Real Mountain

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: while Table Mountain is the iconic Cape Town landmark, Devils Peak is by far the most charismatic of the Cape Town mountains.

It looks like a proper mountain whichever side you view it from – it’s got a pointy top and the view from up there must be spectacular. I’ve never actually been up there, but all that will change when I actually go up there at some point in the future.

This was the view from my car at the junction of Milner and Klipfontein on the way home this evening.

Cape Town Stadium: Truly Magnificent

As promised, I can say I was there at the first ever football match played at Cape Town’s 2010 World Cup stadium. And what an experience. As ever, a big football match in the Mother City brought out the true spirit of the Rainbow Nation – every colour, every age – all just there to share in the historic moment and to have a great time.

The standard of the actual football wasn’t much to write home about, unless you are a fan of words like “rubbish” and “dull” and the phrase “couldn’t score in a brothel”, but the weather was perfect, the atmosphere superb, the organisation faultless and the stadium itself: truly magnificent. It was fascinating to watch as people came in and just stared in awe, open-mouthed.

I took almost a Gig of photographs, which I have managed to whittle down to 81 pictures and a video (HD, nogal!) of the very first kick off at the Stadium – courtesy of Ajax’s centre-forward, Diyo Sibisi.

Slideshow (in a separate window) | Flickr set

All in all, a brilliant day out and very promising for the World Cup. In a couple of weeks, we double the numbers for the Rugby – it’s going to be another sell-out and another great occasion.

EDIT: I’m told that there are some (continuing) complaints on certain (Cape Talk) radio stations about fans blowing vuvuzelas. The only noise I’m fed up with is the incessant whining of the whities who have suddenly become football fans (which is great) and now want to change the game to suit themselves (which is not). Bugger off.

Busy Day

Today always promised to be a hectic day – from appointments in the morning, lunch with football friends and an afternoon at the Stadium through to the fancy dress party in the evening. Hence I am utilising the somewhat risky, but very helpful “scheduled post” option on WordPress. And I’m giving you a quota photo of the all-new, all-singing and occasionally-dancing Cape Town Stadium to be getting along with.

I would imagine that I’ll be taking a few photos at the game today, including some (or more), from inside the Polo Mint itself. Those will be on here tomorrow. Watch this space. (Not continuously, obviously – you’ve probably got other things to be getting on with.)

Another reason that South Africa can’t host the 2010 World Cup

Forget the Angolans, the sharks and the naughty people with knives.
Have you seen the number of flippin’ terrifying bugs there are out there?

Even in my Cape Town garden (which is actually in Europe), there’s some nasty stuff about:

And I haven’t even mentioned the killer bees and the moths, (which are probably, like, killer moths).

Once the Daily Mail gets hold of this kind of information, FIFA will have no choice but to bow to the mighty pressure Paul Dacre and his band of right-wing underlings will place them under and the tournament will be moved to Australia, which is already home to some nasty racist animals but let’s not make a fuss about that.

Not me

In answer to the multitude of email that has arrived (1): no, this isn’t me.

I find personalised number plates completely tacky. And I wouldn’t ever drive a Merc again after they dropped their sponsorship deal with 6000 miles… over that incident with the Latvian escort girl, the honey badger and the celery.

So no, this isn’t me, and thus there’s actually no point in throwing stones (or anything else) at this vehicle.