Depressing physics…

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It’s not just South Africa. Everything slowly descends into chaos.

Seriously. Whenever atoms are in any given structure or arrangement, they are displaying unnatural organisation. The universe doesn’t like that and it fights back by reducing everything slowly and surely into chaos.
That’s not such a difficult thing to consider when you’re thinking about a radioactive isotope, but then someone goes and makes this (equally valid) observation:

Depressingly, it’s all true.

Snoopy is rapidly disintegrating and so am I.
And before you start feeling all superior, so are you.

Stellenberg High School at Newlands

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A bit of detective work has helped me find out which school was responsible for “those displays” at Newlands during the rugby on Saturday.

Step forward Stellenberg High School – brilliant.

sths   sths2
Amazingly, people seemed to be watching the rugby as well and there’s not much other documented evidence of their displays. If anyone has any better photos or videos of their performances on Saturday, please get in touch. Meanwhile, here’s an example of the kind of thing they were doing:

This is er… “flashing”: exposing your school blazer or shirt/blouse to “flash” black or white to make a design or symbol.
It seems that a) Flashing is a Northern Suburbs thing, and 2) Hoërskool Stellenberg are pretty damn good at it.

Ashley saves the day

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Wait… what?

Here’s a Trip Advisor review of The Verano Lounge in Brighton. I’ve screenshotted it just in case it doesn’t stand the passage of time for any reason. (UPDATE: Good call – it’s already disappeared)

review

Well done, Ashley Cole. I think we all hate that sort of thing.

Further investigation of Phil L’s Trip Advisor history also gives us this attempted troll:

review2Hmm. Yes. The Verano Lounge story was much better than that Abbey Road one. Let’s hope that Phil L is on the up, as we wait for his next monologue.

Dat line

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The best bit of an otherwise forgettable weekend was probably watching the rugby on Saturday at the crumbling Newlands Stadium.

image
And while even the result of that was rather distressing, it was a good spectacle at times.

Take, for example, the arrow straightness of this Stormers defensive wall – aided by the try line – both of which were crossed soon after this photo was taken.

Silvermine

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A quick trip up to Silvermine (because we were in the area) was fairly depressing. The Reserve is closed and will remain so for the foreseeable future after the huge fire. Because it was off-the-cuff, I didn’t take the camera up (maybe I’ll find time for that tomorrow), so please excuse these phone pics. I think they still give you a pretty good idea of the nothingness that remains after the blaze.

Compare that with this pic from last October. It’s all rather barren and moonscapy.

Here’s some more information on the damage to the infrastructure in the Reserve, and a reminder that its closure has many knock on effects, not least the lack of casual employment for Henry, the car park guard there:

Henry Josephs, the car guard at the reservoir parking, is now without a job.  He has been working there for about eleven years and has become a familiar face.  He has been entrusted with car keys and possessions while folks have gone swimming.  He has learnt a lot about the fauna and flora to pass on to visitors. So he was special feature in the parking area.

Incidentally, if you should wish to help Henry out, his banking details are listed at the end of that post.

Mr Henry Josephs
Capitec
1411156208

as well as the contact details of Sue Frew – Chairperson of Friends of Silvermine Nature Area – FOSNA.

Unsurprisingly, because that’s how nature works, there are some green shoots coming through the grey ash. But they’re few and far between at the moment. Aside from tomorrow’s possible visit, I’ll make a plan to get up there again in the next few weeks to see just how much change there has been.