Category: annoying people

Day 726 – Camps Bay

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You’d never go there as a Capetonian, because it’s tourist deluxe, but we had a nice wander along the beach – which wasn’t too busy – and a lovely lunch there today. Because we too were tourists for a little while.

We’re approaching the end of a Covid-disrupted holiday season, so it wasn’t packed, but there were still a healthy number of foreign accents and languages around, enjoying the sunshine and the weak Rand.

We were too early for most of the Cape Town rich and famous post-“work” party set, although there was a noticeably loud table full of surfwear-clad 20-somethings laughing and slapping each other’s egos, every sentence beginning with “100s!” and ending in “bru” or “am I raart?”.

The beach was hot, the water was (as is traditional) very cold and once we avoided the sunglasses salesmen, (who were surprisingly respectful today), we had a pretty chilled few hours.

Day 722 – Follow the rules?

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I know that South Africans aren’t exactly known for following the rules. And I know that it’s ever so cool and trendy to “stick it to the man” by breaking the speed limit or ignoring that sign or wandering into or onto somewhere you’re not supposed to. You rebels, you! Consequently, I’m also well aware that it’s deeply uncool to i) follow the rules, and ii) comment on people not following the rules.

So here’s me, being doubly deeply uncool.

I don’t care.

The thing is, while ninety-something percent of the time that people not following the rules won’t kill, harm, damage or otherwise impede or inconvenience people; the other something percent, will. And a small percentage of a big number is still a big number. Things would run much more smoothly if people didn’t ignore the no entry sign or whatever. It’s there for a reason.

But even so, that’s not my main problem with SA’s rule breakers.

No, it’s not so much the actual breaking of the rules: it’s the attitude whereby individuals consider themselves somehow above the law, that that sign doesn’t apply to them, that they’re more important than that. That attitude pervades everything in South African society, and it is the root of many, many serious problems from excessive road deaths through to corruption.

No, I’m not saying that you parking illegally outside the pizza place “because it’s only for 2 minutes” is going to somehow influence Jacob Zuma to take a phat bribe to build a nuclear power station for Vladimir Putin. But I am absolutely saying that they are very much the same mindset: there are rules that say you shouldn’t do that thing, but conveniently, they don’t apply to you.

To say that there is no easy way of out this attitude is wrong. There is literally no way at all that we will ever be free of this mentality in the this country and it will forever hold us back.
So I’m not even going to try.

Take that self-important way of thinking to another country and you’ll soon be shut down, possibly by the authorities (in the nuclear power station example), but more likely simply by the rest of the population (in all the others) who just won’t understand why you think you’re so damn special. And I’m not saying that their country (whichever one it may be) is perfect, but I’m betting that it’ll be a whole lot less of a mess than this one.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that the SA attitude to breaking rules is one of the fundamental reasons behind the seemingly never-ending gemors in which this country finds itself.

Day 712 – Coffee hack

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What? No. Not some brilliantly simple new way of making your morning cup of java. No-one needs to mess around with long-spouted pouring vessels, organic linen-based filter papers and hermetically sealed coffee bean capsules.

No need. Stop it.

Just keep making your coffee the way you like it each morning. It doesn’t have to be a four hour long religious service. Honestly.

But like I said, this isn’t about that.

My details got exposed (careful now), thanks to… Nespresso. Wow.

I got an email.

We are writing to you concerning your personal data. Your name, phone number, and email address may have been temporarily exposed through a third-party supplier.

Yikes.

Please be reassured that this issue has been immediately fixed and your personal data is fully protected.

Well, apart from the stuff that got leaked, obviously, right? Those being my name, phone number, and email address. All the information I gave you, in fact.

Additionally, there are no reports that any of the data has been misused as a result of this incident.

“Yet.”

We sincerely regret this unfortunate situation. We take our obligation to safeguard your personal data very seriously.

Our survey said… [Family Fortunes ‘X’ Wrong Answer ‘Uh-Uh’ Buzzer/Sound Effect]

see?

Seriously though, it’s not great, but actually, what are those people going to do with that info that was temporarily exposed? Call me up and tell me “it’s not real coffee”?
Yeah, well maybe not, but it’s all fun and games until I’m getting on with my day and you’re still stuck there in the middle of your pre-morning drink preparation incantation rituals.

Jeez. I need a coffee.

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 704 – Local propaganda

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Here are a couple of articles that appeared on local news site IOL (Independent (ha!) OnLine) today. While the rest of the world shuns Russia and their dodgy “news” sources, we are seemingly welcoming them with open arms. Sputnik (not this one) is now banned from spilling their propaganda vomit across the EU, but here’s their uninvited and surely unbiased take on China’s reaction to sanctions against Russia, in the local rag:

IOL is part owned by Chinese State Television, by the way. Which at least goes some way to explaining their strange fascination with telling bemused and uninterested South Africans about… well… all (wonderful) things Chinese State Television:

And as if that content wasn’t bad enough, here’s a wonderful puff piece about Russia’s 30 year love affair with South Africa, penned from the wholly impartial

Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of South Africa

And shared today, which is conveniently the 30th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between the countries (the National Party weren’t big fans, see?).

It chats about how great Russia has been to SA in all those years, and goes on in some detail to remind us all of the support it offered to the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations during the pre-1994 years. However, if they are wanting to use this as some sort of emotional leverage (what? no. surely not!), then we’d all do well to remember that during those years, Russia was part of the USSR in very much the same way the Ukraine was. And so I’m not sure why we should now choose to be celebrating and supporting one, while it invades and bombs the other.

SA’s response to the invasion of Ukraine was initially rather wishy-washy, as mentioned here, but then suddenly DIRCO kicked in and had a bit of a pop at Vlad’s actions:

Cyril (and presumably Vladimir) was reportedly somewhat unhappy with that though, and so then there was this:

The trouble (or rather the t-Ruble – see what I did there?) is, being such good mates with Russia, we do seem to have an awful lot of money tied up with them in one way or another, which makes it politically awkward for us to try to admonish them. But we don’t want to end up being one of those countries that tacitly supports their actions, like Nicaragua, Venezuela or – God help us – Belarus. Because that would be a very unpleasant situation to be in.

SA has been excommunicated by the rest of the world before – with good reason.
Let’s not experience it again for a bad one.