Day 63, Part 2 – Getting social

This is literally just a post to test a new way of connecting the blog to Twitter and to Facebook.

I’ll need to put some writing here, just to fill in a couple of gaps and make it look like a real blog post and to try and fool the magic robots that check on these things.

It might help to have an image in here too. I think I’ll use this one:

That’s a little yacht on the River Thames in London, taken in 2012.

And that should just about do it. Now let’s click the button and see if any of this has worked.

Day 63 – Thursday thoughts

Day 63, eh? Into 10 weeks of lockdown tomorrow then…

Winter has certainly arrived in the Cape this week. A second cold front today with 13mm of rain already this morning (it’s 9:30am). I went out and had a run in the fresh air and the precipitation, but there were some issues.

I’ve never had a problem with getting wet. When you are born and dragged up in Sheffield, rain is a very regular thing and being annoyed about it would result in a very stressful existence. (Ironically, Summer has arrived in Sheffield this week and it’s lovely over there.) However, I’ve never run in a facemask in the rain before.

Not nice.

I would imagine that it’s something akin to being waterboarded. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but it really wasn’t very pleasant and I found myself involuntarily blurting out the coordinates to a clandestine terrorist base in network of caves in the Drakensberg.

I survived and made it back inside for a hot shower and a hot coffee.
Well deserved.

Talking of weather, we were one of many families who were watching the live stream of the first rocket launch from American soil in 9 years last night, until it was postponed at just “T minus seventeen minutes” because of a “strength of electrical field in atmosphere violation”.

One of the commentators mentioned “well, this is Florida in the Spring, and the risk of thunderstorms was always going to be a factor.”

And that got me thinking: why don’t they launch from somewhere else then – somewhere less likely to have a strength of electrical field in atmosphere violation?

Like Kazakhstan.

Right. I have quiz questions to write, some maths homework to do and I need to cook dinner (Uber Eats last night was such a treat – love me a night off cooking).
I think a slow-cooker sausage casserole will fit the bill for today’s ugly weather.

Day 62 – A bizarre decision

Last night, the President announced that from June 1st, religious gatherings of up to 50 people would be permitted again.

I’m going to get straight in there and suggest that this is a stupid, populist decision which will mean more Covid-19 hotspots, more pressure on the health services and more deaths.

Throughout the lockdown, the SA government has made a number of decisions which appear to have absolutely no basis whatsoever in science or reason.

– You can buy closed-toed shoes, but not flip-flops. Why?
– You can’t buy cigarettes “because they are not healthy”, but alcohol can go on sale again on Monday. Silly.
– You can only exercise between 6 and 9am. Even though busy pavements make for greater risk of infection.

But this one is different.
This one has got scientific evidence all over it: it’s just that the evidence all points to not allowing religious gatherings of up to 50 people.

Churches and places of worship all over the world have been highlighted as epicentres of infection since the pandemic began:

In France: “‘Spreading at our church was so strong’, says French doctor infected with COVID-19”

In Germany: “More Than 100 in Germany Found to Be Infected With Coronavirus After Church’s Services”

Already infamously, in Korea: “Why a South Korean Church Was the Perfect Petri Dish for Coronavirus”

In the USA: “California megachurch linked to spread of more than 70 coronavirus cases”

And in… er… South Africa: “Entire church congregation being traced in response to coronavirus in Free State”

And they allow this, now? Really?

(We would have more cases if we had any test kits left to use to detect them.)

It might seem that I’m only singling out religious gatherings for criticism here, but it wasn’t me that chose that. Cyril did that when he told us that they’re the only gatherings which will be allowed.

I might rail against family braais, but I don’t have to, because I can’t have a family braai in my back garden with 2 visitors who I know have been observing all the rules and regulations for 9 weeks in case we spread the infection.
I can, however, spend 3 hours in an enclosed space with 49 strangers, singing and dancing.

I would have shouted about them re-opening restaurants, but that’s not necessary, because my friend can’t re-open his restaurant for even 10 people to have a burger at lunchtime in case anyone there has the virus.
Still, it’s fine for the post-service Sunday morning tea to go ahead.

