Cheese

This tweet with this video has been doing the rounds on “the socials” today. And while you could watch the video anywhere, I feel that the caption here absolutely hits the nail on the head.

I’ve been on a TV quiz show, and yes, it’s nerve-wracking. Incredibly so.

But even with that extra pressure, this is an impossibly, ridiculously stupid answer.

Still, having visited the crumbling Kent coast, I guess it does explain all the deBrie on the beaches at the bottom.

My Sunday

Yes, yes. A few days early or late, but that doesn’t really matter.

If you were about my age in the UK when I was my age in the UK, then you might remember Timmy Mallett and his Wide Awake Club on ITV: a Saturday morning staple. The co-star for some of the series was wildlife expert and now Hout Bay resident Michaela Strachan.

It also featured Mallett’s Mallet: a massive foam hammer.

But that’s beside the point.

Wide Awake Club ran until 1989, and was followed by Wacaday, which ran during the school holidays.

In 1990, Mallett released a cover version of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini with Bombalurina. It reached number 1 and, together with its Europop vibes, it was the perfect song for him: deliciously wacky and zany and juvenile and just silly.

Quite reasonably, I’d forgotten all about Timmy Mallett until I came across the piece below, published in a UK Sunday supplement.

And it’s amazing.

It’s all massively Monty Pythonesque and wholly fabricated, except, you kind of get the idea that some of it might not be. But, like watching Bob Mortimer on WILTY, you’ve really no idea which bits are made up, which are genuine, and which are “embellished truths”. Whichever they are, they conjure up some wonderful mental images.

Anyway, you’ve likely read enough of my spoutings, so do take a minute or two to properly read Timmy’s.

He’s Not Wrong

Sean Dyche makes a good point:

It’s true. Kids are very impressionable. When I were a lad, whenever we saw anything different or exciting in the football over the weekend, there would be loads of us trying it out in the playground on Monday morning. I wonder how many kids were “moving the ball” (and the foam) before taking their free kicks, after Ivan Toney did it, and after it was praised so roundly by all the pundits?

As we remarked at the time, moving the ball might have been seen as being “a bit clever”. But as soon as he moved the foam as well, well, it was clear that he knew he was cheating.

Sure, it’s not the biggest thing in the world, but it is symptomatic of the way that some bits of football are going. And the well-paid, “celebrity” pundits sitting in the cosy, warm studios are – for some weird reason – encouraging it.
So why not start with the small stuff and actually note that Toney was deliberately breaking the rules, rather than admiring his actions? Just say that it was wrong. You don’t have to want him to be banned for 8 months: he can do that himself.

Also, I quite enjoyed this quote because he’s basically taken three whole paragraphs to just say “Fuck you, Michael Owen”.

It’s something I regularly find very easy to condense into just those four words.

Oh, and also, one more thing: I put this graphic up on our football team Whatsapp group this morning and no fewer than six people agreed with it. All of them dads. We’re bringing up our kids right. Forza.

Beeg Chicken

Spotted earlier on a satirical page on the Facebook. They were taking the mickey out of the Telegraph for – and here I quote – “having another normal one”.

But given that the actual story is about concerns over the maltreatment of the birds – 20 million of which are eaten each week in the UK – the horrific environmental impact their farming has on local rivers, and the worry that “mega farms” are fuelling the incidence and spread of bird flu, I think I’m quite happy to take the amusing cartoon as the illustration, thank you very much.

The more realistic alternatives would surely be less fun.

Great timing

Thursday was the day that Climate Scientists announced that the world had made it a whole year with an average global temperature >1.5oC above pre-industrial levels. And if you click through on that link, you’ll be able to read about many of the other records that have recently been broken as mankind does its best to trash what’s left of the planet.

It probably wasn’t the best day that the UK Labour party could have chosen to announce that they were dropping their £28bn a year “Green Prosperity” plan, halving the funding due to “the economic climate”. The actual climate isn’t the only climate that is struggling, then.

When you are an opposition party, it’s easy to make grand statements about how much you are going to spend, and all the plans you are going to carry out once you’re in government. No-one can hold you to them, because you can’t do them anyway, because you’re not in power. But suddenly, with Labour surely almost certain to win the upcoming election in the UK, they’re having to backtrack on their promises.

But with the world experts crying out for more funding for environmental and ecological issues, more buy-in and more commitment from governments, the perfect timing of this climbdown was a disaster.

Talking of disasters…

During his 2024 State Of The Nation address on Thursday evening, President Ramaphosa talked up the progress that the government had made in tackling loadshedding, which was running at Stage 2 throughout his speech:

“Since SA’s renewable energy programme was revived five years ago, more than 2,500MW of solar and wind power had been added to the grid, with much more in the pipeline. More than 120 new private energy projects were in development after regulatory reforms enabled private investment.
These are phenomenal developments that are driving the restructuring of our electricity sector in line with what many other economies have done to increase competitiveness and bring down prices. 

Through all of these actions, we are confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load shedding is finally within reach.”

About an hour after he made that statement, loadshedding was raised to Stage 3.
And three hours after that, it was raised to Stage 4.

And now we’re on Stage 6. No electricity for 12 hours each day.

Again, absolutely wonderful timing.

“…we are confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load shedding is finally within reach”

Utter nonsense. Any light at the end of the tunnel has clearly got nothing to power it.