Still going to braai

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It was nice this morning. A gentle breeze scurrying the little fluffy clouds across the blue sky, the sunshine playing in and out behind the vivid spring greens of the local trees. As I set out on my run, I thought “bugger me, this hill gets more painful every time I do it”, and then I also thought “We should braai this evening”.

And so, once back from the run and deciding that actually, no medical help was required after all, I went and grabbed a selected of meat and salad products ready for dinner.

Light it at 4, eat at 6ish. No huge hurry. No huge stress.
Just a laid back braai in the Cape Town afternoon sunshine.

And then the Cape Town weather stepped in:

Yeah, it’s no Hurricane Milton, but it’s also far from the best braai’ing weather. But the tjoppies are bought. The steak is marinated. And the fire is lit. So we’re going ahead, even if it chucks it down:

I’ll do my braai’ing in the rain.

Positive vibes and red wine. And possibly an umbrella.

Big plum

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Yep. The world’s biggest. 464.15g to be exact.
Grown in Waboomskraal, near Prince Alfred Hamlet by local farmers.
Well, who else was going to do it?

“I am extremely proud of our achievement. It is officially the biggest plum in the world and another feather in the cap for Waboomskraal,” Dean proudly wrote on his Facebook page after receiving the news that they have become the Guinness World Records title holder for the heaviest plum.

Another feather in the cap? That does suggest at least a first feather in the cap for Waboomskraal, and while PAH is a lovely place… mmm… I don’t know.

So that was Dean, the farmer. He’s the son of Deon. And Dean has a son called Wean. Of course he does.
This might sound funny, but it’s quite an Afrikaans thing. And I think that these guys are Afrikaans.

[picture some Afrikaans farmers in your head right now]

Aaaaand… Ta-dah!

I can also (like to) guess what card you’re thinking of. But… probably somewhat less successfully.

The world’s biggest plum, then.
Not quite as big as the world’s biggest potato, (wow, 16 (sixteen) years ago) but then, it wouldn’t be, would it?

Niche UK Geography Fun

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Incoming from The Guru:

this link

It’s a multiple guess choice geography game using satellite imagery of the UK and dividing the areas up into smaller and smaller (and therefore more and more challenging) areas. These are based around the administrative structure of the UK, but thankfully, you don’t have to be an expert on that system to play.

I can vouch for those descriptions of the difficulty of the game. After 10 questions on each, I had scored 100%, 80%, 80% and 60% (eek) respectively. And that was with a fair amount of good luck on top of some educated guesses – a couple of football stadiums were of great assistance.
And with 317 local authorities, 650 constituencies and 8694 electoral wards (I have no idea how many “built-up areas” there are), you’re going to need all the help you can get.

It’s hard, it’s fun, and it’s rather addictive.

It’s also a bit buggy, which can be frustrating, but you could always demand a full refund if you’re not satisfied. (Yes, it’s free. That’s the joke, see?)

F@c€b00k removed my post

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This post.

Yes, I know that it was a machine not a person.
And yes, I get the reasons behind this, given the subject of the post and the sort of people that are out there.

But when you look at their messages to me:

How my post is “misleading” is a bit beyond me. The posts on 6000 miles… publish directly to Facebook so that you can access from there, and the biggest fan of this whole operation is Facebook itself, which is constantly (and irritatingly) reminding me to post more on there.

But when I do…

I have broken none of those rules. Sure, you will end up on the blog when you click the links I share, but I’m not trying to hide it. If you choose to click, that’s your problem, not mine.

We all know what you are letting yourself in for.

The other thing here is that they’ve removed my post, even though I’ve published a blog post every day for almost 14 years, and for at least half of those to Facebook, but then you look at the hate speech, AI images, misinformation, spam, the myriad of scams and general crap that gets through, and you think: why me?

And if it looks like I’m somehow elevating myself above other people posting stuff to Facebook, well yes, I am. Certainly above all of that stuff, anyway.

Who knows if this post will be removed as well? I cunningly tried to disguise the name of the social media service in the title of this post so that Facebook won’t know that the post is about it.
I know: you didn’t even notice, right?

It’s also worth noting that Twitter had no issue with this morning’s post. But then their bar on content quality is so low that it’s a tripping hazard in Hell.

So that’s not that surprising.

Horrible news

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An early night last night meant that I woke up to the news of George Baldock’s death.

Former Sheffield United defender George Baldock has died at the age of 31.
The England-born Greece international was found dead in the swimming pool of his house in Glyfada, southern Athens.
Police attempted to resuscitate Baldock at the scene but he could not be revived and medical emergency units confirmed his death, Reuters news agency reported, citing a police official.

George spent seven years at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane, and was one of the team that secured three promotions in those seven seasons. One of those players that epitomised the club: determined and focused, he always gave 100% out on the pitch, but was by all accounts a really down-to-earth, genuinely nice guy.

He didn’t score many, but when he did…

Despite his move to Panathinaikos at the end of last season, he was still, and will always be, a member of the Sheffield United family. And you think of him as a bit of a veteran, because he’d been at United for several seasons.

He was just 31.

UPDATE: This video…