Feltham in Middlesex

By 6000 | 6000 | November 30, 2009

Stuff I made up:

News today that South African 800m World Champion Caster Semenya is planning ahead for the 2012 London Olympic games by setting up a training camp in the UK near the official Olympic venue.

She will be based at Feltham in Middlesex.

(Surrey if you didn’t find that amusing)

2 Comments | Tagged , , , | Posted in in the news, this is south africa

El Clássico

By 6000 | 6000 | November 29, 2009

Some of you may be thankful to hear that there won’t be a huge amount from me here this evening. It’s been another busy day chez 6000 and I’m all on for for watching Barcelona and Real Madrid kick chunks out of each other in a short while. I love watching the big games and there’s probably none bigger than El Clássico. One day I will go to Spain and watch it live, but until that time, channel 203 will just have to suffice. If it is anything like as exciting as United’s game at Bristol City yesterday (we won 3-2, equaliser scored on 90+5 minutes, winner scored on 90+6, 10 yellow cards and a partridge in a pear tree) then I will be more than happy.

Earlier in the day, we watched a billion motorcycles ride past on the annual Cape Town Charity Toy Run, which passes close to our road every November. Alex – who is fortunate to be blessed with far too many teddy bears and cuddly stuff – donated several of his toys to the charity by giving them to the bikers as they passed by and as you can see by the photos here and here, he certainly wasn’t the only one. What an amazing effort. Also see my Toy Run 2009 Flickr Set

After my success earlier in the day with getting my daughter to sleep (despite the continuing roar of the passing motorcycles), I was entrusted with putting her to bed this evening. Things didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped and I had to switch to Plan B early on. Plan B wasn’t actually that great either and I didn’t have a Plan C. I ended up running through a  few more plans that I made up as I went along but lost count somewhere around L.
That, if nothing else, explains why she is going to be watching the Spanish footy with me now. Enjoy!

3 Comments | Tagged , , | Posted in flickr, positive thoughts, the parenting bunny, this is south africa

Last ditch

By 6000 | 6000 | November 28, 2009

With VIP guests arriving in Cape Town from all over the world for the FIFA World Cup draw on Friday, my parents are also popping in for 7 days “on their way” back from Australia to the UK. The it’s “on their way” excuse kind of works if you are flexible and fold the map to make Australia look closer to Africa with Perth and Durban merging to form one megatropolis called Purban or Derth or something. Last time they were anywhere near a World Cup event, back in France ’98, my Mum was mistaken for Prince Charles at Boulogne and there were huge issues with her Visa card being in the wrong name. Since Prince Charles is (as far as I am aware) wholly unconnected with the goings on at the CTICC on Friday, I have high hopes that they will have an uneventful stay, credit card wise.

I’ve worked damn hard today preparing the house and garden for our visitors. After all, it’s not every day the heir to the monarchy of Great Britain comes to stay with you. Wait – I’ve got that wrong again, haven’t I? Anyway, lawns were cut, flowers were planted, some painting was done and then I went out to a birthday party and drank 6 Peronis.  I know. You’re amazed I can even type straight, aren’t you? So am I, although currently of course I only have my perception of what this looks like. It could actually be complete gibberish. I may well look at this in the cold light of morning and wonder what I was thinking. Actually, that often happens, if I’m honest.

Once again, I’m making excuses for not blogging earlier. Experience has taught me that you get less readers to posts that you write late at night under the influence of Italian beer brewed in Johannesburg (one of the lesser known outposts of the Roman Empire) and that some of them don’t even read to the end of the third paragraph. Thanks if you’ve got this far – I really won’t keep you much longer. The reason I’m blogging at all is to keep up my almighty task of a post a day, which began on January 31st and was originally  just going to be for the (short) month of February. That I have kept it going on in various guises for a mighty 302 days so far has cost me readers, my sanity, several hundred hours of sleep and virutally all that remained of my reputation. That I still feel it necessary to come and document my feelings just before midnight and just after 6 Peronis smacks of OCD.

That you’re still reading  probably means that you have completely finished the rest of the internet and now only have a choice between So You Think You Can Dance and this. Incidentally, though I’m not a big fan, SYTYCD is actually pretty entertaining after a couple of litres of beer.

2 Comments | Tagged , , | Posted in admin

Not drunk

By 6000 | 6000 | November 27, 2009

Tiger Woods’ car crash news is breaking all over Twitter.

Woods, 33, pulled out of his driveway in the Isleworth community about 2:25 a.m. when he struck a fire hydrant, and then drove into a tree at his neighbor’s property, FHP reported.

Woods was apparently taken to a nearby hospital “in a seriously rat-arsed condition”.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always striking fire hydrants and then driving into my neighbour’s arboreal vegetation in the early hours of the morning. I like to test to see how quickly the local council can get out to stem the big fountain of water that spews from the broken faucet. If they arrive before it gets light, I feel that my exorbitant rates bill is doing at least some good. 
Next door’s tree just annoys me by dropping leaves in my pool so I try and knock it down while I’m out damaging the car: it saves time and effort just billing the insurance once.

I’m not drunk when I do that though. Honest.

1 Comment | Tagged , , , | Posted in in the news, sport, that's a bit mad

Blogger’s block and smoking monkeys

By 6000 | 6000 | November 27, 2009

The problem with updating one’s blog every day is that sometimes one just doesn’t have the time or inclination. Either that or there’s nothing suitably interesting to write about. But it’s ok, because you can always post a quota photo – as long as you didn’t do that yesterday.
But in a worst case scenario - like today – those conditions come together in a perfect storm of blogger’s block. Oh crap.

It’s serious. The cricket is on, The Living Daylights is on, I have a billion spam comments to check through and clear (having found a terrifying large number of genuine “Ham” comments in amongst them last time), it’s getting late and I suspect that there will be some, if not more, child wakage later on this evening due to a nasty cold which is currently passing through the junior members of the household. I have done my best to relax the kids into a quiet and gentle slumber by plying the younger one with strong medicine and plying the older one with 104 pages of Curious George stories, but experience dictates that the nocturnal snot will prevail. Oh crap.

Times were evidently different when Curious George was written in the 1940′s and 50′s. When George escapes from prison by running along the telegraph wires and then floating away under a bunch of helium baloons before being rescued by his friend “The Man With The Yellow Hat” (who smuggled him into New York from Africa), he heads home. Obviously shaken from his rather traumatic day, I was horrified to turn the page and find the little simian chilling out in an armchair apparently smoking a pipe. And yes, there it was:

After a good meal and a good pipe,
George was ready for bed.

Alex looked momentarily confused. “Daddy? What’s a ‘good pipe’?”
But Daddy had brilliantly predicted that question and had already swiftly and safely moved on to the next story, all about how Curious George jumps into a lorry with two strange men who promise him that he can be part of their special circus later that night…

Oh crap.

1 Comment | Tagged , | Posted in admin, the parenting bunny
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