[A no contact delivery service is available, though.]
(for the restaurant, not the Sunday morning tea)

To be honest, I probably wouldn’t fight about people sitting on a beach, on their own. Sadly though, I can’t sit on a beach on my own. But I can sit next to someone who didn’t wear a mask when they went to the supermarket yesterday. Or the day before.

I’ve got nothing against religious gatherings. But the dichotomy stinks.

However, it’s likely that when Cyril comes up for re-election, he will gently remind the pastors of yesterday evening, and they will nudge (what’s left of) their flock to vote for him. Some method in his madness, then.

But it still really is madness.

 

UPDATE: An interesting take here from UWC’s Andries du Toit.

Day 61 – The Tale of The Broken Blog

The server that 6000.co.za lives in fell over today, and I had to write a blog post on Facebook, just in case I couldn’t write a blog post on here.

Fortunately, Germaine H came to the rescue and propped the server up with a makeshift scaffold fashioned from kebab sticks, dental floss and some clay.

I’ll probably delete the Facebook post now, but let’s preserve it here first, just because:

Howdy, readers!

There is clearly some issue at my hosting company and I’ve been on hold on three different platforms for over an hour now with no response. So – for the moment, at least – today’s 6000dotcodotza blog post will be posted on Facebook.
It’s a blog post about not being able to post a blog post.
You’re reading it right now.

So very meta. I hope your minds can cope.

I’m optimistic that the engineers at Afrihost will get their act together in the very near future and put the server plug back into the wall after the cleaning lady socially distanced it from its socket, although the fact that they haven’t responded to anything in a long, long time doesn’t fill me with hope. They don’t even seem to know that anything is wrong: head to their network status page and ‘hosting’ has got a big green light and the legend:

Everything is looking good!
There are no problems to report at this moment

But there clearly are problems, one of them being that there’s no-one there to report them to.

Please watch out for updates on here, and – if I get lucky (careful now) – on 6000.co.za as well.

Thanks for reading!

So now you’ve read a blog post about a blog post about not being able to post a blog post on the blog I wasn’t able to post on.

And with that, I think it’s high time for a drink.

Oh, and a gentle reminder to follow 6000.co.za on Facebook – just in case this sort of thing happens again.

Day 60 – Good morning

Not just a salutation, but also a description of how my pre-9am period has gone.

So let’s run through the happy stuff for once, shall we?

A really cool quiz last night. I’ve been quizzing for 25 years, and I played rounds I’d never done before – novel stuff. It’s made me look at how I’ve been writing quizzes during lockdown and thinking about how to break the mould. Some really good ideas, even for regular stuff like music and geography.

There was Cyril’s speech. He was on time for once, nogal. And finally, a meaningful relaxation on the lockdown, countrywide, from June 1. As predicted/hoped for here:

If the purpose was to ready the healthcare system, then whether or not we managed to do that, there is very limited purpose in keeping the lockdown on: even in Cape Town, capital of the African branch of the pandemic.

Alcohol, yes – under strict conditions. Tobacco, no – which still rankles, even as a non-smoker. Exercise when you want. Stay at home if you don’t have to go out.

But we’re getting there. This was overdue.

Overnight, the first decent storm of the winter season. Over an inch of rain, 80kph winds whistling around the house even now.

Love it. Not every day, obviously, but there’s something so cleansing about a good storm, washing away the leaves, the dirt and in this case – metaphorically, at least – the virus.

And I went out for a run in this.

It. Was. Amazing.

It may have been my favourite run ever. No worries about aresholes with no masks, because there was no-one sensible enough to be out in the gales and the rain, and even if there had have been, the wind would likely have dispersed all their infectious exhalations anyway.

Link I said: cleansing.

That fifth kilometre. Downhill. Fast*. Alone. Such a fantastic feeling of freedom.
I really needed that.

It feels like we’ve turned a bit of a corner. The virus is still wreaking havoc out there, but we are at least a bit more on top of the things that we can control.

 

* 4:32. fast for me.