With that landmark reached, here’s one I like from the horribly aborted Last Hurrah 2010 tour.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but suffice to say that the World Cup helped quite a bit. As has Katrin Müller-Hohenstein’s bottom, which – depressingly – remains my most viewed photo from the tournament. Depressingly because it’s rubbish (the photograph – her bottom is lovely). Here it is again with ex-German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn looking on.

But I digress. Often.

If you’ve ever looked at any of my photos, thanks. If you haven’t, now would be the perfect time to start as I begin my journey on the path towards 200,000 views.

The WPRFU Executive Committee decided that the home of rugby, Newlands, would stage this historic match. According to the South African Rugby Union Constitution the final decision regarding the match venue lies in the hands of the host union.

This news was greeted by a hearty rattle of walking sticks and zimmer frames.

The thing is though, Saracens – who made the official approach to have the match played in Cape Town – don’t want to play at Newlands. They want to play at the Cape Town Stadium, hence their official approach to have the game played at… er… the Cape Town Stadium.

This could be seen as a not-so-subtle hint that WPRU has no intention of moving to the new stadium. A not-so-subtle hint which mirrors the no-so-subtle hint of Newlands only being awarded the South Africa v Argentina test next year, which all the “big” tests (Australia, New Zealand, England) went to 2o10 World Cup venues.

The Committee unanimously agreed that Newlands is currently the home of rugby in the Western Province, and will be treated as such for the foreseeable future. Newlands is one of the oldest rugby stadia in the world, with excellent facilities and currently boasts some of the highest attendance levels in world rugby.

Excellent facilities including decaying concrete, poor lighting, no parking and so on. And those attendance levels? Sure, they’re great – but  how many of those fans wouldn’t travel 10km up the road for a better experience at a better stadium?

It’s a poke in the eye for the City of Cape Town. A reminder of who runs rugby in the Cape. A sign of what’s to come if the City thinks it’s going to “force” WPRU away from Newlands. It’s a watershed moment and instead of embracing common sense and the wishes of so many people in Cape Town, WPRU are obstinately stuck in the past, sitting blinkered in their own little world.

Whether the game will now even go ahead at all is yet to be seen. If not, that would mean a loss of revenue for many stakeholders – including WPRU.

How long before they learn their lesson?

Getting 50,000-plus people in and out of any stadium is never going to be completely straightforward. There will always be some issues – hopefully minor ones – but these problems can be avoided if more people know what to expect ahead of time. Thus the City of Cape Town have released a five page document which tells you all you need to know about the concert, the road closures, the park and ride facilities and the public transport for the event. That’s why we’re helping out by sharing the information as well:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE EVENT DETAILS FOR COLDPLAY AT
THE CAPE TOWN STADIUM: WEDNESDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2011 

In addition, there’s more info including (again) the venue rules and regulations in this handy FAQ:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A FAQ ON THE EVENT
(INCLUDING STADIUM RULES & REGULATIONS)

There are plenty of options for getting in and out of town (although good luck on making the one Southern Suburbs train at 2340), including free park and ride facilities from UCT, Hout Bay and numerous rail stations, as well as the always-popular shuttle from the Civic Centre to the Stadium.

Make a plan that suits you (and doesn’t involve driving up to the stadium gates, parking by the turnstiles and simply popping in) and get there early. If you do that, the very worst that could happen is that you arrive while the Parlotones are still on – although admittedly, that would be a very bad thing.

If you can’t be there, you can always follow my twitter updates and pics from the gig.

Now: Please do your bit and use the buttons below to spread the wealth…

Posts which get the most feedback are those which tweak people’s metaphorical nipples: those being the political ones, the environmental ones or the ones taking the p… mickey out of the Cape Times letters page. Sadly, recently the local political scene has been hugely depressing, the local environMENTALists quiet (aside from occasional petty and pointless stunts) and the Cape Times letters page unusually sane.

It’s no wonder it’s been so quiet here.

It was much louder this time last year…

Brings a tear to the eye…

That’s France’s Jeremy Toulalan and Uruguay’s Alvaro Pereira challenging for a ball which I comprehensively failed to get in shot. This was the second game of the tournament after the Bafana Bafana v Mexico game which we watched with a couple of hundred thousand others at the Waterfront. This one ended 0-0, meaning that I had watched a total of 3½ hours of football at the Cape Town Stadium without seeing a goal.

