OK, I have a daughter to pick up about 10, but other than that.
But staying home mainly because I am completely broken after football last night. Everything hurts, to mangle an REM song. Sure, we got soundly beaten, but I ran around an awful lot, and if I’m absolutely honest, we really didn’t deserve the scoreline (which I’m not going to share). Neither did I deserve the nice stud mark above my right knee and the associated bruising, but that’s just one of those things.
I’m willing to admit that most of the pain is self-inflicted, though.
Ostensibly, this is – as you can see – a plan to fight the city’s overtourism problem. And we’ve heard a lot about the clashes between tourists and locals recently. Must be equally nice and awful to have that sort of problem. But I’m not sure that Barcelona needs the money quite as much as Cape Town does. So shutting down two of your seven!!!!! cruise terminals might be a viable option to cut tourist numbers to some degree.
But then look down at that last paragraph: green power supplied to cruise ships while they are berthed. And while that doesn’t remove the tourists (the two closing cruise terminals do that) or the visual distractions, it might at least reduce the amount of pollution that these ships add to the ports in which they are staying.
Perhaps, since Cape Town is seemingly (and reasonably) anxious to grow our local cruise ship business, we should be looking at providing a similar green energy policy and hook-ups for the cruise ships visiting the Mother City? We have wind, we have sunshine, and we could place something right down in the port area without the need for extensive infrastructure like power lines. Given how much money the cruise ships bring into the city, surely some it invested in making them a greener way of accessing Cape Town – and protecting the health of the local population – would be no bad thing.
Ghost signs are silent storytellers, etched into the very brickwork of our communities. These faded, hand-painted advertisements offer a nostalgic glimpse into bygone eras, snapshots of commerce, culture, and everyday life. One striking example lives on the gable end of the Cocker and Carr building: the “Natural No. 1 Processed Peas” sign. Timeworn but enduring, it speaks volumes about the area’s local identity and trading history. Its survival is thanks to the resilient oil-based paints of the past, whose pigments have weathered decades of wind, rain, and urban change.
Wow. Quite the intro. And yes indeed, there is an old sign advertising processed peas on the gable end of the building in question:
There used to be an advertising board on that gable end, and when it was taken down, the previous advert – for No.1 Processed Peas was revealed.
I’ve no idea how old it is, but we’re probably looking at some time in the early/middle bit of last century. Sadly, it seems that the manufacturers never considered just how vague their product name would be in an internet search. Frustrating.
And great news: the plan is now to find some means of safeguarding this piece of urban heritage, so that it remains as a reminder of the past – even if it is just an ad for some tinned peas.
Preserving it is more than just restoring a wall, it’s about protecting a piece of living heritage.
I couldn’t agree more. We’re far too quick to destroy and discard these sort of historical pieces. And while stuff like this might be a bit mundane, it’s also completely irreplaceable. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s not doing any harm up there on the wall. It’s not offending anyone or getting in the way of anything, so why not preserve a bit of history?
(And while they’re at it, maybe tidy up the rest of the wall, too?) (Just a thought.)
There’s actually a heritage building being restored very close to our home here in Cape Town, which I’m delighted about. It certainly beats having 8 soulless townhouses squeezed onto a tiny footprint like they’re doing everywhere else. And once it’s finished, it will be a real icon – alongside a wonderful family home – and will be preserved for generations to come.
My only issue is that saving heritage housing does apparently seem to be a rather noisy endeavour.
If they could do something about that, it would be nice.
The BBC Sounds app has closed for me and the other people living outside the UK. I’m sure that you could slip in the back door via a VPN, but the BBC are (allegedly) rather good at spotting those things and not allowing them to work.
The signs of trouble were there this morning when I was in the gym, as the app glitched onto Radio 4 Xtra, and gave me a bit of Steptoe & Son while also still playing Hit by The Sugarcubes on 6Music:
Sample lyrics:
I’ve been hit, with your charm. How could you do this to me? You dirty old man!
But mixed messages aside, just a couple of hours later, it really was gone:
Ironically, when I clicked through onto that new app, I found that Radio 4 was about to broadcast this show: 6. The Only Friend That Mattered.
Ouch. Way to rub it in, guys…
But don’t worry. Hakuna matata. Nem panikus.
There’s still a perfectly legal, perfectly straightforward route to listen live to your favourite BBC radio stations – including 6Music, wherever you are in the world: here are the details.
Let me save you some time: here’s the direct link for the 6Music feed through your internet browser. And it’s working for me. Three dots in the top corner, save as shortcut to your home screen, Bob are your uncle. The logo even looks the same.
Sadly, there is no obvious route to listening on catch-up or for downloading shows for those of us outside the UK. Aside from trial and error with a VPN. And (allegedly again), that can often be rather hit and miss and somewhat tedious. Or so I’m told, etc etc.
