Panic on the streets of Cape Town

Dublin, Dundee, Humberside.

Not really, obviously. That’s just a borrowed line from a song by The Smiths. I actually have no idea over the prevailing mindset of the residents of those latter three areas. But I do know that there is some concern mounting over a possible protest march in the CBD this coming Friday.
The reasons for this concern are twofold:

Firstly, the alleged protest is allegedly organised by the same guys that allegedly organised the last protest march in the CBD, at the end of October. That allegedly resulted in widespread criminal damage and looting of shops and informal traders in the centre of town and was only dispersed by the onset of a sudden rain shower, which apparently made the protesters realise that their grievances weren’t actually that grievous at all and they’d all rather head off to somewhere drier.

Secondly, the idea that the alleged march could turn nasty has been seized upon by doom-merchants and fearmongers in an effort to merch doom and monger fear. A digital pamphlet is being passed around on Facebook and by email, warning of “major traffic chaos” and “possible associated protests on the N2”, in much the same way as urban myths are shared by the same means. This plays right into the protesters’ hands, given that their only real objective is to disrupt normal life and get some publicity.

After the October 30th march, infamous alleged poo-flinger Andile Lili warned that there would be 250,000 at their next effort. Given that there were between 3,500 and 6,000 protesters on October 30th, this is either extremely optimistic on his part, or frankly rather worrying. Actually, perhaps it’s both.
Then add to that the fact that the alleged march has not been given permission to take place, given the problems of the previous one, and you have an interesting situation with Lili et al talking it up and the City not even acknowledging that anything might happen. At least, not publicly.

So who knows? To continue the tenuous musical links at the beginning of this post, it could be Del Amitri’s Nothing Ever Happens or it might all go a bit Kaizer Chiefs’ I Predict A Riot

You might argue that the protesters have already won, given the amount of concern and the number of changed plans that their alleged action has generated. But given the amount of damage that was caused last time out and the likely increase in numbers this time around, maybe they have their sights set on something a bit more spectacular than just making Cape Town’s Friday a bit difficult.

I’ll be watching from a distance. But will you be avoiding the CBD on Friday or will you run down, to the safety of the town?

Jerm’s Zuma the Gaul cartoon is very clever

Here’s Jerm’s cartoon for today, on the subject of our esteemed leader and his taxpayer funded security complex:

jerm-asterix-zuma-nkandla

Nicely done, and plenty of food for thought in the comparisons between the current situation in Nkandla and the last of the Gauls hanging on against all the odds in the face of  the overwhelming might of the Roman Empire.

I wonder what Zuma’s Getafix (Mac Maharaj?) has been giving him to make him think that he’s going to get away with this? (Although much like Asterix and crew, I have a sneaky feeling that he actually is going to get away with this.)

Fill It In

Much excitement on Social Media over the weekend as #Underdog, the canine found alive at the bottom of Kimberley’s ‘Big Hole’  (the town in the Northern Cape, not the chick on Sea Point Main Road), which was kept alive for several days by tourists throwing it scraps of food, was rescued.
Viva ER24, Viva!

The Big Hole is the largest man-made (hand dug, no machinery involved) hole in the world. It’s more than 50 storeys deep.
Cape Town’s shiny new Portside building would comfortably disappear into it, with height to spare.
It took 50,000 men 42 years to excavate. 22 million tonnes of earth was removed.

It’s Big.

Anyway, news of the heart-warming rescue has spread to the UK and to the Daily Mail, who did a lovely piece on it.

And it was there that we find this comment:

kbh

WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!??!?????!??!?!!!??!?!?

And then there was John’s reply:

kbh2

Stereotypical Irish suggestion, typical Yorkshire humour. Excellent.

Now I’m off to wash my hands, having had to link to “that newspaper”.

Jo Rust

This popped up from Cape Agulhas Tourism on Facebook:

link

That’s Jo(landie) Rust and she’s happy to be back at Cape Agulhas because:

I made it! I achieved my dream of becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the African continent on a motorcycle, solo. Words cannot describe this moment.
L’Agulhas, most southern point in Africa, Sunday 24 November 2013.

We passed Jo and the convoy of supporters which had joined her for the final leg of her journey as we were heading out of Struisbaai yesterday. At that point, I didn’t realise exactly what she had achieved. Now I’ve had a chance to have a look at her website, I do.

What an amazing story. Go see.

Cyclists must now “stay alive at 1…”

Ooh. Cyclists. My favourite people.

The new cycling laws come into force in the Western Cape today, and the biggie is that, as a driver, you must allow at least 1 metre between the side of your vehicle and any cyclist or you will be a criminal. I’m not sure that this will make cyclists feel any safer, given that people generally completely disregard any other traffic laws with impunity anyway.

I’ve done a handy PDF version of the new regulations for you.

Quite what happened to the mantra of “Cyclists stay alive at 1.5”, I’m not sure. Presumably, around 33% more cyclists will not be making it safely back from their ride now. Obviously, this is sad.

Also, drivers are now allowed to cross a solid white line to pass a cyclist as long “it is safe to do so”, which is a bit weird, because if it was safe to cross the solid white line, then there wouldn’t be a solid white line there, would there?

What is quite interesting is that there are some rules for cyclists included in the new regulations as well. Obviously, the cyclists are up in arms about this (the discussion on the new laws is taking place in the “Rant & Rave” section of the local cyclists forum), because they’ve been reminded of all the rules that they should have been obeying anyway.
Have you got a front and rear reflector on your bike? Didn’t think so.
In addition, predictably, the laws for motorists apparently don’t go far enough and the laws for cyclists are too strict, ill-thought out or just annoying. Sample quote:

I will no [sic] be complying with the provisions of this law which I feel do nothing to improve my safety.

Of course you won’t, because we can all pick and choose which laws we want to comply with, can’t we? Idiot.

No. Don’t be so silly, because what these new regulations do is reiterate the rules which both drivers and cyclists must abide by, reminding road users that everyone needs to be responsible for their own safety and the safety of others, and that can only be a good thing in the efforts to prevent unnecessary road deaths.

With that in mind, obviously, if a driver breaks the law, by, say, going withing 95cm of a cyclist, then you can report them by taking down their car registration number and informing the authorities.
Equally, when you see the lycra-clad peloton of cylists going through the red traffic lights at Kalk Bay six abreast on Sunday, you can… erm… you can… right. You can’t.

Hmm.