There goes the election…

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Many people had thought that the ANC might sink to below 50% of the vote in the upcoming national elections. And to be honest, given their performance over the last n years, that seemed like a very reasonable suggestion.

But that was before the ANC asked… er… the ANC to pray for… er… the ANC “to renew itself”.

I can’t comment on all of the other political parties in South Africa (because there really are an awful lot of them), but I certainly haven’t heard of any of the others asking themselves to pray for themselves.

Oops. Missed opportunity right there.

God isn’t going to be looking favourably at any party – no matter how honest they are or how good their policies might be – if their members haven’t been in touch with Him and prayed for self-renewal, now is He?

That’s just not how He works.

So I guess we might as well just hand the election – and what’s left of the country – to the ANC for another 5 years. After all, we’re not just fighting the last of the pre-1994 generation, but also the Lord Almighty too now.

Oh, and the “renewed” ANC, apparently.

Yeah right.

KLM hires private security to get its flight crews to and from Cape Town International Airport

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I mean, from their hotel in Cape Town to and from the airport.
Not from Amsterdam. They have planes for that.

I dunno. This might be a well known thing. It might be a very regular thing. But while we were waiting at International Arrivals the other day, we were watching these two guys from a private security firm hovering between the barriers and the doors, doing security stuff.

We were wondering if some celeb like Ant from Ant & Dec or Romanian football wizard Gheorghe Hagi was going to be coming through the magic doors from customs and be whisked away, but it turned out that they were waiting for the flight crew from KL597. And that made us understand that the bus in convoy with the private security vehicle that we’d seen going into the airport earlier was probably the flight crew for the outgoing KL598.

Now, I know that the N2 around the airport isn’t the nicest bit of road – especially at night – but this does seem a bit drastic. After all, the guys from the Air France flight were left to find a completely unguarded bus by themselves. And literally none of the passengers from both those flights had heavies or goons to get them safely to their hotel. Mind you, maybe none of them made it. We’ll never know.

Has there been a specific incident? Was there a specific threat? Or were these guys actually very clever robbers, picking their targets early on and then stealing all their stuff once they were safely on board the bus back to the hotel.

Of course they weren’t. They looked very professional, and as long as any crook was within arms length and there was no running involved, I’m sure they were very capable of capturing and detaining the baddies, as well.

But this isn’t a great look immediately as visitors enter SA. OK, we might not be Oslo-safe, but really, we’re not in Lagos territory either.

I’d love Capetonians thoughts on this. Is this the way we’re heading now? Because I can’t afford private security detail to get me to and from the airport each time I need to get somewhere.

So I guess it’s just as well that I can’t afford any flights either.

Summed up

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With the visit of my dad from the UK, we were able to enjoy Christmas 2.0 this morning. No point in posting gifts back to the UK when there’s someone coming over who can take them back. No point in posting anything to South Africa, full stop.

If I could be summed up in garments, then this would be very close to a perfect fit (no pun intended). Henderson’s Relish Tee, the iconic (and now “Retro”, sigh) 1990 Sheffield United away shirt, and a 6 Music Dad cap (IYKYK).

Add in the Mushy Peas and the Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts and I’m clearly totally predictable.

And also very happy. Thank you.

You can’t win

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Ah. The magic of the Third Round of the FA Cup. A wonderful opportunity for the smaller clubs to take a pot shot at the big boys.

And it’s great if you are a smaller club. Nothing to lose.

Get hammered? Well you were up against top class opposition. Internationals.

Lose? Plucky performance. Well done. On to the next league game.

Win? Write your names in the giant killing history books. Sutton United. Ronnie Radcliffe. Fucking Wrexham.

Of course, it’s the other way around if you’re the big club. No-one is saying anything incredible about Lille, despite this result:

Literally, you can’t win.

But we did.

Terns

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Busy day so a bit of a cheat and quota photo.

Here’s an image that I took this week of some Greater Crested Terns in Cape Agulhas.

And yes, it does need to be that big, thank you very much.

Nothing very cheaty about that, but I did already share this shot on my Instagram, so if you think you’ve seen it before, well, you might be right.

I don’t often do this sort of thing though, so you should probably follow me on the ‘Gram just to make sure you don’t miss out on anything. Or to catch me out when I try this sort of twice posting nonsense again.