New funding

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Great news on funding for the Notting Hill Carnival.

A whole pound. I’m sure that will make all the difference with those “critical public safety concerns”.

Don’t spend it all at once.

It reminded me of the story when this guy missed his jugular vein by “just” 1m.

I don’t know if it was meant to be a centimetre or a millimetre, but either way, it’s clearly not much of a story if it’s a metre, given that that is pretty much the distance from your neck at which chainsaws routinely operate.

Just like I’m not sure if that’s actually a million pounds above, but it certainly would be a story if they’d saved the Notting Hill Carnival by finding £1 of extra funding.

Of course, there’s a bit of a more serious issue here: the continuing slide in standards of journalism.

But at least it makes for decent blog fodder.

6Music. It’s going, but also, it’s not.

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Here we go.

We knew this was coming. And we know that the replacement for BBC  Sounds is the BBC app, which won’t allow me (or anyone else outside the UK) to listen to 6Music.

And that’s still true.

But there is a link in this article which… (unless I’m missing something) allows you to listen to 6Music – just not on the BBC Sounds app.

So this was never about a rights problem with the music, then?

But hey, that’s absolutely fine by me. I will still be able to listen to 6Music here in SA, and that’s all that matters.

To me, at least.

I can’t test it just yet, because it links straight to the BBC Sounds app – which still works.

Until July 21st.

But… but… this is fine.

Isn’t it?

The journey home

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Back in Cape Town, where the internet works [nervously checks – yes it does] and it was a lovely journey home. We punctuated it with a few stops along the way. Some planned, like this one to get some shots of what’s left of the shipwreck:

And some less planned, like pulling over to get some shots of the rainbows over the South Atlantic:

And then this guy, who was bothering the teals, ducks and geese in the flooded fields between Struisbaai and Bredasdorp.

We spotted him, pulled over, and we thought we’d missed him before we heard that haunting, spine-tingling call (if you don’t know, click here). Geese (x2), teal, ducks, stilts, ibises (x2) and a Fish Eagle, all within 20m of the highway. All you have to do is stop, get out and look. It’s all right there.

He even went and sat on a nearby power pole (one of the ones that burned down here, I think) for us afterwards.

Sponsored by Kodak, as they used to say.

The rest of the journey was less exciting, but the Overberg is already showing signs of spring with the canola fields starting to erupt in colour.

Just another two months of rain to get through…

A trip full of hard work, but with just a bit of leisure time at the end, and a sparklingly clean cottage to look forward to for our next trip.

I have learned nothing

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The internet is back. It came back this morning, and it’s been here every since.

But I have learned nothing. I’m still leaving it late to drop a post in, even though the internet could disappear again at any moment.

And it might, because the weather locally has been quite… “exciting”.

The locals here are moaning about the state of the road out to the village, as if they are some special case that deserves to have their potholes filled and the municipality’s grader at their disposal immediately that there’s a bit of rain.

Especially the guy that EMPHASISES some of his WORDS in every message by using capitals somewhat RANDOMLY!!!

Honestly, it’s not that bad, especially when compared to the rest of the province.

[It was at this point that the internet connection completely disappeared – my deity, I’m such a muppet sometimes]

The cottage has been completely spring cleaned and we’re sitting in front of the fire and looking forward to some dinner.

And the internet is back so I’m uploading this RIGHT NOW!!!

On Edge

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A last minute dot com trip down to Agulhas through some truly horrible driving conditions, in order to prep it for an upcoming visit later this month.

It’s been a while since we’ve been here and there are a few jobs that needed doing and lot of cleaning – neither of which could really wait any longer.

And so here we are.

But I’m on edge. Nervous because the internet here is slower than a blonde chick trying basic mathematics, and I’m worried that this post is going to be difficult to upload.

It’s late, it’s dark, it’s wet and the only road out of here towards better signal is full of mud and potholes.

You know I’ll still do it if I have to.

But there’s no 5G here. No 4G, LTE or even 3G, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (have I remembered that right?) (I’d look it up but I only have EDGE internet).

So is this text only blog post going to upload without troubling me to go out into the night?

Only one way to find out. But of course, you’ll not know the difference anyway.

Let’s give it a go.