Sheffield Paragraph

This, via Whatsapp late last night.
Usually when Mrs 6000’s married female friends message me late in the evening, I can’t share the contents.

This one is different:

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Struggling with the teeny text? Allow me to assist.

“He is very obviously common. His speech is uneducated, he has an accent, he is probably from some ghastly place like Sheffield, and he carries himself in an ungentlemanly fashion, and he’s probably something perfectly frightful like a Primitive Methodist. I will not have such people coming to this house and bringing down the tone of it, and I will not have you associating with them. We – you – have a certain reputation to conserve, a certain position in the world.”

Nice. Thanks for that, Louis de Bernières.

I’m not one to get into silly rows over heritage and stuff, but Wikipedia tells me that you were born in 1950s South East London and that’s hardly a shining example of loveliness, now is it? Additionally, I have no huge problem with you slating my perceived lack of education, my timbre or my general appearance based solely upon the city of my birth, but I draw the line very firmly some distance in advance of your “Primitive Methodist” slur.

That, sir, was below the belt.

I fear that this may only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unfounded defamation and character assassination of us fine, upstanding individuals from the Steel City, so if you have any other examples, please feel free to email me so that I can perhaps construct some sort of compendium of examples of this sort of libellous, pseudoxenophobic prejudice.

“Thanks” Carol

Real science

You may have noticed that there’s been a dearth of good quality blog posts on this site throughout its entire history recently.

Sorry about that. Numerous reasons, none of them singularly adequate, but in combination, perfectly reasonable.

I’m hoping that normal service will be resumed tomorrow, but in the meantime, please enjoy this wholly accurate depiction of life in a laboratory.

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Extra points are awarded if you use all those exclamations during a single experiment.

I have a lot of extra points.

What are you up to today?

Finishing that report at work?
Meeting just before lunch?
Some shopping, perhaps?

Or will you, like the white owned print media oligopoly in South Africa (who for many years have been the allies of the apartheid super structure, providing rationale and intellectual support to the apartheid system), be colluding with forces of darkness to peddle propaganda against the ANC and its government for the purpose of advancing regime change?

I know, it’s a toughie, isn’t it?

Me? Oh, I’m just playing with white blood cells today.
Sorry to disappoint.

Link to the ANCWL press release (for it is they what is paranoid about JZ being ousted).

Freezer Disaster

Any plans for a restful evening after the drive back from Agulhas were swiftly scuppered when we discovered that the freezer had decided to go all Cosatu on us and embark on an unprotected strike. Probably a PCB issue, I’m guessing, but that doesn’t help much right now.

Everything was still cold, but (critically) thawed. Safe then, if you are ready to eat it now. Either cook it tonight or chuck it away.

We cooked it tonight.

Having just had a meat delivery from our Karoo slaghuis (careful now)*, there was a lot to cook. The neighbours helped us out by taking a lot of very decent meat, and then we went through boerewors, steaks, chicken, lamb, burgers. Loads of the buggers.

The beagle assisted by devouring whatever it could. Thanks for that. And then those emergency kids meals: chicken burgers, fish nuggets, fish fingers. Our (amazing) nanny was happy to hear that half her street is going to eat on us tomorrow evening.

Veggies and chips will go to people at the robots. Mrs 6000’s PJ Pops will be drunk by her. Waste not, want not.

I had high hopes for a decent blog post with some pretty pictures from the weekend.

Maybe tomorrow.

* it’s a butchery. He’s good. Details on request.