They play this video on the big screens before games at the Cape Town stadium. Fortunately, I managed not to have to ask the man in yellow anything last night.
There was a giant octopus around, but apparently he became distracted by happy hour on cocktails at the Radisson on the way up from Granger Bay.
Thanks @futurecapetown
Twice the fun – well, sort of.
Football Friday returns to Cape Town tonight with the PSL Double Header at the Cape Town Stadium: Vasco da Gama v Supersport United at 6:00pm and Ajax Cape Town v Kaizer Chiefs at 8:45pm and which is expected to get a crowd of forty… forty-five thousand. I’m quite excited about going along to watch, but nowhere near as excited as my son, who has been talking about nothing else all week. He’s been begging to go back to the stadium since his first visit to watch Portugal and North Korea in the World Cup. I would have loved to have taken him to the Bafana Bafana v USA game in November but the 9:30pm kick off time was prohibitively late. (Although, given the level of excitement in that encounter, he probably would have slept through it anyway.)
Sadly, given his age and usual bedtime, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to stay for much (if any) of the second game, but that won’t bother him since I haven’t told him that the second game is on. Clever daddy.
It also gives me the opportunity to put this photo of the stadium on here, taken during the World Cup quarter final between Germany and Argentina last July, which combines my love of things football, things Cape Town and things sunset all in one well-organised collection of pixels. Brilliant.
It also reminded me that I now understand the apathy amongst some people when it came to the idea of Football Friday – the practice of wearing a football shirt on Fridays in the lead up to the World Cup – as Cricket Friday has come been launched. Cricket Friday is the brainchild of the Lead SA initiative: the same people who told us that driving with our headlights on would reduce road accidents by 30%, only to be told that those stats came from Sweden, where it’s dark for 6 months of the year and 75% of all RTAs involve moose, which are notoriously photophobic.
While I’m all for supporting the national team (as long as they’re not playing England), Cricket Friday doesn’t really work, initially because the alliteration which made Football Friday so catchy just isn’t there (in fact, since there are no days beginning with C, they might as well just give up now) and also because Football Friday came on the eve of the biggest thing to hit SA since democracy, whereas Cricket Friday comes ahead of five ODI matches between SA and India, one of which will be washed out tomorrow.
It’s not quite the same.
However, while tomorrow may be Cricket Saturday (see the problem there again?), today is definitely Football Friday and Alex and I will be enjoying an early evening hot dog and ice cream at the Waterfront before heading to Block 225 for some Vasco action.
It’s back to school for many South African kids this week. Not for Alex and his friends in Cape Town, of course. As ever, the Mother City is a little slow to catch up and our lot only go back next week, but Gauteng and the inland provinces are back already.
And how.
Stories of boozing on the way to school, desks being chopped up for firewood and a dagga [cannabis] plantation “the size of a football field” in one school yard. And those are just the sensational stories that made it into the newspapers.
“Hunter’s is the perfect refreshing thirst quencher for any occasion”
Also, I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but they’re also wearing masks. Is that really part of the uniform?
An extra day’s detention right there, I think.
The dagga plantation story was also in the Sowetan along with a picture of the offending crop. Since the paper also named the school, I think you might already be a little late to harvest your share, but if you’re in the local area, then it might be worth a quick recce.
The intergalactic street names in the vicinity of the school in question suggest that the dagga has been growing there for some time – even, like, back when the houses were being built, man. Right on.
We asked people passing by if they were aware that there was dagga at the school and the response was shocking. Everyone knew about the plants. Even a seven-year-old boy said: “I can show you what a dagga plant looks like. People smoke it every day in the yard.”
Give the lad an A for Botany and an F for a bright future. Still, at least he’s learning something.
Meanwhile:
On the front page of South Africa’s largest circulating daily newspaper, the Daily Sun, were photos of pupils from Alexandra High School sitting at the metal frames of what were once desks. According to the report, the wood had been stolen for fire wood.
All of which is highly suspicious, since surely the metal frames would also have been sold for scrap as well. People need money for food, not just fuel for the fire to cook it on.
I don’t know about you, but these sorts of stories don’t fill me with optimism about the forthcoming school year and its chances of success. But then I’m not Charles Phahlane of the Gauteng Education Department, am I?