Fortunately, 39 minutes into the next game in Cape Town (a bitterly cold affair between Italy and Paraguay), Antolín Alcaraz scored for the South Americans and the duck was broken, only to return for the utterly dismal England v Algeria game a few days later.

Expect more quota photos loosely tied around a World Cup 2010 theme this month and every other June for ever and ever.

But then, when you look at it from this angle:

I don’t think they got it quite straight.

Thankfully, I don’t think anyone else has noticed. Yet.

Isn’t it… flat?!?

As the opponents to the new Cape Town Stadium built for the World Cup asked at the time: “Why can’t we just use the stadium that’s there already?”

Beats me – it looks great.

This is probably the last football game at the Cape Town Stadium for the season due to the numbers of events lined-up for the Stadium so we urge our fans to come and enjoy the “Gees” with us before we move to other football venues within the Mother City.

Which is sad, because nothing really matches the Cape Town Stadium for watching football. Instead we’re going to find ourselves at windy Athlone or tumbledown Newlands. And it’s also ironic that we can’t watch football in our “white elephant” football stadium because it’s so booked up for other stuff. Whingers, take note.

Anyway, Ajax are going out with a bang with a full on Family Day experience, so if you were erring on the side of staying at home –  don’t.
Tickets from Computicket are priced at R40, R60 and R80 and there is going to be plenty there for the kids, including an inflatable 5-a-side court, the Coca-Cola Gig Rig and a warm-up match between the Cape Legends and the local media.

I will be taking my boy along and then there will probably be ice cream for at least one of us at the Waterfront afterwards.

Gates open at 13:30, the warm-up match kicks off at 13:40 and the (actually rather important) Ajax game starts at 15:30.

Don’t miss out!

Sadly, given his age and usual bedtime, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to stay for much (if any) of the second game, but that won’t bother him since I haven’t told him that the second game is on. Clever daddy.

It also gives me the opportunity to put this photo of the stadium on here, taken during the World Cup quarter final between Germany and Argentina last July, which combines my love of things football, things Cape Town and things sunset all in one well-organised collection of pixels. Brilliant.

It also reminded me that I now understand the apathy amongst some people when it came to the idea of Football Friday – the practice of wearing a football shirt on Fridays in the lead up to the World Cup – as Cricket Friday has come been launched. Cricket Friday is the brainchild of the Lead SA initiative: the same people who told us that driving with our headlights on would reduce road accidents by 30%, only to be told that those stats came from Sweden, where it’s dark for 6 months of the year and 75% of all RTAs involve moose, which are notoriously photophobic.

While I’m all for supporting the national team (as long as they’re not playing England), Cricket Friday doesn’t really work, initially  because the alliteration which made Football Friday so catchy just isn’t there (in fact, since there are no days beginning with C, they might as well just give up now) and also because Football Friday came on the eve of the biggest thing to hit SA since democracy, whereas Cricket Friday comes ahead of five ODI matches between SA and India, one of which will be washed out tomorrow.
It’s not quite the same.

However, while tomorrow may be Cricket Saturday (see the problem there again?), today is definitely Football Friday and Alex and I will be enjoying an early evening hot dog and ice cream at the Waterfront before heading to Block 225 for some Vasco action.

One thing we did catch this weekend was Nik Rabinowitz’s You Can’t Be Serious stand-up show at the Baxter. Very funny guy, with a keen eye for observing and finding the funny in South Africa and South Africanisms. It’s humour I wouldn’t have understood if I hadn’t been here observing the same stuff for seven years.

Here he is on the BBC’s Mock The Week in June last year:

The thing is, though he does the languages thing very well (although the knock knock joke is wearing a little thin now), all he is actually doing in this sketch is repeating the local football commentary. Because yes, that’s exactly what you will hear on a Xhosa radio station when the football in on. And yes, I suppose it’s quite amusing if you’re not used to it.

I can’t help but think, however, that my UK stand-up act would fall flat were I to bring my rendition of some English football commentary and a knock knock joke to South African television.