Yes. I know that this is now (literally) last week’s news, but, when comparing last week’s news with this week’s news, I think I’d rather still be there.

In the words of the videographer:

What was supposed to be a single time lapse of the ship getting pulled out, ended up turning into a four day documentation of the entire event.

There were three attempts to pull the ship out, two of them failing with the rope snapping and the third being a success. The diesel on the Japanese trawler, which was also carrying fish, had to be pumped into a bladder on the beach to decrease its weight, making it easier to pull out. It ended up being quite a lengthy operation involving teams of specialised staff to operate and to offload machinery, and to coordinate the event.

The diesel was offloaded, a stronger towing point was welded to the rear of the ship and she was pulled out at high tide on Friday the 18th May 2012.

A DAFF investigation has shown that the vessel was not engaged in any illegal fishing.

Nope. Vladimir is all tucked in there. And thank goodness, if the rumours of his immense statue are to be believed. Apparently, “Once you go Red, you never go back.” Or maybe it was all propaganda.

I’m not publishing the JZ picture on here, not because I disagree with it being painted, drawn, whatever, but because I really have no compulsion to have a stylised image of Mr Zuma’s parts on my blog. If you want to see “it”, then pop over to this M&G story on the subject.

But come now, it’s just another big fuss over nothing. In protesting, the ANC have now ensured that the Streisand Effect is in full force and the 99.99% of the nation that was wholly unaware that a picture of the President with his fly down even existed are now marvelling at… at… Murray’s work.
It’s fantastic publicity for Murray and for the Goodman Gallery for what, to me, resembles a GCSE art project (but with a willy). If the artist is trying to portray a message with his work – and apparently he is – it’s been thoroughly lost in the rumpus around JZ’s bits being on display. If you want to send a message through art, maybe go back to throwing loo rolls into trees.

Meanwhile, the “freedom of speech” brigade are out in force again, citing Constitutional rights as they always do when this sort of thing happens. And, of course, they are right: Murray is well within his rights to illustrate the genitals of anyone he wants.
But I would love it if despite the fact that Brett Murray had the right to paint JZ’s genitals, he chose not to. Just because you’re allowed to do it, just because it’s your right, it doesn’t mean that you have to. And yes, the ANC has its knickers (not depicted) in a knot over this and it’s all awfully silly, but there really was no need to have done it in the first place. Except to earn the fat fee that some stupid overseas buyer has paid for it, I suppose.
Meh. Brett should head off and find something else to do that actually benefits the country.

As for Jacob – if he didn’t want the picture painted, he should never have agreed to pose for it.

Previously, we’ve had Man U (who they?) and Spurs coming over for the annual Vodacom Challenge in the English off-season, but according to the Sowetan, it could be the Mags this time around:

“Negotiations are at an advanced stage between the organisers and management of Newcastle United. I think an announcement will be made in a few days’ time,” said a source involved in the negotiations. “The organisers are also toying with the idea of getting Tottenham Hotspur back in the tournament because they are going back to its original format of four clubs, but the appearance fees asked by the English teams are massive.”

Hmm… “a source”.

Anyway, this comes after Cape Town “lost out” on being a host city for the upcoming Afcon tournament, citing a lack of guarantees about costs and a lot of other political nastiness. Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, was on a local radio station at that time suggesting that the city would at least be likely to host one of the Vodacom Challenge matches.

Putting those two unsubstantiated claims together and doing some rudimentary calculations, I have worked out that Newcastle are going to be playing in Cape Town sometime in the next couple of months and my hopes are now raised just high enough to be completely dashed.

Ha’way the lads!

It really does feel that way at the moment. The sponge is being squeezed and there’s very little bathwater left to drip out.

For us in Cape Town, the next nasty “surprise” is the July 1st rates increase, which inevitably includes hefty hikes in electricity and water as well. While this will obviously prompt shock and outrage from the uninformed population (probably on the 2nd, as the 1st is a Sunday), this happens every year, with alarming regularity.

On a more positive note, we could (could) be looking at a petrol price drop in the meantime. And, if oil continues on its current downward trend and the Rand holds firm for a few more weeks, it might be as much as 55c/litre. That would give you more than 3 weeks to save up so you can light your house in July.

Happy Days!

I mentioned previously that his sense of humour was impressive. And now he’s missed out on the 27 Club, there’s really nothing to die for anyway, is there?

Stupid girl. All you had, you wasted.

