Author: 6000

Dillon Marsh’s Invasive Species

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“In 1996 a palm tree appeared almost overnight in a suburb of Cape Town. This was supposedly the world’s first ever disguised cell phone tower. Since then these trees have spread across the city, South Africa and the rest of the world. Invasive Species explores the relationship between the environment and the disguised towers of Cape Town and its surrounds.”

So says photographer Dillon Marsh.

Here’s the palm tree in question:

Invasive Species, Brackenfell South (2009)

And yeah, that’s really not fooling anyone, is it?

And yet many of our cellphone masts are disguised in an equally unsubtle way to “blend in” with their surroundings, just like this one doesn’t.
I’m not saying that cellphone masts are particularly pretty or anything, I’m just suggesting that their appearance is not necessarily improved by this sort of attempted concealment.

There are more examples of how camouflaging these structures doesn’t really work on the link above.

You may also enjoy Marsh’s Giants Among Men set, featuring – amongst other things – the giant strawberry near Spier and the infamous Spotty Dog from down the road in Retreat.

Done ’em

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I promised photos upon my return to Cape Town and I’ve stuck some up on Flickr – my first set in ages thanks to this.

Following on from yesterday’s striped theme:

In fact, there are a lot of animals and birds in the set, because we saw a lot of animals and birds over the last week or so. They’re not the best photos ever, because I’m not the best photographer ever.

They do serve to document our activities for those elsewhere though, which is primarily their aim.
So I win at that.

Striped things

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The tigers weren’t the only striped things we saw at Vredenheim last week:

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I spotted this wasp and there were also these zebras:

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The difference being (aside from the size and the taste, obviously), that one set of stripes is to make potential predators more aware of the animal and the other is to make them less aware of the animal.

All of which brought me to thinking why we have potentially unnoticeable zebra crossings on our roads and not the far more obvious wasp crossings?

Is it really any wonder that the rules surrounding these road markings are so poorly observed when we choose to deliberately camouflage them?

Don’t be jealous

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After another perfect day at the Southern Tip – inexplicably marked by us buying a new mattress – I am suitably knackered and have turned upon a Devonvale 2006 Cab Sauv/Shiraz blend for some sort of late evening support.

We spent some of the day (the bit not buying the mattress) on Struisbaai beach with surprisingly few others.

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Here is Alex with his own Indian Ocean, although in this particular picture, it does seem to be chasing him somewhat. Would that be some sort of mutiny? Whatever. I digress. Often.

But the fact is that given that I’m still on this whole Easter break thing, there’s really not much to report – especially if I don’t want to lose even more readers through jealousy. Already, I sense deep envy over the whole new mattress thing. Now, if I was to tell you that after a day buying new mattresses (one) and enjoying time on that beach, we ate lazily braaied steaks and drank red wine while watching the Cape Weavers* and almost listening to the new Depeche Mode album**, you’d just switch straight off, amirite?

To bring things back to reality, I did get a lot of sand in my boot on the beach and I am going to be back at work on Monday morning. But generally, life is good and if me telling you that annoys you, please feel free to ask for a full refund.

* It's a bird (Ploceus capensis) not a folk band or anything.
** Described by Mrs 6000 as "too dark and not relaxing enough for the cottage"***
*** She did also say that one of the tracks "sounded really Depeche Mode". Yep. ****
**** Can you have a footnote of a footnote? Is it allowed?

Comparison

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Advantages of staying in a little cottage, miles from civilisation:

No big walls everywhere.
Kids running free in complete safety.
No light pollution; amazing night skies.
Peace, quiet.
Cape Grysbok grazing in your back garden.
Willie from up the road dropping in to talk about brandy on his way back from fishing.
The sea, just… there *points*.
Front stoop, red wine, sunset.
No alarm clock tomorrow morning.

Disadvantages of staying in a little cottage, miles from civilisation:

Really, really slow internet.