rome. And of course there will be match day congestion, just like there is at Bramall Lane when United are at home and just like there was before and after the rugby at Newlands on Saturday. This isn’t a problem peculiar to South Africa, nor to football.

Barclay’s piece is not sycophantic, celebratory or (in some ways) even hugely positive about South Africa. But it’s first-hand (compare and contrast Louise Taylor’s Guardian article, mentioned here) and it’s honest. Fans coming to SA next year expecting another Germany or Japan are going to be left confused and possibly even a little disappointed. Not because we aren’t going to do a great job of hosting the World Cup, but because it’s going to be  hosted in South Africa and it’s going to be hosted in winter. Not for us the slide-rule punctuality of the Germans or the Japanese (if you can measure punctuality on a slide rule?), nor the wall-to-wall sunshine of a European July.
Things here are done at an African pace: vive le difference. (We can’t do much about the weather).

Better then that visitors arrive informed, with their eyes open and can get straight down to enjoying themselves instead of having to spend the first 2 weeks of their stay adjusting  to how things are done here and how wet and cold it may be.
All in all, this promises to be a brilliant tournament – just read more of the Patrick Barclay stuff and less of the Daily Maily hysterical rubbish. Oh, and back England to win it. Cos I think they can.

Sweet Peeps and Muse News

After the summery sunshine of the weekend, the public holiday turned out to be a wet and windy disappointment, reminiscent of public holidays UK-wide. Out came the Monsters Inc. DVD, which is kept on standby for such emergencies, and a HUGE bowl of popcorn, which is kept on standby for such emergencies. And thus we were sorted.

Yesterday, as I have already mentioned, was a completely different story as we made the best of the stunning weather and headed down to Maynardville – the local park – which the city council have recently furnished with a rather large jungle gym.
We got a call from Dan Plato, the executive mayor, who asked us if we could take the boy down to give it a thorough test. Apparently, if it can survive him, it can survive anything. Much like Cape Town with Dan Plato, I guess.
All of which gives me renewed confidence in my own invincibility. Anyway, he (the boy, not Dan Plato) thoroughly tested it and it passed with flying colours.
And while he was thoroughly testing it, his sister used the opportunity to be thoroughly cute through a hole in the climbing wall.

Come now, even the anti-child brigade (led by Goblin* together with all her little Goblin minions) can’t deny that she is a complete sweetie.
Even if she is apparently a little lopsided. More pics of the sunnier bits of the weekend on flickr.

In other news, Muse announced that you can pre-order their forthcoming album The Resistance and get it posted over to SA so that the workers at SAPO can have early Christmas presents for their Muse-loving family and friends.
Apart from the safe yet boring downloadable version at £7.99, you can order the standard CD for £9.99, the CD/DVD version for £13.99 or go the whole hog and provide the OR Tambo Post Office staff with enough goodies to last them until Easter with the super-duper, dogs-bits deluxe version for a mere £59.99:

THE RESISTANCE
LIMITED EDITION DELUXE BOX SET

Multi format box set containing the following:
– CD + DVD in foldout softpak including The Making Of The Resistance DVD (43 minutes 53 seconds)
– 180g Double heavyweight vinyl
– Muse USB pre-loaded with WAV, Apple Lossless and MP3 320 files plus bespoke audio player
– 12″ Art Print
– **Exclusive to muse.mu** 5.1 surround sound Audio DVD (full bitrate DTS & Dolby)

FREE WORLDWIDE DELIVERY

Sadly, as I suggested, the free worldwide delivery so subtly advertised in upper-case will probably only get it to the first sorting office in Mzansi. And I’m not sure I can chuck R800 out (plus the inevitable 14% VAT bill from SARS) when there’s such a limited possibility of anything actually getting to my front door. Especially when the stuff we’ve heard so far sounds worrying like Queen. Dear lord…

* who, in a moment of weakness, has previously admitted that she thinks K-pu is cute.

Quota Moon Photo

Just a quick word from me as I am heading off down to Newlands shortly for the Tri-Nations game between South Africa and Australia. It’s a stunning day in Cape Town and it should be an exciting game between two evenly matched teams. But unless I head off shortly, I’m not going to see it.

So herewith a quota photo of the moon taken this morning for your enjoyment. It was going down as the sun was coming up, which made for some nice shots. I took a few which I’ll pop up on Flickr shortly, [EDIT: Here they are] but this one is one of my favourites.

 

Watch out for tweets from the rugby later on.

Hie’ kommie Bokke! Hie’ kommie Bokke!