Afrikaans rapper Jack Parow says he is “cool” about being led off the stage midway through a concert in Newcastle when his lyrics upset some in the audience, and that he had a “rad time” regardless.

Parow, whose real name is Zander Tyler, was taken off the stage at the Vodacom Winter Festival on Friday night when a group, upset by his lyrics – which included profanities – physically threatened him.

One man nearly jumped on stage, but was pulled back by police called in to help festival organisers with the group.

A war of words erupted on the Newcastle Newspaper’s Facebook page, with people calling Parow a “satan slang (devil snake)” and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language”.

Now, I can take OR leave Mnr Parow and I can HAPPILY manage without swearing in my music, but seriously now, what were the audience expecting? It’s like turning UP to a Metallica gig and “hoping they don’t play anything too loud”.
I have kids and I try to shelter them from swearing (amongst other things) as much as possible. That MEANS not taking them along to Jack Parow gigs (amongst other things). No matter HOW backward Newcastle is, the allegation that this performance was instrumental in corrupting their youth is a bit OTT.

Parow, unsurprisingly, was unabashed:

Parow said he was singing his song Dans Dans Dans when the microphone was taken from him by an organiser and he was led off stage. He then noticed police trying to calm a few men beside the stage.

“Some people don’t like the swearing. I was singing ‘Dans, dans f***en dans’. This one guy was shouting at me and said: ‘Why are you f***ing swearing?’, but that was funny because he was swearing at me.”

As you will have noted above, all of this has (typically) reared its head on Facebook, WHERE a couple of comments by Anthon von Lisenborgh have captured the imagination of some individuals and INTRODUCED random CAPITALISATION to popular culture:

The biggest IRONY for me is that Jack Parow’s shortened act followed that of Afrikaner Steve Hofmeyr (and whom Anthon comprehensively fails to accuse of being an “Artist of Satan”), a man perhaps BEST known for his racist rants, being divorced by his wife after having “numerous affairs”, assaulting the female editor of a popular gossip magazine and being described by the Deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations as being a disgrace to South Africa and of using his “not insignificant following to sow anger and hate among young white people”.

When it comes to role models, it would seem that the Afrikaans culture is struggling somewhat, but while Jack Parow CONTINUES to use the F-word (and he will continue to use the F-word) Anthon seems conveniently blinkered to Mr Hofmeyr’s shortcomings.

UPDATE: A bit more on Anthon – he’s written a book: Apocrypha 999 – The Mystery of Solomon and Queen Bilqis of Sheba - and in his author bio (filled with MORE random capitalisation), he includes THE line:

…do with it as you feel fit or do nothing if you want, it is up to you to decide and not me.

Obviously, the same doesn’t apply to concerts in North West Kwa-Zulu Natal.

I’m not getting drawn into this one. Evans was found guilty and, while I understand that he is appealing the verdict, there is no excuse for what he has done and no excuse for anyone to defend his actions or to question the judgement.

However, Ian does make some valid points with reference to the the way that the inexcusable behaviour of a few idiots has been taken to be representative of the whole club.

This case isn’t anything to do with Sheffield United. It is nothing to do with football. It is about a sexual assault.

Those in charge at Sheffield United FC have dealt with the matter very well. At the minute you cannot say this reflects badly on the club, but now we have the danger of a negative media frenzy thanks to the actions of a vocal minority.

The Sky cameras will be focused even more firmly on United and the supporters on Saturday. A spotlight intensified by the ferocity of comments from some of our support alongside the reported tweets of current and former players. Please don’t let yourselves down. Please don’t let the club down.

And he’s absolutely right. But I feel that his appeal will fall on deaf ears. The vocal minority will continue to be vocal and the media will jump all over it.

Thanks Paul

What’s also tragic is the sudden outpouring of pseudo-expert opinions, many blaming the Ocearch shark project which was taking place in False Bay at the time, for the attack. Of course, understandably, emotions were running high due to the incident yesterday and the controversial, if often over-exaggerated, reports of Ocearch “chumming” the water to attract sharks to tag offered a convenient scapegoat. These accusations were further supported by the director of Biodiversity and Coastal Research, Alan Boyd immediately cancelling Ocearch’s research permit when he heard about the attack.

