Tag: south africa

Fireworks

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Ah. I miss the UK on November 5th. Specifically the fireworks. Yes, they do them here, but for all the mocking of “The Nanny State” on “Mud Island”, the rules here around fireworks are far tighter than in the UK. And, surprisingly for SA, they are generally pretty well observed.

The Isle of Man, of course, is not in the UK, but they still do fireworks and here’s Douglas Bay on Saturday night courtesy of Flickr user cabmanstu:

image

Stunning!
Many thanks to Stuart for permission to use the photo.

As ever, twitter is divided over the fireworks here. Some don’t see the need, many are enjoying them and then there are the local dog owners whose animals keep us awake each and every sodding night, but who object to people making noise for a couple of hours on one evening a year.

I hesitate to use the word “killjoys”, but only briefly.

Cape Town is Africa’s Most Liveable City

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Africa.com has declared – after strenuous research – that Cape Town is Africa’s Most Liveable City, stating:

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, let alone Africa, having already won a number of prestigious international travel awards. It’s where most people in South Africa wish they lived. It possesses all of the amenities and sophistication of a urban area, yet the pace is decidedly relaxed, with the city being nestled between the ocean and the mountains, creating an ideal mix of work and play. A short drive away and you can find yourself in one of the hundreds of vineyards that produce some of the world’s top wines.

I’d agree with all of that, although that second sentence is going to grate with Joburg residents (Joburg came in fourth behind Accra and Nairobi).

The authors of the report didn’t mention the high quality blogging that comes out of the Mother City, but they did manage to get in the ocean and the mountain – something I’m only too happy to remind our Gautenger neighbours about.

So – the take away message seems to be that if you’re planning to come and live in Africa, come and live in Cape Town.

Been there, done that.

Band to play in South Africa

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A local events company yesterday announced that they had booked a band to come and play some concerts in South Africa early next year. The announcement, which was widely expected and had already been leaked last week, prompted a mixed reaction from twitter users across the country.

Some people immediately rubbished the announcement, saying that the band had not released anything worth listening to for many years. They informed their followers in no uncertain terms that they would not be attending the concerts, although they omitted to tell us what they would be doing instead on each of the evenings in question.

Others were obviously excited by the news, stating that they would certainly be trying to get tickets for the concerts and that they couldn’t wait for the date of the concert to arrive. While only a small percentage of these individuals rated the band’s latest offerings particularly highly, they expressed the hope that some of the band’s bigger hits from earlier on in their career would also be featured on the concert playlist. Additionally, some of this group managed to get tickets through the pre-sale function on the band’s website, which annoyed those who didn’t manage to do so.

Finally, there was a third group who expressed relatively little emotion over the announcement. From this, it could be deduced that they were probably not huge fans of the band in question, but also that they understood that other people probably have different musical tastes to them and that they respected this fact, not feeling the need to mock or belittle those individuals who do actually enjoy the music of the band in question.

All the groups did, however, agree that the ticketing process would probably not go particularly smoothly.

Facebook is expected to hear about the concert later today or early tomorrow morning.

I needed that…

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Back to Cape Town and back home after a couple of days at the cottage and I have realised that I needed a break there to remind me that this is a good country to live in.

Don’t get me wrong. SA is my home. My house is here, my wife and kids were born here and I have settled in like a duck settling into water (big splash, few ruffled feathers, some soggy bread). And I love it here. But coming back from our recent visit to the UK, I was again reminded about the thing I don’t enjoy in SA: the lack of personal freedom. (and the fast internet – Ed.)

Even living (as we do) in a leafy, decent suburb, people are uneasy about going out at night. While we were in the UK, wandering up the road to the pub each evening was great. Here, the roads are poorly lit, the standard of driving is poor, especially in the evenings and the chances of being mugged are unnecessarily high. We all live and exist behind great big, high walls and I miss the freedom that living in the UK gives you.

But that’s in the city. Down in Agulhas, things are so much more open. No walls, no electric fences. (I hope I’m not giving the burglars helpful information here.) I needed to be reminded that this can happen here. And we made the most of it. Beach, braai, beer. Brilliant.

It reset my system and I am at peace again.

Going Gaga

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Big Concerts has come out with a Big Announcement that they are going to make a Big Announcement on Monday morning.
Care should be taken here, since the last Big Announcement by Big Concerts was that Celtic Woman were to play in South Africa. (If you don’t know who Celtic Woman are, then you join the rest of us. Welcome.)

Speculation is unsurprisingly rife that it could be Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, the Foo Fighters, or indeed a return visit from Celtic Woman. And then there’s the Lady Gaga thing.

Let’s have a quick look at how Big Concerts is advertising their Big Announcement:

And let’s compare that with the typography on the Lady Gaga “Born This Way Ball” site:

Similar? Not similar?
Coincidence? Not coincidence?

If it is her, she’d better not wear that meat dress. She’ll get braai’ed.