Slow News Day?

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When there’s not much serious news around (or maybe when there is, but you can’t bring yourself to face up to it (see the opening lines of yesterday’s post)), you end up getting stories like this:

Fullscreen capture 2016-01-08 123344 PM.bmpI have to say that for this to have made the national press in the UK, someone must have been trying very hard (no pun intended) to avoid anything to do with politics, the economy or ISIS, because it only really looks a bit like a PENIS. In my humble opinion, anyway. Limited experience. And stuff. Perhaps see a doctor if yours looks like that. I dunno. We move on.

Of course, Cape Town is far less racy than Northampton. No news site here is going to share images of cuts of meat which vaguely resemble male genitalia. No, when we’re avoiding real issues, we talk about the stiff breeze blowing through the Mother City yesterday, with what might just be the biggest non-“news” story ever:

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Yes, sights/sites.

But basically:

Some people come to Cape Town CBD.
It’s rather windy.
They’d rather it wasn’t.
Soon it won’t be.

Behold the excitement.

It’s almost enough to drive you back to all the dramas of the real world.
Maybe that’s the idea.

Drink water fam

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It has been a thoroughly depressing start to the year in South Africa: the economy and the currency are tanking, the exam results weren’t great (allegedly), the heatwave and drought are biting, farmers are suffering, prices are rising (and seem likely to rise further) and all in all there seems to be a very limited amount to look forward to right now.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the “speak first, think later” nature of social media, Facebook and Twitter have reacted poorly, with arguments over everything – some reasonable, many not – as the under- and over-sensitive members of society continue to find myriad reasons to offend and be offended. And if that wasn’t enough, the whole situation is generating thinkpieces and open letters like there’s no tomorrow.

Won’t somebody please think of the children?
Actually, won’t someone please just. think.

But there are still occasional gems if you’re willing to wade through the BS. The heatwave is hitting our neighbours in Botswana too, and the government there is warning their citizens on twitter:

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I’m not sure that the science is absolutely right (in fact, I’m pretty sure that the science is absolutely wrong), but it does get the message across, which is the important thing.
And, because the sun actually is technically a bit closer to the guys in the picture, if you have such beasts in your back garden, make sure you look after them too.

Van Ryn’s

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I don’t actually know who Mr or Mrs (or Mx) van Ryn was (I could look it up and I may well do so, just not right now), but I do know that s/he/they/it makes exceedingly good brandy.

After a busy day in the lab, with further commitments this evening, a quota photo of that distillery’s beautifully presented brandy and chocolate pairing is just what is called for.
Later, actual chocolate and brandy may also be called for, but that’s an entirely different story.

On Making Mistakes…

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Everyone makes mistakes. It’s an innate skill, as The Human League told us, back in ’86:

I’m only human
Of flesh and blood I’m made
Human
Born to make mistakes

See?

Multinational cellphone behemoth Vodacom made a mistake with their billing run last month, resulting in some (or more) customers being billed twice for the same month. Oops. They told me about it via SMS last Friday:

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Not a great start to the year. But now here’s the thing. It’s not the mistake making that is the issue – because everyone makes mistakes, we’ve covered that – it’s how you go about sorting out that mistake.

I have to say that Vodacom sorted out their mistake very quickly, by saying sorry, keeping me informed, crediting me with the missing amount that was debited twice and then telling me when they’d done it. Which was yesterday, right on time:

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They’ll lose marks heavily if they do it again, because one important part of reacting to a mistake and sorting it out is learning from it so you don’t make the same mistake again.

But, given that these things can – and do – and did – happen, I was hugely impressed with their response.
Well done.

No More Shall We Part

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One of the most hauntingly beautiful, yet hauntingly sobering wedding songs ever. And yes, sadly this is the best version I could find with a video.

Here’s the “real” (album) version, if you don’t need moving pictures. (Which I feel you actually do for blogging purposes.)

I heard this on an electronic dance radio show (I know, you do the maths) I was listening to in the lab, and I found that it was a welcome break from the beepy noises, which was actually something of a surprise, because I thought that I was quite enjoying the beepy noises.