Tag: ukraine

Day 710 – Support plan backfires

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It was a fairly simple plan, and I thought that it had worked.

It took some doing, but I managed to convince Mrs 6000 that Castle Milk Stout was a partly Ukrainian product, and therefore, by drinking it, I was doing my bit to aid that country in its current plight. This got me out of having to answer those difficult questions about why the margarine and salad and the mayo were out on the counter in the kitchen, because the fridge was full of Castle Milk Stout. It also enabled me to drink plenty of the good stuff in order to make room for the less good stuff back in the refrigerator.

Genius.

I hadn’t reckoned on the goodwill of my wife though, and the lengths that she would go to in order to assist those in need. I should have known.

Because even though she doesn’t like Castle Milk Stout – at all – I found her drinking some of my stash this afternoon. “Just to do her bit.”

I had to come clean. Because there’s no point in my having plenty of my favourite delicious, creamy 6% dark beer in the house if other people are going to drink it. No matter how good their intentions.

Now I’m in a lot of trouble. Again.

Day 709 – I had a yacht

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Last night’s dreams were interesting. I had a yacht. “Had”, not just because the dream was last night, but also because it was one of those super yachts and it had just been confiscated or impounded in the swanky harbour in which I had recently moored it.

Am I now worse off? I didn’t have a yacht when I went to bed, and ostensibly, I don’t have one now that I have woken up. In fact, I may never had had one: I don’t remember actually ever being on the yacht at all, only being told that it had been seized.

Will I be allowed to get my belongings off it? I mean just some clothes and stuff, not the helicopter and the jetskis.

Although, if you’re offering…

There’s a lot of fuss online about yachts being seized and the more hysterical anti-vaxxers (who are now all pro-Putins) are warning us all that if “The State” can suddenly impound the super yachts of a Russian oligarch, then it easily could impound something of ours too.

To me, this seems unlikely for a number of reasons. Firstly, presumably, these powers aren’t new, and – even though I’ve had things for years and years – no-one has impounded anything of mine yet.
Well, apart from last night, of course, but that wasn’t real.

Secondly – and this is very much along the lines of the long-forgotten “they’re going to track us through the Covid app” nonsense – I really don’t have anything that they care about, just like your sad little life really isn’t interesting enough for them to want to track you.

And thirdly (obviously, I have double-checked this one, just to make sure) I’m not providing financial and political assistance to a despotic regime that is currently bombing innocent civilians. Arguably, this is probably the biggest reason, given that there are plenty of people out there who have super yachts and interesting lives, but who haven’t been funding and supporting the bombing of residential neighbourhoods in Kyiv, and are still free to hold disco parties on their stern deck and sail in and out of ports as they wish.

So god only knows what Dream Me must have been up to before I was informed that they were taking my boat last night. Thankfully, whatever it was didn’t actually happen, because it was just a dream.

Day 706, part 2: Will anyone notice?

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The South African Post Office has suspended its “services” to Russia, “The” Ukraine and Belarus.

The South African Post Office has long been so entirely dysfunctional that you would rather spend seventeen times the price to a private courier, but at least your package would actually get to where it was supposed to.

Quite literally no-one will notice that their service to these countries (or anywhere else) has been halted.

Also, please note the bottom paragraph, in which South Africans are once again advised to obey the rules for doing things when doing things. Just like this.

Day 705 – How long is a 40 mile long convoy?

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OK, OK, I know the answer to that, but as we hear of satellite imagery of a Russian column of armoured troop carriers, tanks, artillery and support and logistical vehicles stretching 40 miles along the road approaching Kiev, I felt that just seeing or hearing the number doesn’t mean much. So I thought that I’d put that into perspective.

So… Let’s leave Cape Town on the N1 and drive 40 miles.

40 miles is the distance from central Cape Town to the far end of the Huguenot Tunnel. Imagine each and every metre of that trip – past Woodstock, Paarden Eiland, Anal Walk, Durbanville, Joostenberg Vlakte, Paarl and out into the mountains – as an armoured convoy.
Terrifying.

Don’t like the N1? I don’t blame you.

So let’s take the N2 instead. 40 miles will take you from Cape Town almost to the gate of the immensely popular Peregrine Farm Stall in Grabouw.
Of course, any attack on Cape Town from this direction would be thwarted by frustration and capitulation at Somerset West and its infernal, constipated traffic light system, which probably explains why the Russians have chosen to come in from the North.

Day 701 – Not funny any more

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I spotted this last week and thought I’d save it for a slow day on here. It was, after all, fairly amusing if you like dark humour. It’s also not advice that I’d necessarily endorse, never having lived in a country with bears, I’ve never really looked into the correct response to coming across one, because it’s always been pretty unlikely to happen.

Suddenly though, due to recent events and national animal symbolism, this has become a whole lot more sombre.