A few things

It’s been a while since i did one of these and my Pocket is filling up again. So…

It’s Springtime! (in the UK) and time to switch to BST. But this isn’t the correct way to put your clocks forward:

And this might work, but is also very confusing:

Pro-tip: Use a whiteboard marker and you can simply use a damp cloth to change the clocks back again in October.

Good news for me on this change is that evening football matches now kick off at a more reasonable time and so I can watch them and still get enough sleep (see below).

However, that good news is tempered somewhat by the fact that their Spring means our Autumn. And the weather has been doing its bit to remind us of the changing seasons. We’re losing 2 minutes of daylight a day in Cape Town each day at the moment, and we crossed the 12 hours daylight/12 hours nighttime line yesterday.


I was reminded of this Soy, Ginger and Chili salmon recipe today. I must cook it again. Today is all about the big boneless gammon joint on the hob, though. The whole house smell of cloves and all-spice (coincidentally also the name of the giant robot formed when all the Spice Girls zigazig-arred together like the Power Rangers). Delicious.


The future is bright: Sheffield United win the Professional Development League (North) for the third season running.

A fact made even better when you look at the whole league table:

LOL – mind the gap!


A Long Read about Long Covid here.

tl;dect (didn’t even click through) – risk of developing LC drops after a secondary infection (UK 4.0% to 2.4%), but that’s still not zero!

and just for reference, 2.4% of the UK population is one and a half million people. That’s a lot of potential cases, and a huge burden on individuals, families and the health service.

Covid really is just like the common cold.

I was out on a run earlier this week and was thinking about how I couldn’t even manage a staircase in the aftermath of my acute Covid experience. Things are clearly much, much better now, although it took over a year to get back to normality. That said: three things I have noticed post-Covid: I need more sleep, my lung capacity still isn’t what it was before, and my memory (which use to be very good) really isn’t as good any more. Especially on people’s names. Other random nonsense (phone codes, capital cities, song titles/bands) – generally fine. Names (famous ones or personal acquaintances) – nope.

Weird.


Stop stacking rocks on beaches (and elsewhere), say SANParks.

…The problem is that people are increasingly building rock cairns to leave their mark or symbol of their presence in a natural setting or for posting on social media. Therefore, when engaging in this activity, it is important to be mindful of the potential negative impacts on the environment, wildlife and other people’s experiences.

Moving rocks and stacking them can disturb the natural habitat of tiny creatures. On the rocky shore, these organisms, such as crabs, molluscs, and algae, depend on their environment’s rocks and other structures for shelter and protection. By moving or stacking rocks, we may inadvertently destroy or disrupt their homes, harming their populations. Similarly, rock stacking can also have adverse terrestrial impacts on insects and moss in wilderness areas.

The article has a (terrible) picture of Agulhas National Park in it. So this is a local thing, close to my heart. And when the kids were younger, we did used to do this from time to time, albeit that our towers were built near the low tide mark, ready to be knocked down as the waves came in, and never for social media purposes.

Anyway. No more. Stoppit.


Lastly for today: a new way to filter flights on flightradar24. This is the update that everyone as crying out for. And it works. From being a very cool tool, its now also massively powerful. You can now get it to do whatever you want (and even more if you pay for a subscription). A lot of the features are in the free Beta version at the moment, but it seems to be stable and full rollout isn’t likely to be far away.

MoE statements

Love him or hate him (or just see him as yet another ANC cadre deployment that will increase the ministerial wage bill while providing absolutely no tangible difference to the issues he is supposed to be fixing), the new Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is certainly making waves.

Yesterday came reports that he had allegedly suggested that the problems at Kusile Power Station were “nothing to do with so-called corruption”, which is ridiculous, but might also be a bit of a misquote. Because he might just have been referring to the issues with the chimneys rather than all the problems with Kusile (Supposed to cost R81bn, now at least R161.4bn; started in 2009, supposed to be fully operational in 6 years, now hopefully ready by 2026).

And then the chimneys broke.

“But, with the issues on the units that have gone out as a result of the structural integrity and design components, they have nothing to do with corruption. This is everything to do with technical designs. There are significant modifications that they are making and I am happy with what they are proposing.”

Yeah, the chimneys fell down because they were made of cardboard and the got wet and soggy. (This is a bit of a joke, but it’s scarily close to the actual truth.)

I say it “might be a bit of a misquote”, because any other reason for this statement would be completely laughable:

The latest quote by the minister shows that he’s right back on track though:

It’s actually amazing that no-one came up with this idea before. Stop loadshedding by having power all the time. This idea was so mind-blowing to me, that I actually tried to apply it elsewhere in my life:

Consistently having lots of money will stop you being poor.

And if you’re more into health than cash:

Consistently being healthy will stop you being ill.

Where has this man been all our lives?

And why can’t he just go back there?

Yes, yes. I know that this is bound to be another misquote, but can’t we enjoy just a bit of fun occasionally?

Justice done

Everyone I know would definitely say:

penguins > geese

Everyone.

I don’t think there’s any need to go over this too much, given that penguins are cute little rocket shitters, and geese include (sort of) the Egyptian Goose, which is very much in my top 2 of Most Hated Birds.

So, I’m guessing that everyone I know would side with the sad little (initially) flightless penguin in this cartoon strip:

As my daughter remarked with a smile:

Goose Confetti!

Those are clearly Canada Geese, which are very much the Northern Hemisphere (I know, I know) version of Egyptian Geese.

They all look very similar when in tiny chunks in the sky, though.