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A3 v A4

Posted on June 11, 2009June 11, 2009

Mainly for my foreign visitors and those dwindling numbers of locals who persist in suggesting that South Africa won’t be able to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup because of… “stuff”; an excellent set of photos from Rob Gilmour taken from a helicopter* over the Green Point Stadium.

gps

Exactly 365 days from now, I will be in there with 69,069 others, watching the all-important A3 v A4 clash. A win in this first game is vital, given that A1 and A2 have already played in Jo’burg a little earlier and there was a result of some description. It’s 9:22pm CAT, just into half time after an action-packed first half and I will currently be queuing for an overpriced boerie roll and some pissy american beer.

FIFA 2010 World Cup match schedule | Green Point Stadium Webcams | Cape Town Tourism 2010 site

* either that or he’s really tall…

Wrong way around

Posted on June 10, 2009June 10, 2009

Hello.

This week, I am mainly attending a course in the Cape Winelands and therefore will be pretty scarce for the next couple of days. Expect quota photos and not too much writing. I had a rather controversial post about the BNP in the UK lined up – not controversial because I want to be controversial, but because I was actually going to document the fact that I don’t agree with the general opinion on the events of this last week.

I actually thought that the “sad day for British democracy” was not when two members of the BNP were elected to the European parliament, but when eggs were thrown at a democratically elected MEP and he was assaulted and prevented from speaking in public by a violent mob. The former was actually the perfect example of democracy at work. The latter is inexcusable – whatever the views and policies of the individuals involved.
Sadly, the mainstream media don’t dare to voice that opinion for fear of alienating viewers and readers. I find that most of my readers are pretty much already alienated anyway, as this comment from Jo Hein indicates. Tinfoil hat required.

Anyway – I’d love to continue on that one, but because of my commitments elsewhere, comment approval and replies are going to be a little tardier than usual. Man at work. Please expect delays.

Cape Town has been stunningly beautiful this past few days, calm, warm and bathed in winter sunshine. Three years ago, we also had blue skies, but it was windier, as this Sea Point quota photo shows.

qqqw

And of course , it’s exactly one year to the kick off of the World Cup in South Africa. But that’s up in Jo’burg and will be completely unaffected by the prevailing meteorological conditions in Cape Town.

Just to clarify…

Posted on June 9, 2009

… I don’t hate whales.

There seems to be a large number of readers who are under the misapprehension that I am some sort of whale-hating whale-hater. I can only imagine that this foolish error has been caused by people misreading my posts on the recent whale-related incidents down in Kommetjie.
On Sunday, when I commented on the whole mass beaching incident, I described it as “very sad”. I did that because, in my opinion, it was very sad.
In my second post on the issue, I admit to calling the beached whales “daft bastards”. But that was in response to an “expert” opinion on how they got beached in the first place.
And then, a week after the original incident, I made it very clear that “I like whales“. “I like whales”, I commented. And I did that because I like whales.

Reading back, I simply cannot see where the scurrilous and inaccurate rumours have come from. I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that there is nothing I like to see more than watching magnificent creatures frolicking and cavorting around in the shallows. If there is more than one of them splashing and playing in the waves, that’s even better as far as I am concerned.

sww
Shallow frolicking

I sincerely hope this sets the record straight and we can move on now.

Less about rugby…

Posted on June 8, 2009June 8, 2009

…more about insults.

Oh dear. Eric Janssen’s Southern View Rugby Blog at The Telegraph has really set the cat amongst the pigeons by “mocking an entire nation because of attendances at rugby”. But I actually found it pretty funny, if a little contrived at times.

Look back to the 2005 tour to New Zealand … grown men were crying in the pub because they did not have tickets to see one game – any game, not even a Test – featuring the men in red.
I’m told South Africans are blaming high ticket prices for the low attendances, but get over it. There are many ways to save a few rands to buy a ticket … don’t throw a whole damn kudu on your bbq next time; drink fewer disgusting brandy and cokes; give the escort agency a miss next week; save legal costs by not shooting someone soon.
Tickets were far from cheap in 2005, but that did not stop people – real rugby fans – from filling the stadiums.

Firstly, he’s right on the attendances. They have been shockingly poor. Embarrassingly so. Either that or the SA rugby fans have been cunningly disguised as plastic seats. And this is weird, because generally, the fair-weather South African rugby fans turn up in big numbers for big rugby games. And surely the much-anticipated British and Irish Lions’ tour is about as big as it gets?
But then, as Janssen states:

…provincial sides stripped of all their current Springboks are making the warm-up games virtually meaningless. It’s a disgrace.

Janssen’s view on SA are stereotypical and exaggerated – attempting to elicit a response, which they have. And he knows which buttons to press because he lived here in SA for a good few years. But I can’t believe that the locals are so up in arms about the whole issue. Take a joke. Because it’s funny.
And if you want to be all serious, then if rugby and pride in your country are so very important to South Africans, why are so many of the stadiums empty on this tour?

There were far fewer complaints when he described the (Gauteng) Lions as “a pathetic bunch of Skoda-driving, sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, lentil-eating, polyester-wearing, greased-hair weasels” and “a feeble collection of player-wannabees” last week.

Mind you, I think he understated that a bit.