Good idea

Posted on

Tonight’s plan for a beer and curry night seems to have been one of the better decisions I have made of late. At the time of writing, we’re 60mm deeper in water than we were this morning, and it’s dark and grey and stormy out there, with no signs of letting up any time soon.

It’s already added 87,704,000,000 litres to our dams in the last week.
No big issue with that – I might need to water my lawn in December.

Anyway, the good news is that with a beer expert…

I didn’t know what the word for this was, so I asked Google.

Beerologist, libationist, beer devotee, wert guru, beer maven, beer expert, hophead, pisspot, a tippler, a grog artist, a boozer, a beer buff, a slops surveyor, an ale addict, a hops handler, a quaffer, and the chairman of the brewed.

I was looking for a technical, official term, but I got given this. Unhelpful.

Anyway, as I was saying, the good news is that with a beer expert a pisspot coming over this evening, I have got some different beers in to taste – mostly local, but some from Germany, and one from Belgium – and I have cooked up two moerse curries: a lentil and butternut korma and a great-smelling, masala-style chicken dish. There’s naan, there’s achtar (mango, obvs) and there’s homemade raita with fresh mint plucked from the garden before things out there got scary.

We’ll light the fire up (spoiler – it’s already lit) and play pool, listen to the latest tunes from the hit parade, and enjoy some heartwarming food and company.

Tomorrow might be a little iffy, but let’s deal with that if and when we need to, because tonight promises to be a lot of fun.

Monitoring the situation

Posted on

I played football last night, and consequently, I found myself absolutely broken today.

And yet I’ve still had to do a whole day of stuff.

Eina fok.

So here’s a Water Monitor from Kruger National Park.

He has nothing to do with my predicament today. But he will suffice in being a quota photo, allowing me to get on with going to bed.

Danger Gulls in Scotland

Posted on

Things are getting (more) dangerous in Scotland. And by things, I mean Seagull Attacks. So much so, that now politicians there are calling for a summit to discuss the issue.

See?

How will this help? Will the seagulls be attending? And if so, will they agree to cease their ever more terrifying acts of violent assault on Scottish people – especially the children?

Yes. Exactly. Because they are the ones that are being attacked:

Ms Hamilton said “aggressive” seagulls had attacked seven children in one month last year in Eyemouth, leaving one girl “with gashes to her scalp and blood running down her face”.

Thankfully, this was in the town of Eyemouth and not Carotidartery. Maybe choose to live somewhere that doesn’t give them ideas.

And it’s no wonder that people are scared when you look at the size of the gulls in the article above.

That one is almost as big as a church. And that would be terrifying if it came after you. Although this church (and presumably the massive seagull) are on the West coast of Scotland (in Largs), while Eyemouth in on the East coast. But I do think that I remember reading once that seagulls can fly, so I don’t think that you’re 100% safe even with that geographical assistance.

Anyway, it’s clearly something that NatureScot – the Scottish Nature people responsible for licensing control of the birds and… er… also conserving them – need to sort out. The MPs aren’t happy about their efforts so far:

The behaviour of the SNP’s quango NatureScot confirms they have lost the plot. They have told people to protect themselves with umbrellas and even suggested dogs as a deterrent.

Umbrellas for the birds attacking from above, dogs for the assaults from ground level, I presume.
It really wouldn’t work any other way, right?

The strength of the cross-party support in my debate today should be all the SNP government need to finally act before we see someone killed due to being attacked by a gull.

It’s not clear (to me, at least) how exactly this would occur. Unless the gulls are carrying knives and guns now. And the victim is umbrella and dogless. In which case they were asking for trouble, anyway.

Our seagulls in Cape Town are nowhere near as big or aggressive as these Scottish monsters. Although I would still advise you to take an umbrella down to the Waterfront if you’re headed there this weekend.

It’s going to rain.

Only just started

Posted on

We’ve been back from Kruger for almost two weeks, and I’m only just getting started on editing some photos. There a lot of them and it’s not going particularly well.

Here’s how far I’ve got so far:

This is the sunrise on our first morning game drive. Not even light enough to get any photos of anything else, and – being honest – a bread and butter shot because I was still a bit asleep.

But the sunrises and sunsets up North are pretty special, and this one was no exception.

Coming soon: some pictures of actual animals.

T&Cs apply.

Google Earth is 20 years old

Posted on

Google Earth is 20 years old. I may have mentioned that in the title.

Anyway, it’s not something that I use a lot, but it is something that I when I do use, I think is extremely useful. And they’ve released a whole… “thing”… showing how Google Earth can be used to measure change over time – where the time is… 20 years.

Here it is.

They say:

When we launched Google Earth 20 years ago, our mission was simple, yet powerful: give people a new way to understand our world. Since then, millions of people have been asking Earth questions, big and small, about the planet where we live. It helps us uncover new insights, tell powerful stories, and see the world — and our impact on it — in a whole new light.

Plenty of interesting projects on that link above to see just how useful Google Earth can be.

Go take a look.