Because Charles said:
“We are pleased that the first day of schooling in Gauteng proceeded well.”
Which is what is known in South Africa as a Basil Bonner of a statement. Lest we forget, Basil is the official doc in charge of the medical teams for the Annual Cape Argus Prawn Rally Cycle Tour who came out with this pearler back in 2008:
About 65 people had to be taken to hospital during the Argus Cycle Tour in Cape Town, two of them with suspected heart attacks.
“We had two serious head injuries, a third with a fractured hip and pelvis, and two patients, both in their 60s, with unconfirmed heart attacks. They’re in hospital having tests done,” Dr Basil Bonner, head of the emergency unit at the Milnerton Medi-Clinic, said on Sunday.
“Overall, it’s gone exceptionally well.”
Which has to be one of the most inappropriate uses of the words “exceptionally” and “well” ever, in my opinion.
Charles has obviously studied at the Bonner School of Blinkerdom if he can helpfully ignore these drink, drug and desk debacles, although when the media tried to tackle the department on the issues, they was sadly and conveniently unable to garner a response.
Would it be a bit of a stretch to suggest that the department was on a bosberaad, smoking weed and drinking cider while sitting around a campfire made out of Alexandra High School’s desks?
Yes, I think it probably would be.
Just.
Good advice from The Streets with the first single off their fifth and final studio album computers and blues:
If you’re going through hell – keep going
Even as a fan of Mike Skinner and The Streets, I have to admit that their last offering, Everything is Borrowed left me a little cold. It was light and airy without the grittiness of previous albums. And while the easy-going narrative rap was still there, the clever wordplay of their early days was missing. However, their previous work means that this new album certainly warrants a listen and I’m happy to report that if this first release is anything to go by, then the witty repartee is back, as line after line from those motivational powerpoint slideshows your Auntie Hilda keeps sending you is nimbly delivered, urging the listener not to give up.
It could easily be a metaphor for listening to The Streets.
I’m further inspired by Skinner’s promise when discussing Everything is Borrowed was released, that:
The final Streets album (the fifth one) will be dark and futuristic. This could not be further from the album you’re about to hear, but it’s what is on my mind at the moment.
All of which sounds very promising.
computers and blues is released on 7th February 2011. Pre-orders here.
Incoming from my Dad:
Did you know?
Former Blade Jostein Flo is one of very few players to have a move or specific tactic named after him. In Norwegian, it is called “Flopasning” – translated into English as “The Flo Pass”. It gained prominence during a period of the early 1990s when the Scandinavians were ranked as the world’s second best team and utilised a very basic ploy of full-back, usually on the left, sending up a long diagnonal ball up to the totemic Flo.
Though a striker, he would raid down the right using his height to his advantage by heading the ball on for a central midfielder or striker who knew their job was to dart through and test the opposing keeper. Something of a long ball tactic eschewed by purists, it proved highly effective for a prolonged period as defences struggled to formulate a plan and is still used by many Norwegian clubs.
I did, actually.
This was taken from Darren Phillips’ The Sheffield United Miscellany and holds particular relevance for me since I apparently, allegedly resembled the lanky Norway striker (and notably not his more famous younger Chelsea-playing brother Tore André) in those early 1990s. It all came about when a friend in Halls at Newcastle University looked at the poster of my beloved Blades on my wall and asked why I was on it.
Turns out that after a few drinks and in poor light, one tall blond bloke looks very much like another tall blond bloke.
I never really saw it myself – I was far more handsome.
But the nickname stuck and you’ll still see me in one of my Sheffield United shirts – or that of the 5-a-side team I play for here in Cape Town – with the name “Flo” proudly across my back. Back then, it was very popular with fans at Bramall Lane as it was only three letters long and therefore cost less to have on your shirt. His squad number at the Blades was 12, but 21 has always been my lucky number, so I turned that around a bit.
I didn’t know this though:
Jostein Flo was a very good high-jumper during his youth and remains on his country’s list of all-time best practitioners of the ‘Fosbury Flop’ with a leap of 2m 6cm in 1987.
Use it, don’t use it…