Tag: Cape Town

Another reason to buy in Zone 1

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City Centre living. It isn’t for everyone. And if Cape Town is anything to go by (and it is), it’s damn expensive too.

But other than the convenience of your office being right on the doorstep, what else is there to justify the massive price tag?

I’m sorry, did you say “immediate obliteration in the event of a nuclear strike”? – that sounds perfect!

Not that there’s likely to be a nuclear war, of course. The two guys controlling about 90% of the world’s nuclear missiles seem decent, sensible and reasonable, and not at all deranged.

Yeah. Maybe it’s worth that extra million quid to get that little place in Westminster. Far better than the prolonged agony of the daily commute (and then the protracted dying, should the worst actually happen) of the outlying areas.

How does this relate to Cape Town? It doesn’t really. Missiles can’t reach this far, and if they could, we still have a big mountain to hide behind, and the South Easter will take all the radiation away within a couple of minutes.

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Graphic from here.

Not enough

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Bit knackered this evening. But I’ve worked out the reason why.

Getting back into the rhythm and routine of the school term shouldn’t really be a struggle, but it seems no-one has told my body that.

Can’t keep going on like that.

But…

On the plus side, I had a great drive around the peninsula today, with some great colours and occasional wildlife on show.

More of that another time though, as there’s a goodbye braai to enjoy this evening, as the sun descends on another smoky Cape Town afternoon.

Not sure which one(s) of these is making the sunset quite so orange this evening, but while it’s pretty, it’s never good news.

A Chilli cop-out

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Yeah, I’m going to admit it. I’m a bit chilli sauced out, and so I’m cheating a bit with my SmokedOke chilli sauce advent calendar review. Two days still to go (I haven’t opened today’s yet), and we’ll surely get to them at some stage, but wow – I’m actually a bit overwhelmed.

Here’s what’s been opened since my last post (which was a few days after my first post):

No. I’m not sure why they are on a piano either. I just needed somewhere to ‘tog them on and the rest of the house seems to be in some sort of pre-Christmas chaos. Weird.

So: what news?

First off: nothing has topped the Cowboy Candy. This was the one, and it remains the one.

But that doesn’t mean that there have been other highlights. Reaper’s Breath was fairly terrifying. Grim Reaper was even more scary. And the Honey Chipotle was delicious. The Chilli Crunch was very nice, and the Piccalilli Relish was unusual and tangy, and begged for some cheese, ham and maybe a pork pie.

Less good: the chilli gherkins. I’m not sure that they were supposed to be fizzy. I gave them a go anyway – what’s the worst that could happen? Microbiologist readers don’t need to answer that.

But this has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. A lot of the sauces have been too strong for me, but I just use less and so even these sample vials are going to last for ages.

I can only imagine that we are going to finish with the showstopper: The Kraken, but honestly, it’s just been great trying some different stuff that I would never have dared buy in any sort of reasonable volume for retail.

If you have a chilli lover in your life, then you need to give this a go for them next year. It’s been great.

Blue Flag

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I might be on a nice little island with some lovely beaches, but are any of them Blue Flag Beaches?

Well, actually, no.

While Mauritius is making efforts to achieve Blue Flag status for its beaches, and some beaches have the potential for it, there are no universally recognized Blue Flag beaches listed in the search results for 2025.

Although the water here is stunningly blue and appears to be crystal clear.

Back home, however, Cape Town is full of Blue Flags:

Yep:

  • Bikini Beach
  • Camps Bay
  • Clifton 4th
  • Fish Hoek
  • Llandudno
  • Melkbosstrand
  • Muizenberg
  • Silwerstroomstrand

As ever though, (some of) the locals are accusing the city of “paying” for the titles (that’s not how it works), complaining that their local beach (not on the list) isn’t very clean, or quite simply inventing weird reasons why Cape Town shouldn’t have any Blue Flag Beaches.

Ah yes, the old “orange urine” thing.
And that “continuous” issue.

You might want to see a doctor, Johann.

But I don’t think there’s much danger of that sort of thing, really. Let’s say that 10,000 people each urinate 250ml into the ocean. That’s a total of 2,500 litres of wee. And that sounds a lot until you understand that the volume of the South Atlantic is 160,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres. (That’s 160 million km3).

I think that’s going to be pretty diluted.

I think we’re going to be ok.

As for me – I’m going to take my chances with the Indian Ocean outside my door.

Happy Swimming!

There is no diesel in Cape Town

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I don’t want to alarm anyone, but there is no diesel in Cape Town.

I went to a filling station earlier this afternoon and they didn’t have any diesel, and then I did some rudimentary extrapolation, and now apparently, there is no diesel anywhere in Cape Town.

That’s 1/1 or 100% of filling stations which did not have diesel.

And if you think that’s not quite comprehensive enough a study, then add to that the fact that every extrapolation that I have done today has proven that there is no diesel in Cape Town.

That’s 1/1 or 100% of the extrapolations that I have done which have proven that there is no diesel in Cape Town.

Worrying times.