Have I won?

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After the misery of yesterday’s Wembley play-off defeat, I’m all ready to give up football for good.

Ja, right.

But I could do with some good footballing news to take away a little of yesterday’s hurt – and I may just have got it.

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Following a mysterious call to my cellphone a few days ago, I have now received an email telling me that I have won tickets to the Confederations Cup next month. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t like the “You’ve won the Nederlandse Staatsloterij” emails that you and I are always getting. (I have now secured over €1bn on the Dutch Lotto without having spent a single cent. It’s great value for money.)

No, this email appears to be from a competition that I actually entered and they don’t need $300 to let me have my prize. Also, the email originated in South Africa, the telephone numbers match up and there were no spelling or grammatical errors. If it is a phishing scam, it’s a damn good one. So good that I’m almost tempted to give them the information they need.

I’m still not completely convinced though, so watch this space. I refuse to get excited because I very rarely win stuff. My biggest haul ever was a month’s supply of breakfast cereal for winning a quiz on KFM. And I had to chat to Nic Marais to get that – I surely deserved more.

Maybe the reason I rarely win stuff is because I rarely enter competitions. Although, that means nothing, as my Nederlandse Staatsloterij success proves.

Why I heart technology

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So today is the big day when the red half of Sheffield and the claret and blue whole of Burnley descend on Wembley Stadium in London for the Championship play-off final – a match worth anything up to £60 million to the winners.
I did want to go, I did look at flights, I did not think I could afford it. So I’m watching on TV.

My dad and my brother are going though. Lucky bar-stewards – they’re almost through Nottinghamshire on the M1 already.

The plan was for them to park at Watford and catch the metropolitan line through to Wembley Park. Which would have been great, except for the Bank Holiday engineering work which means that line is closed.
Cue a mildly concerned sms from my Dad and cue me swinging into action.

First, check the reports of engineering work on the real-time interactive tfl tube map. They’re true. Moor Park is utterly buggered.
Then, use the regular tube map to choose an alternative route.

Use Skype to  call Dad on his cellphone and suggest Hillingdon as an alternative. He asks for a postcode for the station, which I google and find, then sms him via Skype as we chat. He types it into the satnav and they have instant directions.

5 minutes from that first sms: sorted. All from 6,000 miles away. I heart technology.

Now, COME ON YOU RED AND WHITE WIZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAARDS!

Winter Fashion Tips

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Well, we’ve been through just about everything else at one time or another on this blog, so I think it’s probably time we tackled the thorny issue of what the refined gentlemen of Cape Town should be wearing throughout our winter months (July and August).
I don’t want to try and be too avant garde with my advice: I do find some of the more outlandish designs that one sees on the catwalks of Milan, Paris, London and Boksburg trying to be “different”, can often appear just a little foolish or even distasteful.

In addition, functionality is key for the modern man about town. All too often, one can be caught short without an umbrella or urinal in sight. And when it’s raining or you are desperate to answer a call of nature, that can have potentially day-ruining effects on your hairstyle or your trousers. We’ve all been there, right?

Right?

Anyway, whatever: it’s without further ado that I give you the bucketat.

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Part bucket, part hat. Bucketat. A stroke of genius, I’m sure you’ll agree. 
Available in a range of colours from your local toy store, beach shop or builder’s merchants (for larger sizes).
Mr Men t-shirt and model not included.

Mud & Sunsets

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It’s been a great afternoon. About half way through the Bulls versus Crusaders Super 14 semi-final, with the score a tantalising 27-23, Mrs 6k decided that it would be a good time for us to take the kids up to the local school field, let them run around and let me not watch the end of the rugby. Her plan was extremely successful on both counts.
But I’m glad we went. The kids enjoyed the mud on the churned up fields after the morning school rugby games and I booted a properly shaped ball around, chased Alex and took photos of the sky and the mountains.

I was even allowed to look up the Bulls score on the way home. Result. Literally.  

I was working hard on the first Peroni of the weekend when I glanced outside to see a completely orange sky. Now, I’m very used to blue, quite used to black with tiny white dots in and sadly, becoming used to grey again, but orange is still a bit of a novelty.

Quickly grabbing the point-and-shoot camera – mainly because I wanted to take photos and it’s the only camera I own – I ran outside, climbed on top of the braai, pointed and shot. I should probably inform readers at this point that we have a built-in braai and it wasn’t a Weber or one of those rubbish disposable things. That would have taken a monumental amount of balance or made absolutely no difference to my overall height whatsoever. Or both.
No, our braai is pretty big.
Fortunately the sky is also pretty big and I was able to not miss on a number of occasions. This probably being my favourite hit.

Although I quite like this one too. You can see the whole lot of them on flickr and make your own decision.

And once again, I must remind you lovely people that taking good photographs in Cape Town isn’t difficult. Most of the work is done for you. So yes, despite the fact that I think some of these are “good”, once again, none of them are exceptional. And, once again, I’m left wondering if I can at least partially overcome the paucity of my talent by buying a better camera.

The alternative, of course, is to spend that camera money on beer, and then see if my creative abilities are augmented by imbibing (what I calculate to be) about 1,000 bottles of Amstel. Being a scientist, I am tempted by the idea of exploring both possibilities as fully as possible.