South Africa’s electricity crisis

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Woo. “Crisis”. There’s a strong word. But yes, that’s what it is.

It’s a complicated story, but it boils down to this: years of poor planning and underfunding, coupled with a healthily growing economy simply means that there isn’t enough electricity to go around. And therefore, in order to protect the national grid from damage through supplying electricity that’s not there and being hopelessly overloaded, Eskom, the national electricity supplier, has introduced load-shedding. This is a system whereby, when demand exceeds supply, they cut power to areas of the country so that the remaining areas can get on with life.

You can see the issues. Industries are in the middle of production runs, businesses are working on computers, residents are cooking dinner. And then – click. All is calm, all is bright. Apart from the bright bit, obviously. 
And you’re taken back to a previous time, before electricity had been harnessed and controlled. A wonderful age, with steam trains, gas-lamps and cheeky schoolboys playing with sticks and hoops and running across cobbled streets in front of horse-drawn carriages. Quaint, but actually bloody annoying.

There are upsides. Generator and candle sales have never been better. But they are the exception in this sorry tale. Businesses can’t cope, they’re losing money hand over fist. Householders complain, but except for the odd case*, it’s actually just an inconvenience. A culture of blame ensues – letters to the local press name and shame electricity wasting buildings and lament the fact that streetlights are left on during the day. Misinformation abounds. Eskom is a laughing stock and it just wouldn’t be South Africa if there was no racial issue in there somewhere:

We always had enough electricity when the whites were in power!

Yes. Of course you did. That’s because outside investment in the country was virtually nil and the economy was held together with duct tape and a weekly prayer to the bloke upstairs.

There is an even darker side to this though (no pun intended). The past participle issue.
How do you describe, when complaining to your drinking buddies, the local paper or anyone who is still bothering to listen to your incessant and pointless whining, what happened when your power was cut yesterday afternoon? Were you load-shedded? Or load-shod?

I shouldn’t laugh, but it is funny when people are moaning. I understand their frustrations, but they start inventing new words. They think I’m making fun of their plight and slap me, which does temporarily halt my mirth, but only until their next use of “load-shod”.
“Load-shod” just sounds funny, while “load-shedded” is clumsy and doesn’t work.

But it’s ok – I can help you out. If you want to avoid these amusing or difficult phrases, just don’t tell me about it.
It’s symbiotic. You don’t get your tongue twisted, I get a nice peaceful morning in the dark. Lovely.

Look – I’m not saying that these power cuts are a good thing.
They aren’t. Power cuts are a bad thing.
Nor am I saying that you don’t have a right to be annoyed, irritated, frustrated.
Of course you do. It’s annoying, irritating and frustrating.
I think that what I’m saying is that since there is no light at the end of the tunnel – literally, it seems – just stop moaning – how does that help? Be a bit more proactive. Work around it as best you can. You’ll live. Really**.  

And never – never – use the word “load-shod” in front of me and expect me not to giggle.

* Standard hysterical over-exaggeration: “What about all those people on life-support systems at home?!?!?!”
** Terms and conditions apply. Like not being on a life-support system at home.

It’s a father’s job, right? Wrong.

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Shameless plug 1: My RSS feed is here. Subscribe now!
Shameless plug 2: Long overdue pics on my flickr.

There are certain things that only a dad can do for his son. Buying him his first razor, teaching him how to shave, driving him to the nearest hospital with a blood bank and so on.

Of course, little Alex is some way off those days. Although that doesn’t stop him experimenting with my shaving foam if it’s not strategically placed out of his reach. He is growing up quickly though and indeed, he starts playschool on Thursday. It was this momentous occasion that tempted me into an extravagant, yet important purchase this lunchtime: A Winnie the Pooh backpack. Too cute.

The boy loves Winnie and since Disney took over the rights to his image (the bear, not my son) and americanized it, there’s no shortage of Pooh-related merchandise out there for parents to waste money on. Yes, it’s horribly commercial, but worth every penny when you see the look on his face (my son, not the bear). And I do draw the line somewhere safely on the sensible side of large purple dinosaurs.

The backpack is great. I brought it home this evening, beautifully wrapped in a plastic carrier bag and presented it to Alex in the living room. He tore it open impatiently, desperate to get a better view of the smiling ursine visage within. 
Winnie may have been grinning inanely, Alex may have been giggling gleefully, but his mum’s face was a picture. A watercolour of rage. Rage, disappointment and a touch more rage. And then a little more disappointment on a sideplate. Would you like fries with that?
Hell hath no fury like a woman mother scorned.
Somewhere just next to my left ear, a little voice whispered, “Oops. You just broke another one of those unwritten parenting laws, didn’t you?” I glanced down to see who it was doing the whispering, just in time to see a fluffy little bunny wabbit blasted from my shoulder by my wife’s laser eyes. I swear I heard it let out a fluffy little bunny wabbit scream.

It has left an unsightly burn mark on my t-shirt.

Alex likes the backpack, although it irritates him that he can’t see Winnie and friends when he has it on. Also, by the time it’s got everything he needs for playschool in there, he won’t be able to lift it either. But these are mere details.

