Not worth waiting for…

James Lech has finally released “Part 1″ of his statement on the “incident” on Clifton beach. You can read it here, nestled neatly below an ad for yet another Pack Walk – this time in the Full Moon (rather you than me) – and a recipe for completely harmless Raw Cauliflower, Cashew and Chilli Mash.
That said, it’s probably not worth the effort of the clickthrough:

Learning is a Gift. Even when pain is your teacher.
Accidents are unfortunate, traumatic events that often have dire consequences. I have learned a hard lesson. Yet, I am not the first in my profession to be faced with this kind of challenge and I undertake to be more vigilant around such cases in the future. D has made remarkable progress in his rehabilitation process and has become a treasured pet and a valued member of my pack. I stand by my business ethic and rehabilitation practice as will be supported by the positive results and outcomes experienced by many dog owners and their pets, who have benefited from my assistance in South Africa and abroad over the past several years.

Unfortunately, due to this matter still being under official investigation that involves other parties, I am not yet at liberty to release documentation, reports and or specific details regarding the incident. Once the investigation has been completed and officially assessed, I shall then be given permission to publish material and information. We are working hard at fast tracking everything.

Meanwhile, Lech has been asked to remove more dodgy claims from his website:

Camps Bay “Dog Whisperer” James Lech has been instructed to remove “misleading, untruthful and deceitful” information from his website linking him to the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) and the Animal Anti-Cruelty League (AACL).

Lech has been asked to remove claims that he is linked to both organisations. His website lists him as a “consultant and speaker to the AACL” and a “guest speaker at SPCA fundraising and education events”.

NSPCA spokeswoman Christine Kuch said the claims were false.

“Both the Animal Anti-Cruelty League and the National Council of SPCAs afforded Mr Lech the opportunity to substantiate the statements, which he has been unable to do. We have approached him to substantiate it, and if he cannot, then to remove the information. We have circulated it to all SPCAs, and there is no link or endorsement of Lech.”

And the Cape Times reports today that the dog which attacked toddler Meeka Riley Lackay is to be “privately euthanased” at Lech’s request. Sadly, it seems the dog cannot request the same fate for its owner, who shouldn’t have been walking it on the beach where it attacked the little Meeka in the first place.

1 Comment | Tagged , , , | Posted in annoying people, in the news, this is south africa

February Desktop

Wow. Was it just me and everyone else, or did January rush by like a seemingly quick month? All of which relativity means that it’s February and that in turn means number 2 in a series of… well… 2 so far of our monthly desktop wallpaper offerings for you.

This one is part of the set that I captured and blogged here. But while the photo on that post was taken with my basic – yet perfectly adequate – cellphone camera, this one was with the real thing – or as close as I have to the real thing, anyway.

Please download the 16:9 version by clicking here and I will try to be back on March 1st with another offering to titivate you for a further 31 days. You can see the original photo on black here.

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Who’s Your Favourite?

It’s a silly question for any parent dad to ask, but Maddie’s daddy just had to ask it, didn’t he?

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Just for the record, I have never asked either of my kids this. The answer would probably be too depressing or would put me (and them) in a very dangerous situation at home.

Safety first…

Leave a comment | Tagged , | Posted in learning curve, that's a bit mad, the parenting bunny

Neutron Star Facts

I love science, me.

But I struggled to get my head around this particular bunch of facts about Neutron Stars, which I happened across.
As you do.

A neutron star is so dense that one teaspoon (5 millilitres) of its material would have a mass over 5.5×1012 kg, (5 500 000 000 000 kg) about 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The resulting force of gravity is so strong that if an object were to fall from a height of one meter it would only take one microsecond (0.00001 s) to hit the surface of the neutron star, and would do so at around 2000 kilometers per second, or 7.2 million kilometers per hour (7 200 000 kph).

Always handy to have masses measured in Great Pyramids of Giza, I find.

“Hey – I have’t seen you in weeks! Wow – have you lost weight?”
“Why yes. I’ve exercising more and eating less and I’ve lost about 0.000000001636 Great Pyramids of Giza. I feel great.”

Anyway, to put that into perspective, here on earth 5 ml of water weighs 0.005 kg and an object falling from 1m would take about 0.1 sec to hit the floor and would do so at 35kph. Which you really should survive, depending on your landing position.
Personally, I’d feel less confident about coming out of a collision with the floor at 7.2 million kph unscathed.

Consider yourselves educated.

It’s a pleasure.

1 Comment | Tagged , , | Posted in learning curve, that's a bit mad

Tunnel of Love

In a moment of nostalgia, I downloaded Dire Straits’ Making Movies album from1980 last week and it assisted in enjoying a heady weekend at the cottage. It seems only right that I should share some of it with you, so here’s 8 minutes of the remarkable Tunnel of Love, from an age when music videos were… well… less important than they are now.

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Got to love the lights coming up on the faces of the band (0:29), revealing Mark Knopfler as some sort of rough looking Geordie version of John Travolta. And the recurring girl in the outfit fashioned (and I use the word loosely) from the contents of her Mum’s kitchen drawer – tin foil and cling wrap – is pretty special too.

Incidentally, the “Spanish City” referred to in the song:

And girl it looks so pretty to me,
Just like it always did.
Like the Spanish City to me,
When we were kids.

is not Madrid or Barcelona, but the Spanish City Amusement Park in Whitley Bay, Tyneside. Now we know.

I would have shared the video for my favourite track on the album (and possibly my favourite track by the band), Hand in Hand, but it was never released and never got a video. Still – you can have a listen to it and look at the completely unremarkable album cover for 5 minutes if you wish. Just click here.

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