SA Blog Awards Update

Well, many thanks to both of you loyal readers who nominated me in the 2009 SA Blog Awards. Because of the time and effort you put in (4 clicks and an anti-spam code, I think it was) together with the large lump of cash that I sent through to Glenn Agliotti (no – he’s not a judge, but he has influence, ok?) I find myself a finalist in two categories:

  • Best Original Writing On A South African Blog and
  • Best Personal Blog

I’d like to think that my “composition, attention to detail, advanced levels of subject investigation” in my “diary type blog of a personal lifestory nature” would mean that if there were an award for the Best Original Writing On A South African Personal Blog, I’d have it sewn up already like Helen Zille has the Best White Woman In Charge Of A South African Opposition Party Beginning With D award in her back pocket. Sadly, there isn’t such a category and thus I’m going to have to slug it out with the Patricia de Lilles and Bantu Holomisas of the South African blogosphere.
Of course, this is no bad thing, because this is democratic South Africa, alive with the possibility of finding someone who’ll take a hefty backhander. (I think Brand SA missed a few bits out of that for their official slogan – perhaps wise, but factually inaccurate.)

You can vote by going to the SA Blog Awards site and submitting your vote at the bottom of the page. Or just wait until I stick a widget on here to help you out [I’m currently awaiting widget delivery from the SABA massive]. [EDIT: Widget below] Or do both, from your myriad of email addresses that you really should have consolidated into one handy gmail account. Tell your friends, too and even invite them to tell their friends – start a viral campaign. Remember to use a condom: according to the pope that makes these things spread even faster.

I’m hoping to have some time tomorrow in which to review the finalists and maybe give you some hints and tips as to who else you might like to vote for in the other categories. One which springs immediately to mind (and must be favourite for the win) is blogrollee Po (aka Spindrifting South African SeaMonkey) in the Best Overseas category. So vote for her. And vote for me. Twice.

Thank you for your attention.

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Today: a summary

No one particular subject has dominated my mind or time today, save for the post I was going to do about waking up with Madonna and Billy Joel. Not on the radio or on the TV – literally waking up with them. In my bed. 
I have no idea what they were doing in there. Sleeping, I guess. My wife is going to kill me, she was only away for one night and I end up sleeping with a pair of veteran multi-Grammy Award winning artistes.
Again.

From the ridiculous to the sublime. My iPod has been churning out high quality choons all day. This is unusual. I have had a number of very disappointing days music-wise recently. But a combination of Depeche Mode, Fifth Amendment, Skunk Anansie and The Pigeon Detectives has redeemed Steve Jobs somewhat. I shall let him live a little longer.

And back to the ridiculous. The pope and his überdaft comments on condoms and HIV.
I’m not religious. I don’t mind people worshipping me, although it sometimes makes a simple trip down to Pick n Pay quite an ordeal. But I recognise people’s rights to believe what they want to. And the catholic church doesn’t like people using condoms. Fair enough. They can preach their silly message if they choose to do so. But to suggest that the use of condoms actually exacerbates the spread of HIV is completely unfounded and dangerous.

“While it is not up to us to pass judgment on Church doctrine, we consider that such comments are a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life.”

French foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier

With great power comes great responsibility and the pope is a very powerful man. His comments are disgraceful and should be withdrawn before they do real harm. 
Are catholics allowed to withdraw? Probably not.

Julius Malema isn’t on twitter. Gutted.

Natasha Richardson has died. spEak You’re bRanes is unimpressed with the outpouring of emotion.

The Employment Equity Act, 55 of 1998.

No person may unfairly discriminate, directly or indirectly, against an employee in any employment policy or practice, on one or more grounds including race, gender, pregnancy, marital status, family responsibility, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, HIV status, conscience, belief, political opinion, culture, language, and birth.

“Birth”? Now they tell me.
I’ve been regularly discriminating against unborn people in my employment policies and practices since I came to South Africa. I have yet to employ either an embryo or a foetus and now I feel awful. And completely open to prosecution.
In my defence, the last time I interviewed a foetus (for a middle management position, as I recall), all I got in reply to some of my more probing questions was a slap from his mother.
Which was off-putting, to say the least.

Swings and Roundabouts

Or rather, Roundabouts and Swings

Said he “the job’s the very spit of what it always were,
“It’s bread and bacon mostly when the dog don’t catch a hare,
“But looking at it broad, and while it ain’t no merchant kings,
“What’s lost upon the roundabouts, we pulls up on the swings.”

Roundabouts and Swings by Patrick Chalmers

Poetry on 6000 miles…hoodathunkitt? But I always wondered where that expression came from.

