How to snitch

And by snitching, I mean ratting, singing like a canary, squeaking, finking, tipping off. I mean:

to secretly tell someone in authority that someone else has done something bad, often in order to cause trouble.

The “bad thing” in this case being breaking the water restrictions, the “authority” being the City of Cape Town, and the “trouble” being a phat phine for being naughty.

I’m not saying you must. I’m not saying you mustn’t. I’m merely saying that a lot of people have posed the question of how they would (hypothetically) go about it, and I’m sharing my knowledge. Think of me as a facilitator.

The City has made it quite easy for you to be an Informer (ya’ no say daddy me Snow me I go blame, a licky boom boom down.)

When reporting people who ignore water restrictions you must provide as much evidence as possible related to the incident.
Photographs and precise details are vital.

If there is scant evidence, the city will still warn an alleged wrongdoer that they have received a tip off. However, the city can only fine if it has evidence.

Here’s how to report noncompliance with water restrictions:

Call 0860 103 089 (choose option two: water related faults)

Use the city’s Service Requests Tool

Send an email to water.restrictions@capetown.gov.za

SMS 31373 (max of 160 characters)

Knock yourself out. Or don’t.
No-one likes a grass (especially if it’s dried out and brown).

3b (or not 3b?)

It looks like the City of Cape Town, aghast that their current water restrictions and increased pricing seems to have had no effect on consumption (although presumably less concerned by the R33 million in extra revenue they’ve made from it), are going to move to Level 3b water restrictions.

Basically, this is just a more draconian version of the current Level 3 restrictions, including:

Watering/irrigation (with municipal drinking water) of flower beds, lawns, vegetables and other plants, sports fields, parks and other open spaces is allowed only on Tuesdays and Saturdays before 09:00 or after 18:00 for a maximum of one hour per day per property and only if using a bucket or watering can. No use of hosepipes or any sprinkler systems allowed.
Currently, you can water whenever you want, but only with a bucket or watering can.

No watering/irrigation is allowed within 48 hours of rainfall that provides adequate saturation. Facilities/customers making use of boreholes, treated effluent water, spring water or well-points are not exempt.
That’s up from the current 24 hours.

No washing of vehicles or boats using municipal drinking water is allowed. Vehicles and boats must be washed with non-potable water or washed at a commercial carwash.
Currently, you may wash your vehicle at home with a bucket.

In addition, the City is promising stricter policing of the restrictions, including investigating the top 20,000 water users in the metro, “the majority of whom reside in formal areas of the metro”.

The question is, why haven’t the City been doing more already? More communication, more education, more enforcement?

But then they make this vow:

We are also requesting our religious leaders to pray for rain.

Well, that’ll make it all ok then. Quite astonishing.

Why haven’t our religious leaders been praying for rain already? And if they have, where’s the evidence? Who’s withholding the damn rain anyway, and why? What sort of God would do that, killing all the plants, creating conditions favourable for the spread of wildfires, making our food more expensive and our daily lives more miserable?

When it doesn’t rain again, because praying is a complete waste of time, the new restrictions seems likely to come in to force on 1st February 2017.

Remember, remember

It’s Guy Fawkes/Bonfire/Fireworks night tonight, and yes, for some reason this gets celebrated in South Africa too. No-one seems quite sure exactly why, but it’s probably something along the lines of people just liking an excuse to have a good time and enjoy some fireworks.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you do it in one of the 12 designated sites across Cape Town, and as long as you do it between the hours of 6pm and 11pm this evening. (Incidentally, these sites are also the only approved places for New Year’s Eve fireworks in Cape Town too.)

6322388040_53824e6d2a_bbigger and better on black here

Of course, there are several (or more) people who don’t like fireworks because they say it upsets their pet dog/cat/hamster/dassie, and while – as a beagle victim owner – I sympathise with these individuals to some degree, I would point out that the Gunpowder Plot took place back in 1605, and the celebrations of it (geographically understandable or not) began some years before you got your furkid pet. These are the sort of people who choose to move next door to a music venue that’s been going for 50 years and write to the council about the “excessive noise” 2 weeks later.

So no, I don’t agree with your calls, facebook posts and online petitions to ban fireworks, you fun sponging killjoys.

It’s one two nights a year. Get a life.

Sonia is unhappy about loadshedding

Look. No-one is happy about loadshedding. What’s to be happy about not having power for a few hours several times a week? It’s annoying, it’s disruptive, it’s frustrating.
But some people are more unhappy than others. Maybe that’s cos they just don’t get it. I think that maybe Sonia is one of those people.

Loadshedding, for those uninitiated in this relatively recently-founded South African pastime, is where there’s simply not enough electricity to go around and so the municipality cuts power from certain areas at certain times in order to conserve power and protect the grid. We’re given schedules to tell us when we’re likely to be cut off, but it’s not an exact science.

What follows is the comments thread (never read the comments thread) from a City of Cape Town post on Facebook, telling us about where was going to be switched off next and when.
I think they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping us informed. Sonia is less impressed:

lsimg

Incidentally, Sonia’s area (wherever that may be) probably doesn’t have a schedule on the City website because it’s not supplied electricity by the City. But that’s beside the point. Because it’s that second comment that makes me wonder what Sonia is thinking.

The electricity at my moms old age home was out from 10am till after 2pm! This is when the old people have to eat etc – that was very bad planning!

Damn straight, Sonia. You tell them. How could they leave your mom and her pals without any food over lunchtime? That is bad planning. The City should have a list of places where people want to eat lunch at lunchtime and they shouldn’t do loadshedding in those areas.

BUT THEN WHY STOP THERE WITH THEIR NEWFOUND GOOD PLANNING?

Next, they need to look carefully at when old people need to ‘etc’ as well, because as you state above, that’s obviously something that old people need electricity for as well. Lunchtimes aren’t just about eating, hey? More often than not, there’s ‘etc’ to get through too.

They should also have a separate list of places where people want to have lights when it goes dark and they should not loadshed those areas either. Another list might include areas where people want to have a cup of tea or coffee any given time during the day. These areas would have to be wholly exempt from loadshedding, because otherwise, how are these people going to beverage themselves adequately?

What about areas where people want to watch the rugby or other more exciting sport? I tried to watch some more exciting sport on Saturday afternoon with very limited success because there was no electricity due to loadshedding. This was very bad planning. Saturday afternoons are widely regarded as the best time for watching more exciting sport and yet they did loadshedding right while I was trying to do it.

How very dare they?

What about people who need to keep things cold in fridges, or do washing in a washing machine, or use computers, or traffic lights, or other things that use electricity?
There are hard lessons to be learned here. The City of Cape Town need to look carefully at their loadshedding schedules and, frankly, need to rearrange them more sensibly around people’s activities – especially those activities which require electricity.

Well said, Sonia.

Yachts

I missed out on going to see the yachts from the Volvo Ocean Race when they were in town this year. As you might have noticed from the lack of quality and quantity of blogging lately, I’m chaotically busy with trying to fit in experiments ahead of the the Christmas and summer break and trying to fit in everything else before we head up to the UK “soon”.

But the footage of the teams leaving Cape Town and heading the 8000 odd miles to Kochi in India was stunning:

That’s the corporate package – if you want the technical detail, you can watch the full, 85 minute version of the start here.

The stopover in Cape Town was supported the the tune of R750,000 by the city council, and while the maths still needs to be done, it looks like a sound investment, given the number of people going to see the yachts in port (not me) and seeing the city on TV and – increasingly – on the internet.

The event will be televised to an estimated 1.8 billion people, and the publicity will help position the city as a desirable investment and tourist choice.

Worth every cent then…