The fluffy little bunny wabbit was correct. If you’re a dad, you must stick to the birds and bees, football and shaving. Son’s first backpack falls strictly under the heading of maternal duties.
Fathers across the world, you have been warned.

Don’t get in touch

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Too many people getting in touch with you from your blog?
Too many frivolousness communications* [sic]?

Well, Mark W Beech has stumbled upon the answer in his brilliantly entitled post, Teach me a lesson:
Make people buy you stuff if they want to get in touch!

I have set up the “contact me” page on this site to include an Amazon wish list full of Very Short Introduction books on all manner of subjects, and encourage people wanting to contact me to buy me one of those books and send me their message as a gift note.

And yes, true to his word, there follows a list of 182 books, each costing about £5.

Yep – that should certainly cut down on the number of “frivolousness communications” he receives.
But that’s not the best bit.

I have – admittedly briefly – scanned his blog back to January 2006 and done some rudimentary calculations and it would appear that his site has garnered a whole 3 (three) comments in that 2 year period.

And two of them were from him.  

I think that if I were to teach Mark a lesson, it would most likely be to not start building that bookshelf just yet.

Please take the time to give him a comment (that bit is still free) and tell him you saw him here.

* 6000 miles welcomes “frivolousness communications”

“The stress is crushing”

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It’s amazing what I put myself through for you guys. I think that if I wasn’t the model specimen of prime physical fitness which I obviously am, then I would surely be suffering some sort of health issue or other related to producing this literary Manna which you so enjoy optically devouring. I put it down to my diet which consists solely of bananas, pizza and Castle Milk Stout and my rigorous exercise regime of Playstation football. I have thumbs of steel.

Anyway, why am I telling you this? Well, I went here and found this:

“The trouble with a personal brand is, you’re yoked to a machine,” said Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik’s who runs the Infectious Greed blog. “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”

And Mr Malik claims that he suffered a heart attack due to blogging stress. Although:

Paul Walborsky, the chief operating officer for Mr. Malik’s company, Giga Omni Media, played down stress as a factor in Mr. Malik’s health. He noted Mr. Malik’s incessant smoking of cigars and cigarettes was a more likely cause.

I think that the astute Mr Walborsky has hit the nail on the head there. This blogging thing isn’t actually so difficult.

You should try getting Mansfield Town through to the Champions League final on FIFA 2007 while eating a banana. Then you’d know stress.

R437 is a poor effort at the Nellie

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From news24:

Cape Town – A man who duped a bartender at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town to serve him with liquor to the value of R437, but could not pay for it, was fined R3 000 or six months on a charge of theft on Monday.
Dean Jacobs, 43, was also sentenced to an additional R3 000 or six months for the theft of a TV set that was attached to a wall at The Bay Hotel in Greenpoint.
Lawyer Sharon Williams told the court that Jacobs falsely informed the reception at the Mount Nelson Hotel in October 2006 that he was waiting for a friend to bring him his wallet so that he could book into the hotel.
In this manner, he was given a bar tab which permitted him access to the bar where he could drink on credit.
It is only when he already owed R437 for drinks, food and cigarettes, that the bartender approached him for payment. In his inebriated state, he admitted to the barman that he had lied and that he had no money.

Among the items listed on the charge sheet were a burger costing R60, eight beers, four Jack Daniels whiskies, a gin and four Amaretto liquers.

A number of thoughts spring immediately to mind here.

Firstly, how thick are the Mount Nelson’s bar staff? Why did the bartender not think to question why Jacobs had a television set, marked “Property of The Bay Hotel, Greenpoint” and still resplendent with twisted wall brackets, on his lap?

Secondly, why did it take the bartender 17 drinks (and a burger) to work out that Jacobs’ “friend” might not be turning up with his wallet? I wonder if it was as Jacobs crossed the unwritten threshold of R436 that the barman suddenly thought he’d better step in and ask for at least the first installment? Thanks to news24’s detailed reporting on how to dupe the Mount Nelson, I may pop in there tomorrow with a stolen tv, then carefully add up drinks and snacks to the value of R435 before I get sozzled, fall over twice and head for the car park.

Working on my average drinking rates, I’m going to say that we’re looking at an absolute minimum of 2½ hours of boozing there. Although, Jacobs is obviously an expert. Still, you can tell how bad things were getting as he slipped from the staples of beer and JD into the shady underworld of gin and almond liqueur. It’s the alcoholic equivalent of allowing one’s standards to drop and taking the ugly girl home from the nightclub. Actually, thinking about it, almond liqueur sounds more like he was ready to take the ugly bloke home… 

Thirdly, why on earth did he not go for a few stupidly pricey drinks at the start? The Mount Nelson is notoriously posh and expensive – to only rack up R437 (that’s about £32 or $63 for my non Saffa readers), well… it’s actually a damn poor show. Pathetic, even.
I would have fined him another three grand just for that.   

Finally, you’d think that news24 (South Africa’s premier news source) would have a spellchecker that might notice the fact that the word liqueur actually has two U’s.

Picky. I know.

Ooh – and photos from Franskraal, as promised in my last post, are now available at my flickr.

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