After my minirant regarding the injustices of football and the backward mindedness of the FA, Karma (which I really don’t believe in) was happened – or whatever Karma does – yesterday as my beloved Blades scored an offside goal and a really soft penalty to win 2-1 in a crunch match against Birmingham City.  
I now expect to find similar rants all over the web from Birmingham City fans. Or at least I would if any of them could write. I guess that’s a bit of an ask when you’ve only mastered the basic vowel sounds.
And even those, incorrectly.

It’s hard to remember – especially in something as emotive as football – that things do tend to even themselves out. Thus, Birmingham’s “bad luck” will probably be passed onto whoever they play next and so on and so forth.

Of course, humans being what they are these days, with the general “glass half-empty” approach to life, will never believe that they are getting anything but a raw deal, especially us bloggers, desperately narcissistic, craving attention and sympathy like some sort of Münchausen Syndrome victims. Twitter just concentrates the effect.
You know who you are.
And if you’re thinking “maybe he means me,”  then I probably don’t, but you’re obviously heading that way. 

More happy “Joy of Rusk” style posts, please. With smiles and stuff.
Which, I accept, this one isn’t.

Ooh ,the irony.

Actually not that bad

I’m pleased to announce that I have made a full recovery from yesterday’s very mild bout of homesickness, which was brought on by the snow back in the UK. A couple of beers overlooking a Table Bay sunset last night and a trip up the R27 during a top secret (and failed) lunchtime mission – on which I got lost and ended up watching pelicans on the Milnerton Lagoon – soon sorted me out.
It’s a wonderful bird, is the pelican, for its beak can hold more than its belly can. And if you’ve ever seen how big a pelican poo is (like a large bowlful of fishy white porridge), you’ll appreciate that they must have really, really big beaks.
I did used to get lost in the UK occasionally as well, but there were no pelicans to see.

The view from that Lagoon goes out to Po, the microbiologist with whom I seemingly swapped my life, five years ago. I know she hates photos of Table Mountain in the sun, especially when she’s not able to look at Table Mountain in the sun. And, seeing as she’s snowed {UPDATE: slushed} in in Oxford at the moment – that’s now.


Famous view

It’s a very pleasant 36°C out there today, which might seem like an oxymoron, but there’s a lovely breeze and no fires… yet. I’ll be braai’ing this evening and celebrating the difference between here and the UK by daring to try a cold beer or eight with the pelican I caught*.

Of course, there’s far more to South Africa than just the spectacular weather and wide variety of large-billed edible waterfowl, but I see no need to go any further right now.
It’s going to be a weekend of sitting by the pool or on the beach.
So, you see, it’s actually not that bad.

* he’s not the dinner guest – he’s the dinner.

A February admin post

Look at the title: This is an admin post. No – I don’t like them either, but they are necessary evils to keep you informed and to remind me what I did and why I did it. Keep reading – you might learn something.

Without wanting to give too much away (just in case the Overlords are reading), despite my physical geographical location being 33°54’44″S 18°29’19″E (ish) as I write this, it is becoming evident that my emotional geographical location is much more 53°23’09″N 1°28’10″W.

I’m missing the snow and the warm beer. All we have here is soaring temperatures, hot winds and runaway veld fires. I’m missing the decent football, although last night’s Merseyside derby cup replay didn’t do much to promote the beautiful (English) game. As one correspondent to the blog remarked: “What a complete waste of nearly 3 hours of potential sleep time.”

And he was right.

But no-one likes a morose blogger, so keeping my mind busy with other things is what’s required. Thus, it’s spring-cleaning time at 6000 miles….
Out go a couple of redundant blogs from the blogroll, in comes heavyweight English comedian Stephen Fry and his unsurprisingly chatty personal offerings.
The RSS feed has been updated too. Following a myriad of pleading emails, it’s now full text. See? I listen!
I have been signed up by GlobalPost.com and will now be telling the truth about South Africa to people even more globally than before – if that’s possible.

Additionally, I’m now on twitter. Not for any other reason than everyone else seemed to be doing it and it looked a bit of fun. You can look in the sidebar for my latest status, or if you follow me @6000, it’ll even keep you in the know about updates on here.

Finally, I’m attempting a post a day in February. This is day five of February and this is my fifth post. So all in all, it seems to be going quite well. And your response has been wonderful too – visitors are up almost 300% on this time last year. Thanks. And tell your friends to come and have a look too.

There. All done, I think. Like a uneventful visit to the dentist – not as bad as you thought, was it?
Although you haven’t got my bill yet.