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.

Quota Sunset No. 4196

Breakfast on the beach, lunch in the local pub and then supper watching the sun go down at the shipwreck.

image

Truth be told, I’ve seen much better sunsets, but I didn’t miss the opportunity to pop a few long exposure photos off afterwards.
Those will have to wait to be uploaded and shared until I have an internet service which doesn’t rely on rubbing two sticks together and praying to Kwan, Almighty Lord of Connectivity.
Or “tomorrow”, as I like to call it.

Right, let’s get this post published then. Now, where did I put those twigs…?