A wander around the CBD today, taking in a friend’s photo exhibition…
…and a couple of other art galleries.
Some were excellent, some were typically supercilious.
Top tip for future reference: if the gallery name has superfluous punctuation, you can just choose to avoid the place.
But generally just a good day out playing with the NiftusFiftus.
Buildings.
Creaking staircases.
Aww. Thanks for noticing.
Phew. Almost out of time today, so just time to squeeze a couple of good news stories in.
Our geyser (hot water cylinder) deposited a few hundred litres of hot water all over the front garden yesterday, after a pressure release valve… released. It didn’t come through the ceiling, which was good, but it couldn’t be (legally) repaired, because the geyser was a relatively old geyser.
Still, fair play to our insurers and to Everlight Plumbing, who sorted out the issue with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of efficiency. We now have a new geyser and also we have hot water again. Thank [deity].
And then the final appointment for Little Miss 6000 with the surgeon after her recent op. And a clean bill of health. She even managed her first singing lesson this afternoon, which went much better than we could have hoped. And that’s good, given that she has to perform in a concert a week today.
But now I’m off for dinner, taking my passport for the journey all the way beyond the Hospital Bend and into town. The food looks lovely, but it does also look like it’s being served at a restaurant… in town.
And one that isn’t Dias Tavern.
Scary times.
Dublin, Dundee, Humberside.
Not really, obviously. That’s just a borrowed line from a song by The Smiths. I actually have no idea over the prevailing mindset of the residents of those latter three areas. But I do know that there is some concern mounting over a possible protest march in the CBD this coming Friday.
The reasons for this concern are twofold:
Firstly, the alleged protest is allegedly organised by the same guys that allegedly organised the last protest march in the CBD, at the end of October. That allegedly resulted in widespread criminal damage and looting of shops and informal traders in the centre of town and was only dispersed by the onset of a sudden rain shower, which apparently made the protesters realise that their grievances weren’t actually that grievous at all and they’d all rather head off to somewhere drier.
Secondly, the idea that the alleged march could turn nasty has been seized upon by doom-merchants and fearmongers in an effort to merch doom and monger fear. A digital pamphlet is being passed around on Facebook and by email, warning of “major traffic chaos” and “possible associated protests on the N2”, in much the same way as urban myths are shared by the same means. This plays right into the protesters’ hands, given that their only real objective is to disrupt normal life and get some publicity.
After the October 30th march, infamous alleged poo-flinger Andile Lili warned that there would be 250,000 at their next effort. Given that there were between 3,500 and 6,000 protesters on October 30th, this is either extremely optimistic on his part, or frankly rather worrying. Actually, perhaps it’s both.
Then add to that the fact that the alleged march has not been given permission to take place, given the problems of the previous one, and you have an interesting situation with Lili et al talking it up and the City not even acknowledging that anything might happen. At least, not publicly.
So who knows? To continue the tenuous musical links at the beginning of this post, it could be Del Amitri’s Nothing Ever Happens or it might all go a bit Kaizer Chiefs’ I Predict A Riot.
You might argue that the protesters have already won, given the amount of concern and the number of changed plans that their alleged action has generated. But given the amount of damage that was caused last time out and the likely increase in numbers this time around, maybe they have their sights set on something a bit more spectacular than just making Cape Town’s Friday a bit difficult.
I’ll be watching from a distance. But will you be avoiding the CBD on Friday or will you run down, to the safety of the town?