Now, 24 hours on from the attack, the City of Cape Town has released a report and review of the events yesterday. It’s calm, detailed, factual and rational. Everyone should read it. Especially this bit:

The following critical point needs to be stated. During the attack the sharks dorsal fin broke the surface (as reported by the eye witness Mr Marais). If this shark had been one of the tagged sharks, the satellite transmitter would have given off a signal that would have been recorded on the system and located the shark at Kogel Bay. On assessing the data, no satellite records exist for that area. Two of the sharks tagged in False Bay have given off signals and were located in the Macassar/Strandfontein area shortly before the attack. The lack of satellite signal is clear information that the shark involved in the attack is not one of the sharks tagged by the Ocearch Research Programme.

Further, with regard to public speculation of the role of chum, the following should be noted. White sharks occur in False Bay in healthy numbers throughout the year. The small and limited chumming by Ocearch would not have attracted additional sharks to False Bay as the amount of chum used is insignificant in comparison to natural chum sources in the bay including the natural chum slick emanating from Seal Island, fishing activities in False Bay, by-products from Kalk Bay harbour as well as the small and immaterial chumming by permitted cage divers. Furthermore, the Ocearch Programme operated in False Bay at Seal Island on Sunday and Monday. The wind direction has been strong south east throughout the week. Any residual chum from their activities would have dissipated within hours and, due to the wind direction, moved from the island in an opposite direction to that of Kogel Bay.

As a result, there is no evidence or reason to suggest that the tagging of four White Sharks over a period of 24 hours from Sunday 15 April to Monday 16 April, in False Bay, by the Ocearch Programme had any role to play in the tragic events that occurred at Caves.

Although the City has, and continues to have, no role in the Ocearch Programme, as well as not feeling that it is appropriate, or required, to defend or support the programme, it holds the view that it is essential that the correct and factual information be provided to the public. Public and media speculation linking the two unrelated activities is uninformed and misleading. 

Highlighting is mine.

There’s more detail in the report as to why the City has (independently)  reached this conclusion, but I applaud them for actually taking the time and effort to put that last paragraph in.

The report also answers several of the questions asked by ZigZag’s Anton Louw in an obviously personal column “Ocearch and the Kogel Baai attack – Searching for answers, finding few” published overnight. There are a few questions still outstanding though, including this one (on the practice of chumming):

Why are almost all the scientists and researchers lined up on the one side of the fence, and the laymen on the other?

When tragic events like this occur, people look for any reason that can explain things. In this case, Chris Fischer’s methods and Alan Boyd’s go-ahead had already raised the ire of the layperson community well before yesterday’s incident. But that ire was based upon misinformation and exaggerated facts (see also: fracking). Do these people really think that the director of Biodiversity and Coastal Research just signed off that research request without some degree of forethought?
Sadly, his kneejerk reaction yesterday in cancelling, instead of simply postponing, Fischer’s permit will lead many to think he did.
And ironically, because of his actions, we will now know less about the behaviour of great white sharks in False Bay; information that could potentially assist in preventing further attacks of this nature.

All in all, it’s another lesson that sometimes bad things happen for no reason. And also that looking at factual information – especially independently reviewed factual information – is infinitely more sensible that leaping to emotional and incorrect conclusions.

One group who are particularly vocal in their opposition to e-tolling are Cosatu. They represent over 2 million workers across SA and they are a politically active organisation as well, so it makes sense for them to be involved. But their latest call to arms and their threat to mobilise their members in “the mother of all protests against the act of highway robbery” have awakened the cynic in me (who only ever dozes lightly anyway).

Here’s their plan:

Cosatu is planning several rallies, marches, demonstrations and night vigils at the offices of the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and the transport department across the country from April 23.

These would lead up to a large “national stay-away or socio-economic strike” on April 30.

Monday, April 30th hey? That seems like the ideal time to do this, since that’s when the e-tolling is due to start (although it seems likely to be postponed amidst the current chaos). But there’s something else about Monday April 30th that we should note: namely that it is the only working day between Thursday 26th April and Wednesday 2nd May.

Yep, if you take into account the public holidays on 27th April and 1st May (and who wouldn’t?) then adding 30th April as a “stayaway day” means that you get a 5-day weekend.

How very convenient.

I predict further mass action in June when Zwelinzima Vavi et al work out that Youth Day is on a Saturday this year and will therefore not attract a day off work.

On the plus side (because there’s always a plus side), this e-tolling row could turn out to be the great unifying event South Africa has been crying out for. Mandela might not have to die. Unfortunately, recent worldwide events have suggested that great unifying events have generally not been great when the incumbent government in on the other side.