Tag: rain stopped play

A bit of a moan

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It hasn’t rained much in Cape Town over the last few weeks. Maybe even the last few months.

And there is a bit of “Day Zero” talk entering the chat, although to be fair, we’re a long way from that sort of scenario at the moment (but you never say never).

In fact, looking back, I can only really remember a few hours of rain over the last few months. Two of those hours were last Tuesday night, when we tried to watch the cricket. It didn’t rain all day – just for the few hours when we actually needed it to be dry, so that they could play cricket. And once the cricket (such as it was) was over (no pun intended), it stopped raining and was all hot and dry again.

And the other few hours are… well… now. Again, it’s been a scorcher of a day, but then this evening, it began to rain. Why? Well, that would be because our daughter went to an outdoor concert.

Not this morning (dry), not this afternoon (hot and dry), just this evening. And, much like the evening of the cricket, it looks like the rain will stop pretty much as the concert ends.

There will be no rain tomorrow evening, when there also won’t be a concert.

Perfect.

I once had an idea involving an iceberg, which would have solved Cape Town’s water issues forever.

I did a fair amount of maths and stuff for that, but actually, why bother with dragging a chunk of Antarctica all the way to South Africa and then filling the Franschhoek Valley with ice when I can clearly just make it rain by spending money on weather-sensitive evening activities?

If you need some rain, I’ll just buy expensive tickets for a theatre thing or some tennis (ok, not tennis), and we can all enjoy the precipitation and petrichor as the evening is ruined, the money wasted, but the dams filled up.

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING – and I don’t blame you for wanting to ask – no, I can’t see any more events in our diary which will be ruined by rainfall, just yet. So you’re free to go about your business safe in the knowledge that it’s not going to rain on your parade.

Only mine.

But of course, I’ll keep you informed.

Tough stuff

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Incoming from one of my wife’s horseriding friends earlier, this:

And yes, I get it. I’ve often lamented the diving in football. Not least here. I hate it, and I hate the reputation that it’s giving the best sport in the world.

That said, the football part of this image is a mash-up of a couple of photos from Italy’s 1-1 draw against Romania in Switzerland at Euro 2008. And the players on the left were lying on the turf at the end of the match, with Romania having given it all, but having missed a huge opportunity to beat Italy, due to a penalty save in the last 10 minutes.

And that orange shirt top right belongs to cheaty ref, Tom Henning Øvrebø.

Anyway, like I said, sadly, I understand the reputation.

But then, ironically, there was a bit of rain this afternoon and evening, and while my daughter’s horseriding was cancelled, my football went ahead. Because actually, we footballers are clearly made of tougher stuff than the local pony club.

So there.