Recommended to me laaaaast week (by a proper muso, nogal), and then the video goes viral.
GIVE IT A CHANCE!! was what I was told, and I’m glad that I did.
But honestly, I don’t know quite what to make of it, and apparently, neither does the internet.
Quite, quite incredible. All of it.
I know that a lot of you out there think that it’s all invitations to film premieres, VIP seats at international music events and black tie charity auctions with foreign dignitaries – and look, a lot of it is – but there is also a mundane side to being South Africa’s favourite blogger.
You can’t simply overlook the day to day stuff.
Like buying bags for your German-made vacuum cleaner, for example. We’ve got the Kärcher WD3: a good mix of power, portability and reasonable value for money. And I need some new bags for it.
Und es ist gelb!
Weirdly, it’s proven actually quite difficult to find these things on previous occasions. They can be pricey, there always seems to be a stock and supply issue, and making sure that you get the correct bag with many similarly coded variants around is more of a pain than it should be.
So, here’s what I found initially:
OK. No stock, but that’s fine, I can wait. Fits the WD3. And 4 bags, which means that I probably don’t have to go through this rigmarole for maybe another year or so.
But this being a page from our pisspoor local Amazon wannabe, and they’re not always as trustworthy and accurate as we’d all like them to be, so – as always – I’m just going to check the reviews before I order.
And – as always – they’re absolute gold.
You know – you just know – that when anyone starts shouting at the end of a 5 sentence review, they are part mildly unhinged and part absolutely furious. There’s a guy on the Whatsapp group down in Agulhas that is FAMED FOR HIS SHOUTY RANTS, and you can always tell how outraged he is by how many he gets into a single message. I wonder if he’s related to Luke?
But look: that’s exactly what I was saying about above. You can never guarantee that what you ordered is what you’re going to get.
Elme’s a big fan of Takealot, though:
Elme’s hoping for a voucher for her groveling review. Sadly, she messed up by trying to buy her vacuum bags somewhere else first. Though quite why she needed to order from here at all when she couldn’t not find the bags at her local store is a bit beyond me.
5 stars from Tracy:
I wouldn’t love that it comes in a pack of 3 when I’ve ordered a pack of 4, but clearly Tracy doesn’t see that as a problem. I would agree that it’s the beat vacuum ever, though.
Grant is all about the savings:
I wouldn’t know where to go to buy an individual vacuum cleaner bag. I didn’t know that was a thing. And given the stress of trying find these things each time I need them, I’m already thinking that they need to be sold in a 20-pack.
But it’s Gabrielle that nails it for the “most helpful comment on the page” award.
What… what on earth was anyone planning to do with them aside from replacing the old bags? Use them as some sort of humane rodent trapping device? An avant-garde handbag for an upcoming trip overseas? A lamp shade for a troublesome pendant light fitting in the garage? Or a cheap (not that cheap) alternative to a beekeeper’s hat and veil?
Gabrielle has opened a can of worms here in hinting that there may be some other use for vacume bags for her vacume cleaner. Thankfully, with (hopefully) 4 in the pack, maybe I can try out some alternatives while not compromising on the housekeeping.
I’m going to order now, and experiment in 5-7 work days. Watch this space.
Soon after I published the tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout, I got an email from a learned friend suggesting that I might actually be reporting a non-scientist’s interpretation. One of the lines therein was:
I think you might be reporting a non-scientist’s interpretation
See?
I didn’t argue, because actually, that might well have been the case. But then a lot of my readers are non-scientists, so maybe that was ok.
Yes, it was a story about science, but it was also a story about the human spirit, perseverance, adventure, and the triumph of 1990s American high school education. A tale of a Boy Scout gone rogue (or not, depending on your viewpoint of exactly what Boy Scouts are supposed to be like).
And so I went out and I found a piece that included a bit more science, but also a lot more of the human side of things. A more detailed account of the whole story, containing paragraphs like (but not limited to):
David still had to isolate the thorium-232 from the ash. Fortunately, he remembered reading in one of his dad’s chemistry books that lithium is prone to binding with oxygen—meaning, in this context, that it would rob thorium dioxide of its oxygen content and leave a cleaner form of thorium. David purchased $1,000 worth of lithium batteries and extracted the element by cutting the batteries in half with a pair of wire cutters. He placed the lithium and thorium dioxide together in a ball of aluminum foil and heated the ball with a Bunsen burner. Eureka! David’s method purified thorium to at least 9,000 times the level found in nature and 170 times the level that requires NRC licensing.
It’s a much better account of things from start to finish, and while it does corroborate much of that first version; the extra words allowing for more concise descriptions throughout.
As I mentioned, there’s clearly more science in there too. Which is great.
Long story short then, should make everyone much happier.
Especially the scientists.
Incoming comment from “kevin”. It actually incame a few weeks ago, but I’ve been otherwise engaged.
It’s on this post from last October, in which I detailed the latest work on the iconic sculpture at the Southernmost Point of Africa. The sculpture is now finished, by the way, and it looks great.
Indeed, with lines like:
A few teaser progress images were released this week, and I think it looks fantastic.
and:
It’s very bold, very strong, very… Iconic.
A really cool and important addition to the area.
I thought that I’d been pretty positive about a piece of industrial-scale artwork that was still a couple of months away from being completed.
