Wrong way around

Posted on

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

… 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

…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.

Marmoset Monday

Posted on

I very much doubt that this will become a regular feature on 6000 miles…, so enjoy this one while you can.

It’s the slightly belated South African version of Baby Marmoset Friday and (as you can read) probably came from here. In actual fact, the author of that second post then traced it back to somewhere else and additionally (and unsuccessfully) tried to trace it back even further. One can take that sort of “I really, really don’t want to infringe anyone’s copyright” thing too far in my opinion, and filling up an entire post with disclaimers is not particularly interesting. Filling up an entire post describing someone filling up an entire post with disclaimers is probably equally uninteresting. Sorry.

No, looking at baby pygmy marmosets attached to a human finger is where interesting is at.

marmosetbaby 

Of course, there will be the doubters out there who believe that this is actually a photoshop job. Or a bloke with a seriously big finger.  But no – these are real monkeys and they’re real small.

It’s only the 8th and already my June Cute Quota is complete, despite the poo on it’s tummy.
It’s all about misery from here on in, I’m afraid.

Shamans salute dead whales

Posted on

Seriaas?

Sadly, yes.

Yesterday, as a full moon rose over the Cape peninsular, about 120 people gathered at Kommetjie’s Long Beach to honour the whales who were shot there last weekend.
Oblivious to all of this, two whales basked off-shore within sight of the onlookers. Incense smoked and burning candles were arranged in the shape of a fish on the small promenade overlooking the beach,
Local sangoma and shamanic healer Devi Hill banged a Native American drum and chanted a bit as fellow spiritual healer Shelley Ruth Wyndham called on mankind to respect planet Earth.
“We humans are disrupting systems which have taken millions of years to develop,” she said.
She led the small crowd down to the sea where the whales were shot, and the chanting resumed. “We are one, we are one, we are one! Wake up! Wake up! Rise with the rising sun!”
Then night fell.

Andrew Donaldson, Sunday Times

I can’t stand the shallowness of people who attend these kind of events. Hundreds of people are dying each week in SA of malnutrition, HIV, violent crime and other stuff that isn’t included in those three categories that I just mentioned and yet they organise a memorial serivce for some dead whales? Please.
Now I like whales as much as the next man (and I’m assuming he’s not Norwegian or Japanese), but holy crap, these people have got their priorities seriously screwed. And look at the idiots that are doing it. Why have the candles in the shape of a fish? Whales aren’t fish. They’re mammals. Genetically, whales have more in common with Oprah Winfrey than they do with fish, so why not have an outline of a popular American talk-show host on the Prom instead?

And why bang a Native American drum, Devi? What’s wrong with the good old African drum, happily banged for years and years here in Africa? Or were you just showing off amongst your hippie friends? I recognise that “Native American” is a bit of a trump card when it comes to all things spiritual, but rejecting your local heritage is unforgivable.
And Shelley Ruth Wyndham’s rantings are nothing short of idiotic, too. What “systems” (which have taken millions of years to develop) were at play when those stupid animals chose to crash into the beach at Kommetjie? Cos SatNav certainly wasn’t one of them.
And how exactly did we “disrupt” those “systems” by shooting the whales? What were they planning on doing if we’d left them there? Growing legs and sneaking off into Noordhoek to do the Pub Quiz at the Toad in the Village? Leaping up in the dead of night when no-one was looking and opening a successful five-star hotel and spa complex in Misty Cliffs? Or just lying there and suffering unbearable agony until they eventually died?
I know which one my money is on.

Seriously Shelley, stop moaning and get proactive. If humans really are doing so much damage to the planet, then why don’t you do Earth a favour and pop off to join the choir invisible? Every little helps. Can you imagine how much CO2 is chucked out by that incense and those aforementioned inappropriately-shaped candle designs? Or how many small wading birds were unable to get their supper because they were scared off by your fellow idiots’ daft chanting? Talk about disrupting nature.
We aren’t one, Shelley. You and I have as much in common as Jacob Zuma and ‘Dotty’, an eight-week-old Dalmatian puppy living in Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex; as chalk and cheese; as Castle and decent beer. So please don’t think that I am one with you or your foolish friends. Frankly, the thought repulses me.

I really hope that this is the last we hear of those sodding creatures. Yes, it was sad that they crashed into a beach and died. But the incessant whining, accusations and recriminations around the subject are – frankly – beginning to get right on my tits. And this stupid ceremony – as misguided as the whales were a week earlier – really tops it all off. What a waste of time, effort, money and human spirit.
What is this going to do? Is it going to stop whales beaching themselves here or anywhere else again? Is it going to stop them swimming straight back into shore once they are dragged back out to sea? Fools.
If you must do something with your Saturday evening, then make it worthwhile. Make it meaningful. Make it beneficial. Don’t make an arse of yourself by banging a trendy drum and singing on a beach. Because, believe me, crying over dead whales while ankle-deep in ice-cold sea water makes you look like complete idiots.

Linky goodness: Ben Trovato on the Kommetjie Whale Slaughter.  

Note: A whole range of interesting swearwords (across three different languages) were removed from this post before publication, in case my Mum reads it.
This is in keeping with the 6000 miles… terms and conditions as described here.