Correct me if I a wrong

Posted on

With the election date announced (May 29th, thanks for asking), everything here has become even more politically charged than usual. Voting will be for provincial and national government, but the players are all the same, and so even anything to do with the municipalities becomes antagonistic and polarised very quickly.

Here’s a reply to a Facebook post regarding funding for homeless shelters in Cape Town.

It looks like a keyboard has fallen down a steep slope, bouncing on several rocks and deflecting through the branches of a particularly thorny tree before coming to rest in the midst of a honey badger family, where the junior members have flung it from one to another for an hour or more.

And then one of them hit the POST COMMENT button.

This comment is absolutely unintelligible, but it’s still easier to read and is more sensible and pleasant than most of the stuff you’ll read on social media for the next few months.

Although “spiritual warfare attackers” will almost certainly feature less in that other stuff.
Which is no bad thing.

Correct me if I a wrong.

New shoes

Posted on

Not for me. For Yoshimi. And because Yoshimi has four feet wheels, it means four new shoes tyres.

And they’re not cheap, hey? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
And my imagination is particularly malleable.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_6279-1024x1024.jpg

On the plus side, the last tyres did ok: 70,000km in 4½ years, including a lot of high speed stuff and a lot of dirt roads. Also, I think I got an OK deal, and I suddenly feel a lot safer on braking and cornering. There’s also the added benefit of being less likely to get a puncture anywhere iffy. Like the N2 near the airport. Or any other bit of South Africa.

As you can see above, these new tyres are chunky buggers, ready to tackle the potholes of Cape Town and the dirt roads of Cape Agulhas.

But, given the amount of money I shelled out this morning, really, really carefully.

My shipment on hold

Posted on

Bad news from my email today. My shipment on hold.

Hopefully, it’s not on hold next to the Al Kuwait (actually, she left this morning).

But it’s not great that my shipment sent through smash contains things that are dependent on customs obligations. No-one wants that to happen to them.

Those customs obligations are R16.13. That’s 67p or 85c.
It’s not a lot, but I’m glad that they might want to illuminate me about it.

Something seems to have been lost a little in translation [lol, you think?!? – Ed.] on the next line though. It’s almost as if for some reason, they mistook customs as in the department responsible for taxing products moving in and out of the country, with customs, meaning a way of behaving or a belief that has been established for a long time.

Hence their use of a synonym for the wrong customs and asking me to pay my traditions obligations.

Oops.

What happens if I don’t pay my traditions obligations, though? What are you going to do about it?

Wait, what? The shipment might get back to transporter?!? Not the same transporter that sent through smash contains things that are dependent on customs obligations?!?

I’d better visit their site and adhere to the directions, and then acknowledge the conveyance, sharpish.

He’s Not Wrong

Posted on

Sean Dyche makes a good point:

It’s true. Kids are very impressionable. When I were a lad, whenever we saw anything different or exciting in the football over the weekend, there would be loads of us trying it out in the playground on Monday morning. I wonder how many kids were “moving the ball” (and the foam) before taking their free kicks, after Ivan Toney did it, and after it was praised so roundly by all the pundits?

As we remarked at the time, moving the ball might have been seen as being “a bit clever”. But as soon as he moved the foam as well, well, it was clear that he knew he was cheating.

Sure, it’s not the biggest thing in the world, but it is symptomatic of the way that some bits of football are going. And the well-paid, “celebrity” pundits sitting in the cosy, warm studios are – for some weird reason – encouraging it.
So why not start with the small stuff and actually note that Toney was deliberately breaking the rules, rather than admiring his actions? Just say that it was wrong. You don’t have to want him to be banned for 8 months: he can do that himself.

Also, I quite enjoyed this quote because he’s basically taken three whole paragraphs to just say “Fuck you, Michael Owen”.

It’s something I regularly find very easy to condense into just those four words.

Oh, and also, one more thing: I put this graphic up on our football team Whatsapp group this morning and no fewer than six people agreed with it. All of them dads. We’re bringing up our kids right. Forza.

What a load of BS

Posted on

I’m not planning to go into the city centre today, and that’s a good thing, because parked up in the harbour right next to that city centre (and right next to the Cruise Terminal, nogal!) is the Al Kuwait: a 190m, 16,110Mt livestock carrier owned by Croatian company Korkyra Shipping and stopping over from Rio Grande in Brazil as she heads east.

And she stinks.

According to Marine Traffic, the Al Kuwait is currently reporting a draught of 8.8m, which means that she is fully laden with livestock. This amounts to 23,474m2 of cattle. That’s about 50,000 studio apartments worth of space. And so it’s no wonder the residents of the CBD are up in arms over the whole situation – it’s not just about the smell, it’s clearly pure jealousy about all that extra space, as well.

Pity help the passengers of the Azamara Pursuit…

…who have paid a ridiculous amount of money to sail into the Mother City and experience the fresh, clean Cape air, only to be parked next to this stinking floating farm truck (seen here under her previous moniker, Ocean Shearer – named after the Newcastle United football star’s daughter):

And now social media is alive with the cries of people desperate for the SPCA to board the vessel and check on the wellbeing of the 23,474m2 of cattle, as if this were the first time that a livestock carrier has ever docked in SA.

There are dead, decomposing animals on board

suggested one commenter, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Aren’t human beings just the worst?

decried another keyboard warrior, who only found out that cows went on ships when a smelly boat parked up near her flat last night, but now thinks that the entire thing is terrible and must stop immediately.

Which is all fine, but is also such a kneejerk reaction which you can bet will likely be forgotten by tomorrow, by which time the Al Kuwait will be well on her way to her next port of call, taking her stench with her.