Tag: Cape Town

Thinned Quota Sunsets

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No time, no time. And off to play football, so a quick pair of South African sunsets: one from the parkade at Cape Town International Airport and the other from the veld in the Madikwe Game Reserve in the North West Province, both thinned down for your delectation (and so my sidebar doesn’t go AWOL).

Same sun, same country; but a world apart, I’m sure you’ll agree.

tss1
South West [bigger]

tss2
North West [bigger]

Ideally, I would have lined them up so that the suns were directly in line. But I didn’t. And now I don’t have time. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. As long as you haven’t been looking directly at the sun.

Two Hats in Hat Swap Shock!

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Cape Town Mayor and Leader of the DA, Helen “Two Hats” Zille has been nominated as the DA’s candidate for the Premier of the Western Cape in the forthcoming election.

Speaking with sycophantic radio presenter John Maytham yesterday evening, Zille described the move as being “strategic” and expressed her wish for the DA to work “from the ground up” to “set an example of how good governance can work”.

She said if it could run both Cape Town and the Western Cape, voters across South Africa would realise that service delivery is better in regions where the DA is in power.

“It is a project of national significance. We want to run the city and the province in co-operative governance and demonstrate what it possible under those circumstances,” she said, adding that as mayor she was frustrated by stone-walling on the part of the ANC powers in the province.

This struggle between the ANC controlled Provincial Government and the DA controlled City of Cape Town Municipality has long been cited as the reason for delays in service delivery – most especially housing – and for the objective bystander (that’s me) acts as a shining example of all that is wrong with politics. That is, while the individuals elected to serve the people bicker and attempt to score cheap political points from one another, nothing actually gets done on the ground.
This lack of service delivery is obviously because of the Province, according to the DA and obviously because of the City, according to the ANC. It’s playground politics at its very worst.

Zille’s record as Mayor of Cape Town is undoubtedly impressive. However one must remember that the DA remains a political party and be mindful of spin when looking at her claims of success, which she rolled out one after another in yesterday’s M&G article “The DA Saved Cape Town“.
And even if her numbers stand up to scrutiny (and I have neither the time nor the inclination to scrutinise Helen Zille’s vital statistics) then there is still a lot of work to be done by the DA to overturn the ANC’s Provincial rule. More likely, as Linda Ensorstates in today’s Business Day is the DA holding no overall majority and looking to form a coalition with the ID or Cope: something Zille described as “always complex”.

Whether a coalition (such as the one which the DA have used to run Cape Town for the past three years) represents true democracy is open to debate. But it will be interesting to see how many of those barriers to service delivery are removed should the DA control Province and City. And how many more are “discovered” between Province and National Government. Cynics might suggest that the problem will merely be moved upward and onto a larger scale – something that would hinder service delivery to even greater numbers of needy citizens.

Morning has broken

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Morning has indeed broken with Cape Town shrouded in smoke from veld fires in Somerset West:

Fires in Somerset West have flared up again after being briefly brought under control, fire services said. Helicopters were unable to assist in fighting the fires because of the smoke clouds, platoon commander Clive Smidt told News24 on Monday morning.

The fire department had to rely on fire trucks to get the fires under control, he added. About 30 fire trucks were on the scene and more would be dispatched later on Monday morning. Smidt said the fires had been under control, but flared up again because of the wind.

Fire-fighting helicopters unable to fight fires because of the smoke coming from the fires they’re supposed to be fighting? There’s a limitation there: anyone spot it? 

Meanwhile, I snapped a quick pic in the rather ethereal light this morning.


Smokey sunrise

Everything is weird shade of peach, the mountain is still partially obscured through the haze and my car is getting covered in ash. 

EDIT: Here’s the view from town this lunchtime. Somewhere in there is 1,086m of flat mountain. 


Shrouded

EDIT 2: More smokey sun pics at CapeTalk (HT: Darkwing)

EDIT 3: Argus: “arson is to blame“

Saturday night’s all right

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After three of the hottest days that Cape Town has seen in February 2009, the weather has, as they say, “broken”. Some would argue that it was pretty much broken all ready – either that or someone had set the thermostat stupidly high. But no – after thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening my son), we had a Jo’burgesque downpour as dusk fell. So Jo’burg’esque in fact, that I find myself concerned that come first light we will find mine dumps, hijackers and really odd accents on our doorstep. Yikes.
Once again, I was reminded of my homeland. Braai’ing in the rain (chops and porkies, rather than last night’s exotic, if disappointingly fishy, pelican) was something that we had to get used to quite regularly over there.