I’ve also just tested whether I can still get 6Music on my smart speaker (IYKYK) and yes, even right down here in the far bottom corner of Africa, that’s still working fine. Whether that will continue (I actually don’t know from where it plays it, it just plays it), I just don’t know. Time will tell.
This hasn’t been a clean break: some of the links from the new feed pages don’t work, although the actual feeds are fine. If the site thinks you’re in the UK, it tries to take you to the app, but then the app doesn’t work. There are clearly some issues that need to be ironed out, and whether that will affect our ability to continue to listen from overseas remains to be seen.
Maybe both, depending upon your list of preferences for your luxury holiday? Weirdo.
But I get it – people’s opinions differ.
They are an essential for the tourist economies of the ports that they visit, including here in Cape Town:
The cruise industry contributed R1.32 billion to the Western Cape economy during the 2023-24 season, up from R1.2 billion the previous season, despite a slight drop in ship calls.
Cruise passengers, vessels, and crew generated R1.5 billion in expenditure, supporting 1,965 jobs across sectors like retail, hospitality, and tourism services.
With the new cruise season underway, Cape Town and the Western Cape is set to enhance its role in the global cruise market, driving continued economic growth and job creation in the region.
In this economy, you simply can’t ignore the positive effect of that much money and that many jobs. But there is also no doubting that cruise ships aren’t particularly nice if you’re near them, not on them.
Visually, for a start. Ironically ruining the vistas of the places that they are visiting so that passengers can see the vistas:
The poet and filmmaker Odveig Klyve has lived for several decades in Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway. The city encircles its harbour, on hillsides that slope down to the seafront. It has been a site of international commerce for hundreds of years, Klyve said, first for herring fishing, then international shipping, then the oil industry. “It has always been a city linked to the sea and what the sea can give,” she told me recently. In the short film “View,” Klyve also shows what a maritime enterprise can take away.
It’s 4 minutes of simple shots and sounds. Well worth your time:
It really is like someone building a 15 storey block of apartments right on your heritage doorstep. No planning permission required. Horrific.
But it’s not just the views which are compromised. PLENTY of research shows us that cruise ships are one of the worst forms of transport for creating air pollution. And when they end up on your doorstep – as they do in Stavanger and Cape Town – they are particularly bad for the local air quality.
Air quality measurements taken last week when cruise ships – such as NCL’s Norwegian Star – visited Cobh, in Ireland’s Cork Harbour, show air pollution levels up to more than 250 times higher than safe levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Air pollution caused by cruise ships during the hotelling phase in ports represents a significant source of emissions. The hotelling phase refers to the period during which ships remain docked and keep their main and auxiliary engines running to supply power to onboard systems. Numerous studies have shown that this practice significantly contributes to emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), particulate matter (PM), and carbon dioxide (CO2), degrading air quality in port areas and surrounding urban zones.
The emissions from cruise ships were increasing the annual concentration of NO2 in the port area by up to 31% at ground level, and 86% 50 m above the ground in comparison to the urban background level. The short-term impact of cruise ships was more pronounced with local exceedances of the hourly European limit value for NO2. Increasing cruise ship activity in Copenhagen port leads to air quality deterioration on short time scales with implications for human health.
Toxic air pollutants from cruise ships around ports are higher than pre-pandemic levels, leaving Europe’s port cities choking in air pollution, a new Transport & Environment study shows. Despite the introduction of the UN shipping body’s sulphur cap in 2020, last year Europe’s 218 cruise ships emitted as much sulphur oxides (SOx) as 1 billion cars. However, at the port of Venice air pollutants from cruise ships fell 80% following the city’s ban on large cruise ships.
These chemicals aren’t invisible pollutants, but they aren’t quite as obvious as some ships’ toxic fumes, and so they will often be overlooked, except for by scientists and by those with health issues which are acutely exacerbated by nasty pollutants.
I’ve lived in a couple of big tourist cities in my life, and I’ve watched as the tourists’ levels of consideration for the places they visit have dropped over the years, as a general lack of respect has taken over, and society has rapidly devolved into the cesspool that we see every day online: full of narcissists.
More and more, the cities and sites that they come to are seen as places that are privileged to have them visit, rather than a privilege to visit. And while I’m not specifically blaming the actual tourists for this cruise ship pollution, if they don’t really care about the way that they behave while they’re here, they’re certainly not going to give a toss about the huge amounts of sulphur dioxide that is being chucked out by their transport.
After all, as long as it’s perfect for their visit, that’s all that matters. No matter how they got here: plane, ship or… actually, those are pretty much the only two options for Cape Town.
So yes, we need the cruise liners and their visitors and their money. Just at what cost?