Twitter and Facebook attacked

Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook were both unavailable for long periods this afternoon (Central African Time) due to a Distributed Denial of Service attack or DDoS, a process whereby huge numbers of infected computers, controlled by a single “master computer” besiege the servers of a site with demands for data until the servers – and the site – breaks.

Graham Cluley, a computer security expert, likened the attack to “15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time.” and while this explains the situation nicely, there is no definition of how fat the men are or how small the revolving door is. Some shopping malls (Meadowhall, Canal Walk) have huge automatic revolving doors which wouldn’t have any trouble fitting 15 fat men in. I can only imagine that either Twitter has a very small revolving door or that the men in question were exceptionally obese.
It’s also interesting to note that it is men who are taking the rap for this. In this age of political correctness, I sincerely hope that Graham considered the implications of his perceived single-sex attack. While it may reflect rather negatively on the male sex, I’m sure there will be – at some point down the line – some mouthy lesbian who will claim to have been struggling to get through the revolving door as well.

And already, accusations as to who employed the 15 fat men and the angry lezza are flying around. Some have suggested that Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinajacket was getting back at twitter for the rather unsupportive stance it took around his brutally putting down opposition protests last month. Others have suggested that it was some sort of coalition or consortium of bosses who just wanted their employees to actually get on with some work for once. Especially those in Port Elizabeth.
But it seems most likely that this was basically an attack by aliens who were just warming up to take on a really big site like this one. But don’t worry, we’ll be on the lookout for a group of fat bastard martians trying to get in through our revolving door. And this being South Africa, we’ll be ready and waiting to defend 6000 miles…the only way we know how: with a gaggle of angry black mamas toi-toi’ing their way to greet them.
There are few sights more terrifying than Nkosazana, Thandiwe and their chums singing and dancing their way towards you while holding up illegible placards made from torn cardboard boxes. Believe it, because it’s true.

Once the large social networking sites have seen how well we in South Africa defend our revolving doors, they will be flocking over to Mzansi, servers in hand. We’ll have a plethora of twits in Pretoria, loads of MySpace in the Karoo and Friends Reunited in Cape Town (as long as they went to the same school). All of which can surely only be good for the economy.

Then all we have to do is somehow stop them from noticing how slowly our revolving doors actually revolve.

Good start, but…

It’s been a week of political revelation in South Africa, as President Jacob Zuma arrived unannounced in Balfour, Mpumalanga to see first-hand the lack of service delivery which has caused riots there recently and Human Settlements (read ‘Housing’) Minister Tokyo Sexwale – the man with the best name in Government since Johannes van der Undergrunties – slept in a shack in Diepsloot.

It’s good stuff and a far cry from the distant leadership of Mbeki. It’s down-to-earth, it’s populist and hands-on.
And while that’s a welcome change, it’s important to remember two things: firstly, that we’re in no way comparing Zuma to any sort of gold standard in Mbeki and secondly, that turning up on the doorstep and talking about things is really just the start.
Echoing my thoughts on the promises of Zuma’s election campaign from July 24th last year, the only thing that should actually make people believe that Zuma and the ANC care about them is when they actually deliver on the promises they have made. And that’s yet to happen.

However, Zuma’s surprise visit has certainly struck a chord with the press. Dominic Mahlangu wrote in The Times:

That the local government was lethargic was further demonstrated to Zuma when he drove to the municipal office at about 3.30pm, only to find that the mayor, Lefty Tsotetsi, had already gone home for the day.
It remains to be seen whether Zuma will take action against Tsotetsi and the other alleged under-performers on the council. But his populist pledge to visit many other local governments and departments without warning in the coming months could keep civil servants and elected officials on their toes most of the time.

And that can only be good for South Africa.

While one of Zuma’s most vocal critics, cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro graded Zuma’s performance as almost “praiseworthy” by moving the symbolic showerhead which has plagued Zuma since his rape trial in 2006, upwards in response to his Balfour visit (note the small self-portrait in the bottom corner: “Credit where it’s due”).

This cartoon removed at the
request of Zapiro’s legal team
6000, September 2009

If he is to be taken seriously, Zuma needs to act now. A lack of action now would surely be even worse than not visiting at all: The hope, the expectancy and the promise are all there now. Sadly, I have seen too many broken promises not to be skeptical about Zuma’s motives in Balfour. It’s now nearly 4 months since he was sworn in as President and as far as I can see, nothing has really changed for the better.
Some might argue that it’s still early days, but some concrete action wouldn’t go amiss already.