I’m not sure what the neighbours are thinking after a succession of young women arrived at our house throughout the day. Nothing untoward – actually, we were interviewing for an au pair – but we’ll probably be raided as some sort of drug den or brothel tonight. Again. Although, because the police won’t want to get themselves wet, we might be safe if the rain keeps up.
The rate at which crimes are solved by the police force in Cape Town is almost entirely dependent on the season: 3% in the wet winters, 4% in the hot dry summers. Of that winter 3%, closer inspection will reveal them all to be entirely indoor-based crimes (white collar stuff: fraud etc). Conversely, the 4% in the summer are all somehow beach-related (unlicensed bucket and spade, old bloke wearing a Speedo etc).
Call me naïve if you wish, but I’ve never really worked out why.

The au pair thing went quite well. Everyone had a say in the matter. In a positive indication of his favourite candidates, 2¾ year old Alex hugged only two of the applicants, while his 7 month old sister chose a rather more negative – if equally obvious – method of indicating her opinion by vomiting on 3 of the girls. Between them, they cut the field down quite nicely.

OK. The rain has eased off quite nicely, so I’m off for a late night swim before the SAPS arrive. Apparently, there is a swimming pool in Pollsmoor, but the entrance fee tastes horrible.
Might as well get one last dip in before they take me away.

Is Zuma appealing?

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Well, not to a lot of people as our future President anymore, since fraud and corruption charges were re-instated against him yesterday, following the National Prosecuting Authority’s successful appeal against Zuma’s previous appeal to get the charges against him dropped was overturned.

It remains to be seen whether, having considered the NPA’s successful appeal against Zuma’s successful appeal against the NPA, whether Zuma will now appeal (possibly successfully) against the NPA’s successful appeal which overturned Zuma’s previously successful appeal against the NPA. If he were to successfully appeal, it seems likely that the NPA would appeal that decision. Well, why not?

It’s pure comedy, isn’t it? And add to that the improbable names of Zuma’s lawyer, Kemp J Kemp, and the NPA’s spokesman Tlali Tlali (which isn’t pronounced like you think it should be) and it gets even sillier.  

Many, including FF+ leader Pieter Mulder, are now calling for charges against Zuma to be dropped and some sort of “agreement” to be reached. (I wonder where he got that idea from?)
One only has to look at the effect yesterday’s judgment had on the exchange rates to see that this case has much wider-reaching implications than the freedom (or otherwise) of our dear Msholozi. It’s harming the country and something needs to be done to halt the damage before it’s too late.
For many people, the ideal solution would be JZ stepping down as the ANC leader and presidential candidate before the election in Autumn. That’s not going to happen though. Too many people stand to gain too much to allow something as trivial as fraud and corruption charges and the wreckage of what was once South Africa’s shining reputation to get in the way.

And so, it comes down to a settlement to allow the charges to be waylaid or put aside or dropped or something. Safety first. It’s a wholly unsatisfactory way of doing things, yes, but it might just save the country. Or it might not. Thank goodness I don’t have to make these sort of decisions and have people like Julius Malema to do it for me.

In other more important news, that statue mystery turned out to be some artist wanting to “mix art and nature”. Boring.

Although I will in future follow the correct procedure and obtain permission from the relevant organisations, I will continue to place sculptures in different locations in South Africa and abroad to raise awareness and provoke debate.

Yeah – whatever. Now go and get a proper job.

And, in a poke in the eye for Victorian maritime engineering, Port St Mary lighthouse has been washed away by a big wave.  

A combination of a high tide and strong winds over night dealt a fatal blow to the 19th Century light that has been there since the breakwater was built, between 1882 and 1886.

I could sit here by the fireside and relate a myriad of tales from my childhood, many of which would be about that lighthouse. But that would be rather dull for you and a lot of them would be made up anyway. So I won’t.