Made up quote

Posted on

I spotted on Twitter (yes, it’s still there), and Pocketed it, but after some investigations, this sadly appears to be an incorrect attribution. That is, if it’s an attribution at all.

Obviously, this tweet was hugely popular. 18,000+ retweets, 82,000 likes. Because it describes modern life so perfectly, and yet this was happening 4,000 years ago. It’s telling us that IT’S NOT OUR FAULT THAT THINGS ARE FALLING APART.

But it’s not true. Neither the attribution, nor the blamelessness.

To be fair to Ryan, it’s left to us to assume that he is linking the quote and the image. And it’s a reasonable assumption to make, but he doesn’t actually tell us that’s what the tablet in the picture says.

In fact, the tablet in the picture is more of a accounting book and shopping list, according to the New York Metropolitan Museum:

This tablet is of a type used by the Assyrian merchants to track the income and expenses generated by caravan shipments. The cuneiform text, read from left to right, records not only the amount of silver invested in tin and textiles, but also the less commonly traded precious stone lapis lazuli, which was sourced from Afghanistan. In addition to investments in trade items, these shipments required various expenditures like clothing and wages for guides, as well as donkeys and their equipment and fodder.

What you see in the image above is the Old Assyrian version of Excel. (But it probably crashed less and was easier to use.) What it isn’t (apparently, at least) is some sort of Get Out Of Jail Free card for modern humanity over the mess that society has become. You are not absolved.

Busy day reimagined

Posted on

Apparently, there’s a Level 1 wind warning out for the Western Cape today:

A Yellow Level 1 warning: Damaging winds which may result in localized problems for high-sided vehicles on routes prone to strong cross winds (especially in the N1), exposed high level roads/bridges and risk of localized runways fires are expected over the southern parts of the Northern Cape as well as the central and northern parts of the Western Cape.

See?

It’s not been that bad, but there are a few branches down here and there, an over-confidently placed shoe ended up in the swimming pool, and there has been quite a lot of ear flappery of the beagle variety.

The weather is unhelpful, as half the family is off to an outdoor concert this evening (the wind looks likely to moderate by sunset), and another quarter has outdoor dodgeball training. But before that, one of the quarters which is going to the concert has an outdoor horseriding session in a dusty arena. It’s going to be hectic.
Me? I’m the final quarter and I’m just the taxi service for all these things. And that’s going to involve dashing from Hout Bay to Wynberg to Kirstenbosch to Pinelands (all the exciting places covered then) with minimal time in between.

Except…

Within a couple of moments of one another, the riding and the dodgeball were both cancelled. The former because it was “nasty” in Hout Bay (their words, not mine), and I’m not sure what the weather had to do with it, anyway; and the latter because of the risk of injury from “balls flying out of control and in different directions”. Just sounds like a good night out on Somerset Road to me.

Careful now.

And so, with the concert unlikely to be pulled (international artist, don’t you know?), the fun can continue, and the afternoon has got a little bit easier to navigate through, albeit at the expense of some equestrian entertainment and some important training.

2 days left to enter the raffle at the time of writing: click the link and buy a ticket or ten, PLEEEEASE!

So… looks like a bit of Germany v Japan in my comfy chair for me, rather than trips to Hout Bay and Pinelands.

What a pity.

Cranberries

Posted on

I have been listening back to the Cranberries back catalogue.
I had forgotten just how many songs of theirs I enjoyed.

The remastered version of the No Need To Argue album [Spotify] has truly been a joy for the last couple of weeks. Add a bit of Linger, and it’s near perfection.

I know that The Cranberries are one of those bands that no-one really puts as their sole favourite, but one that most everyone enjoys. So this is your nudge to go and have a listen back to some of their familiar hits.

It’s a pleasure.

This week’s posts summed up

Posted on

Busy afternoon and evening ahead, but here’s a nice, concise round up of a couple of my posts from earlier in the week. Namely this one, and this one.

Indeed.

Sadly, the FA seem to have backed down on the One Love armband thing after threats by FIFA, whose corrupt clown boss “felt gay” just a couple of days ago. And that’s brought annoyance from some people in the UK, who have moved really quickly from “the armband thing is a poor show” through “England shouldn’t even be playing” to “Well football is awful and just should be banned anyway”.

If you thought FIFA were tone deaf…*

* you’d be right. my point is that so are these pearl clutchers.
the damage is done. the message has already been sent.
that it will inevitably fall on deaf ears is not England’s (or any other team’s) fault.

Will I watch?

Posted on

Yes, I will, as I have previously described. But I can’t say I’m very excited about it.

I’m well aware of the human rights abuses and general nastiness of the Qatari regime, but my not switching on the TV for Morocco v Croatia isn’t going to make any difference to how that Government feels about homosexuality. And it was abundantly clear from the very start that this was just a massive, corrupt spend on reputation laundering; an attempt which I think has already backfired massively. Realistically, how many people who previously hadn’t considered Qatar as a potential destination for business or pleasure (no, not those sorts of pleasure – naughty!) are now looking at the nation in a more favourable light?

Exactly.

It’s all a massive f-up and the only good bit about any of it is the football, so I’ll watch that.
However – like Musa Okwonga – it will be without my usual enthusiasm:

After all, a World Cup is something to be celebrated: at its best it is a global event where, for all its excess, society somehow seems to move forward. Witness, for example, the beautifully-curated 2010 tournament in South Africa, which allowed the hosts to take centre stage in hearts and minds across the planet. Or the 2002 World Cup, superbly organised by Japan and South Korea, which saw Brazil win in a style that was true to football’s loftiest aesthetic ideals.

Sadly, though, the last three World Cups – Brazil, Russia and now Qatar – have in succession managed to perform a sort of asset-stripping of the soul of this competition, tearing away much of its sheen and leaving us with its basic elements: that is to say, a well-run series of games that is available to whoever may be the highest bidder.

But, yes. I’ll still be watching.

Although, if I believed in spooky signs from the netherworld, there’s loadshedding right when it’s kicking off. Which could either been seen as a bit of a hint, or could be just because we have loadshedding several times a day, and one (or more) of them was always going to coincide with some of the matches.

You decide.