Category: annoying people

More of this please

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Having just experienced several (or more) airport security checks, together with the inevitable queuing for each, I fully endorse this new suggested approach, presumably aimed at speeding the process up.

Yep. Byee!

It may seem a little heavy-handed, but when you’ve been standing in a line of people watching each and every individual in front of you be told the same thing over and over and over again, and then when it comes to your turn after 45 minutes and you’re not ready…?

You deserve all the nasty things: including not being allowed to get on your flight and go on your holiday.

Voetsek!

That said (and stood by), none of the processes were the same across our 6-airport trip. Not even for Doha which we went through twice. Sometimes laptop in, sometimes laptop out. Sometime belt on, sometimes belt off. Sometimes shoes on, sometimes shoes off. And that was weird and irritating. All were thorough, but if I had to order them, then most lax would be Cape Town, and the most thorough would be (the notorious) Ronaldsway. Gatwick, Dublin and Doha(x2) were somewhere in the middle. But while each one was slightly different, there was still plenty of time to learn each protocol as you approached, so no excuses for not knowing what was imminently coming up.

We didn’t miss any flights, although there was one close call (after a delayed arrival and the usual mess at security – and this on a transfer side of the airport, so every passenger there had recently experienced a security check, and yet many still seemed bewildered as to what was going on), so I fully support this new proposed plan for getting (me) through airport security a bit more quickly.

Lazy Day

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I should have done a lot more than I did today. A late start, well-deserved as we are still trying to get back into the swing and the routine of normal life. And then… nothing really happened. I should have gone to gym. I didn’t. Instead, a bit of golf, a bit of cricket, some football.

Watching, obviously. Not playing. That would be far too much effort.

And that’s about it. Except to say that American golf fans are annoying. And Brian Harman’s addressing of the ball is annoying. Golf generally is a bit annoying though, so maybe they fit in quite nicely.
And I feel like a bit of a fraud even showing a modicum of interest.

Especially as my favourite golfist isn’t there.

Squirrels – the truth

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I spotted a recent Facebook status:

Had a great time out at [Stellenbosch wine farm] with [person], lovely tea and cake and a lot of fun feeding the squirrels.

Now, I want to talk about the grey squirrels on the wine farm, but let’s address the obvious grey elephant in the room first.

Tea and cake? What are you doing? You’re on a wine farm. The choice of beverage should be wine and the choice of foodstuff should… also be wine. You’re a grown adult. Honestly, make better decisions.

And then…

Feeding the squirrels. What are you doing? They are a nasty, destructive, invasive alien species introduced to SA by a racist, colonial megalomaniac.

Native to the hardwood forests of North America, the Grey squirrel was introduced into South Africa by Cecil John Rhodes. At the turn of the 19th century he released squirrels on Groote Schuur estate in Cape Town. By the 1970s their range had extended as far as Swellendam in the Western Cape.

And you’re feeding them? You’re a grown adult. Honestly, make better decisions.

No-one crows on social media about “watering the Port Jackson” or “fertilising the Rooikrans” while they are out and about, do they? No, because those are nasty, destructive, invasive alien species introduced to SA by racist colonialists. You’d never willingly or knowingly sustain or propagate these things.

But then, they don’t have fluffy tails, do they?

Make no mistake, Grey Squirrels are bastards:

It is a serious pest and its habit of removing tree bark is extremely damaging. It also carries a disease called paradox virus, which affects indigenous species. It may build nests in buildings, destroying electrical wiring and woodwork.

If the wine farm were in KZN, they would be obliged to kill the little gits, but sadly (for us, not the squirrels), this wine farm was in the Western Cape. They are listed higher on the NEMBA index of invasive species (i.e. they are considered a bigger threat to our native biodiversity) than rats.

Did you feed the rats at the wine farm?
Of course not. But then, they don’t have fluffy tails, do they?

The best grey squirrel is dead grey squirrel. Get over their alleged “cute” personas and stop pandering to their every need. They are an invasive species, destroying our native flora and fauna.

Make better decisions.

Goodbye internet

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Another Daily Mail exclusive (remember this?).

December 5th 2000:

Yep. The problem with writing bullshit is that when the bullshit that you’ve written turns out to be bullshit, people can go back and read it, and see just how wrong you were.

And lets face it, this one was spectacularly incorrect.

Using the… er… internet, I discovered that James Chapman now heads up a PR Agency (motto: “Build. Protect. Repair.”) in Westminster (of course he does), alongside James Henderson, who used to be CEO of Bell Pottinger until 2017.

As you will read:

Until September 2017, James was the CEO of Bell Pottinger, where he developed the agency into an integrated multi discipline communications business offering financial, corporate, litigation, crisis, regulatory, political, brand, digital, and personal reputation advice.

In 2016, Bell Pottinger had revenues of £35 million, 8 offices globally and over 250 employees.

And in September 2017, Bell Pottinger went bankrupt.
This after years of dodgy dealings, aiding state capture activities and stoking racial hatred in South Africa.

Surprisingly, his fawning blurb seems to have omitted this last bit. Weird.

Do Solar Panels work in hot weather?

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It pains me to have to post stuff like this.
It’s just simple common sense. Of course they do.

And yet…

This is quite clearly BS, and if you need to be told that it’s BS, you probably also need to seek professional help.

Yes, the UK switched on a coal-fired power station a few weeks ago.
No, it wasn’t because solar panels stopped working.

…liberal-minded news outlets like The Guardian blamed maintenance at nuclear plants in Scotland and inter-tie maintenance on an undersea cable from Norway.

And much as I’m no fan of the Guardian, oddly on this occasion, it turns out that they were far more likely to be correct than those making the assertion that it got too warm for PV panels to work properly.

They’re built to function from -40C to +85C. Performance does fall when temperatures go above 25C, but only by 0.34 per cent for every additional degree. That’s pretty marginal stuff, according to Solar Energy UK. Even at close to boiling point, power output would only be around 20 per cent lower it says, other factors being equal.

“It’s not actually a big deal. High temperatures only marginally affect the overall output of solar power – it’s a secondary effect” says the UK’s leading technical expert on the technology, Alastair Buckley, Professor of Organic Electronics at the University of Sheffield.

Yet another example of someone who read something on Facebook believing that they now hold the same expertise as someone who has been studying the subject for their whole academic career.

It got up to a whole 30C, which is hot for the UK in June, but isn’t really hot when you compare it to the rest of the world. If this temperature had really wiped out the UK’s solar energy production, then basically, no country within a band 50 degrees north to 50 degrees south would be able to utilise solar panels.

Add in the countries north and south of there that can’t use solar because there isn’t enough sun (a genuine concern in placed like Svalbard) and suddenly that’s basically the whole world.

So why would any columnist try to paint this clearly incorrect picture, seemingly in a bid to discredit renewable energy?

Well, I guess it depends on the columnist:

Shaun Polczer is the Business Reporter for the Western Standard, based in Calgary. Formerly, a business reporter for the Calgary Herald, he has also held senior positions at the Daily Oil Bulletin, and the London Petroleum Economist.

Oh.

Sadly, the comments beneath his piece (I’m not giving him any extra traffic by linking to it), tend to suggest that the ability to think rationally and critically might also have been knocked out by the heatwave.

Next week: Why do ice skates not work in the cold?