Moone Boy

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I found Moone Boy on one (or more) of my trips to the UK this year. Not strictly in the UK, but on the Emirates flights there, and, quite possibly, back. It’s Irish, it’s original and it’s really funny. Not Emirates. Emirates is Emirati, works to a mildly innovative, but otherwise unremarkable basic international carrier business plan and is less amusing.
No, it’s Moone Boy which is Irish, original and really funny. And rather surreal in parts. I’m going to stick my neck out here and suggest that it might even be this generation’s Father Ted. Yes. It’s that good.

Here’s Martin starting “big school”:

Chris O’Dowd plays the imaginary friend of Martin Moone. No-one can see or hear him apart from Martin (this elaboration just in case you weren’t aware of how imaginary friends work), and – through the magic of TV – the viewers. It’s a semi-autobiographical account of O’Dowd’s own childhood in late 1980’s Ireland. It has the infamous Sultans Of Ping FC 1993 track Where’s Me Jumper as the theme music and it’s properly amusing.

So – why am I telling you this? Well, because it’s coming to SA next month. With DSTV having revised and improved its BBC offerings with the addition of BBC First (featuring programmes like Doctor Who and the latest drama from Benedict Thunderbeagle), there’s more space for other stuff on BBC Entertainment, which is now BBC Brit and will feature this… er… Irish comedy.

If you have a vaguely twisted sense of humour, and you’re willing to give it a couple of half hour episodes to learn a little more about the characters (and yes, I’m aware that people on long haul flights in and out of Dubai have considerably more spare time at their immediate disposal), you’re going to really enjoy this.

It starts next week. Please give it a go.

Snake Take 2

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Busy day? Busy evening? Quota photo time.

And it’s back to San Bona to a Cape Cobra (Naja nivea) (nothing to do with skin cream) which the rangers had found near the main entrance of the camp and were going to relocate to some distance safely away from the main entrance of the camp.

But not without showing the tourists first. When brought out of the box they’d placed him in, and (ever so) gently manoeuvred with the snake hook, he reared up to give us a proper display.

Bigger on black here.
More San Bona here.
More recent snake here.

Thank you rangers.
Thank you snake.
Good morning Yvonne.

See you tomorrow.

Sadness in her eyes

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It’s coming to the end of another school year, and it was the annual prizegiving ceremony for my daughter today. At this age, everyone gets a certificate and a round of applause – a celebration of their varying levels of various achievements. Only once they get older does the Hunger Games style competition kick in with the select few being picked out for individual honours. For the moment, everyone survives. Mostly.

While it’s a happy time, with the kids already sensing the demob happy chaos of their final week, it’s also sad as the ties between kids and their teachers have to be broken as the students move onward and upward. For many reasons, Scoop and her teacher this year have had a particularly close bond, and there were a few tears as Scoop was selected to present some flowers to Mrs M.

It’s not like they won’t see each other again (for starters, they’ve got another 7 school days together): their respective classrooms are virtually next door to one another next year. But it just won’t be the same.

We owe Mrs M a lot. She’s set the foundation for Scoop’s entire academic future. And it looks rosy.
No pun intended.

Outrageous

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It’s all the outrage these days to be outraged about things. It’s driven by social media, and fuelled by the websites of the local tabloids and the brain-dead, act-first-don’t-think-later people who populate those places. It seems that people are almost going looking for things to become upset by, a sort of Münchhausen’s Syndrome for the modern generation. And the things that people are getting outraged by are getting smaller, pettier and ever more difficult to predict.

We had this over a misread price label, we had outrage over the outrage over the reaction (or lack of reaction) to the Paris attacks, we’ve had people trying (but not really succeeding) to light outrage fires, and we’re going to have outrage over something else today. Probably.

But I got thinking (foolishly) about the stuff that we haven’t had outrage over yet. Stuff that, given the current climate for instant up-in-arms-ism, you’d have thought would have set the masses off.

  • The carbon footprint of the light aircraft that flies over Cape Town during rush hour, and over Newlands during rugby and cricket matches, towing a big advertising banner behind it.
  • The company that it advertises on the big advertising banner it tows behind it 90% of the time, which is a lap-dancing club.
  • People wasting water. As the so-called “water crisis” bites harder in SA, why has no-one come up with the #watershaming hashtag yet? When we had no electricity, people were quick to point out those being wasteful. With water shortages in 4 (is it 5?) provinces already, why has the same not happened with water?
  • The police vans that push their way through the traffic on the M3 each morning, taking inmates from Pollsmoor prison to court.
  • iTunes. All of it.

And that’s just for starters.

I’m both surprised and irritated that these things haven’t been considered adequate fodder for widespread outrage. Not least because I’d like to see something done about iTunes.

Comedy

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Aside from my favourite BBC Radio 6 music show, Nemone’s Electric Ladyland, I have also been listening to some excellent UK-based comedy in the form of The Pin, a slightly surreal sketch show, which regularly accompanies me home from work through Newlands Forest. You’ll have to be quick if you want to get hold of the 4 episodes in the series though, they’re going to drop off iPlayer soon.

In addition, UK comedy of a more visual nature is the brilliant Channel 4 series Bad Robots. It’s on DSTV, channel 120 most weeks, but you can also find full episodes on Youtube by searching for “Bad Robots”.

Here’s their tourist information “bot” at Cardiff’s Millennium Centre. You may also like to add the additional search term “Garden centre” for some more funny clips.