Not according to “kevin” though, who hit back just four months later with this stinging retort to my thoughts:
Insulting article for such an amazing icon of space and geography.
Before going all ad hominem and telling the world everything about me:
The author is obviously an under educated liberal art fart who knows nothing of geography, space, time, or history.
Broad strokes there, kev. That’s assuming quite a gap in my general knowledge from a few complimentary words about a building site, mate.
Let’s break it all down, shall we?
Do I consider myself “under educated”? Well, I’m of the opinion that one can (and should) always improve one’s knowledge, wherever possible. But I’ve learned a lot in my time – both formally and informally. I’ve got plenty of qualifications from various educational establishments, and I also know not to pee into the wind. And I think that’s both sectors pretty much covered. I therefore refute his poorly hyphenated claim.
Am I liberal? Well, I actually wasn’t sure and so I did a quiz online: it turns out that I am “53% liberal”. Which apparently makes me pretty balanced in my political outlook and therefore very capable of annoying everyone, but not really “a liberal” in the same way that I’m not really “a conservative”, either.
Like the English cricket team often finds itself, kevin is 0/3 at the moment, so might he redeem himself with his next assertion? Could I be I an “art fart”?
I had to go to Urban Dictionary dot com to find out what kevin meant by this one:
Absolutely none of this very specific definition accurately describes me. I have no idea what he was thinking.
And as for my knowing “nothing of geography, space, time, or history”, I mean, where do I even begin? How can you not have knowledge of time? Does kevin mean I’m often late for things? I’m not. I’m very punctual. But anyway, how would he know? Or is he perhaps suggesting that I don’t know how long a minute is? It’s 60 seconds, kevin. It’s not rocket surgery, dude.
I don’t fully understand what it is that he’s trying to say here.
Also, I’m not sure what this has to do with liking or not liking a half-finished sculpture.
Next up, I’m actually quite into my geography. I know it’s only really bordering on science, but I like to know about the world around me. My dad was/is a geographer, and so I think I’ve picked up a lot of his knowledge over the years (yes, I know what a year is, thank you). Also, I’m not sure what this has to do with liking or not liking a half-finished sculpture.
History. Right, I’m not sure what this has to do with liking or not liking a half-finished sculpture, but fair enough: I’m not a huge fan of history. You’ve got me banged to rights and no mistake, guv. Although, of course, not being a fan is rather different from having knowledge about it. I mean, I can tell you when the Magna Carta was signed and by whom, and I know the date of the Battle of Blood River. Does one need to have a good working knowledge of history to look at a building site and try to gauge whether what is being built will be “a good thing” once it’s completed? I don’t think it helps much, no,
Space. I love space. It’s actually one of the reasons that I love going to to Cape Agulhas. Cape Town is so very crowded. It’s nice to have more three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction around you. But I’m really not sure what this has to do with liking or not liking a half-finished sculpture, because it’s sometime nice to share a piece of artwork with other people.
Or maybe he means specifically the stars and planets and astronomy and that? In which case I really have no idea what this has to do with liking or not liking a half-finished sculpture.
Mmm. Bit harsh. Bit nasty. Wholly incorrect.
For someone who said my use of the word “Iconic” was “insulting”, pretty ironic capitalisation of “ICON” there, kev,
I think what I’m taking away from this comment is that kevin is a bit of an arse I need to be clearer in my appreciation when documenting things on the blog. More unrestrained, more gushing, more obvious; because clearly using adjectives like “bold”, “strong”, “iconic”, “fantastic” and “important” just aren’t making my feelings transparent enough when it comes to artwork that is ±9 weeks away from being finished.
Of course, maybe it’s not just clarity around my positivity that’s lacking, and I’d like to address that immediately by telling kevin right here, right now, that I think his comment was utter crap and a complete waste of time, effort, electricity and pixels. It was attempted punditry at its absolute worst: a seemingly deliberate misreading of my documented thoughts followed a tacky attempt at a personal insult, thinly veiled in presumptive bullshit, pretentiousness and unnecessary idolisation of a hundred square metres of concrete.
He should be ashamed to put his name and email address (available upon demand) to those 107 words.
I like this sculpture a lot. Really, I do. As I wrote back on October 8th 2017, I even thought the building site looked great.
kevin though? kevin can voetsek.
Look out. Admin post ahead.
It’s been a week since we made some big changes to the appearance of 6000 miles…
I still like it. It’s a good start.
One technical thing which changed along with the front end of the blog was the system for commenting. It’s moved over onto Disqus:
a worldwide blog comment hosting service for web sites and online communities that uses a networked platform
‘Disqus…’ = ‘Discuss…’ Because it’s a comments section. Geddit?
I’m ashamed to say that it took me a while. I was thinking about the Olympic frisbee thing.
Disqus does require you to log in to use it, but it’s a once off thing (assuming that you click the “remember me” box when you log in) and I hope it doesn’t put too many people off. Also, if you’ve already commented since the change, you may have noticed that your comment was held for moderation. I get to them as quickly as I can (time zone differences notwithstanding), and you should see your opinion on the page within minutes in most cases. Regular commenters (you know who you are) have been and/or will be added as “Trusted Users”, and won’t have to endure the ignominy of joining the back of the moderation queue.
I hope this answers questions and puts minds at rest.