That’s not me

“Suggested for you”, said my Spotify. And then proceeded to come out with a stream of diverse artists such as Britney Spears, Frank Sinatra, The Troggs, Nat King Cole and Fleetwood Mac.

And Selena Gomez.

Oi! Spotify! No!

Have we not been together for a number of years now? What are you thinking? Literally none of those appeal to me in the slightest. Sure, they may each have had a hit (or maybe two) which I have heard in the last few years, but that was it.

In fact, so bizarre was the selection presented, that I’m even wondering if my account has been hacked: maliciously like my bank card or just as some sort of mildly elaborate sick joke. Think about it – it’s the perfect way to get at someone: invading, influencing and ruining their most personal moments by wreaking havoc in their algorithm. And then the soundtrack for their next plane trip or exercise session will be trashed.

The only sad bit is that you’ll never even know if it worked. Unless they write a blog post about it.

Well done, whoever you are (it’s probably my daughter). You got me.

ON THAT NOTE (no pun intended), here’s my 2024 Spotify Playlist. Which contains all the good stuff that isn’t the stuff mentioned above.

Click through, hit random and have fun. I’ll keep adding the good stuff as I hear it.

My Sunday

Yes, yes. A few days early or late, but that doesn’t really matter.

If you were about my age in the UK when I was my age in the UK, then you might remember Timmy Mallett and his Wide Awake Club on ITV: a Saturday morning staple. The co-star for some of the series was wildlife expert and now Hout Bay resident Michaela Strachan.

It also featured Mallett’s Mallet: a massive foam hammer.

But that’s beside the point.

Wide Awake Club ran until 1989, and was followed by Wacaday, which ran during the school holidays.

In 1990, Mallett released a cover version of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini with Bombalurina. It reached number 1 and, together with its Europop vibes, it was the perfect song for him: deliciously wacky and zany and juvenile and just silly.

Quite reasonably, I’d forgotten all about Timmy Mallett until I came across the piece below, published in a UK Sunday supplement.

And it’s amazing.

It’s all massively Monty Pythonesque and wholly fabricated, except, you kind of get the idea that some of it might not be. But, like watching Bob Mortimer on WILTY, you’ve really no idea which bits are made up, which are genuine, and which are “embellished truths”. Whichever they are, they conjure up some wonderful mental images.

Anyway, you’ve likely read enough of my spoutings, so do take a minute or two to properly read Timmy’s.

What happened here?

I’m heading up North next week to do some stuff. I was having a quick look at the flight I’ll be taking, and I’m not sure what happened to it a couple of weeks ago:

That’s a lot of “Diverted to CPT”. And CPT is where it set off from. Bit weird.

All those flights seem to get close though, although they also all seem not to have landed, only dropping to around 4,000m before turning and heading back.

My best guess is that there’s some sort of “not switching the ADS off or on”, and the diversion to CPT is merely the return flight; the anomaly just being the landing (or lack of it) up at the other end. It’s also worth noting that almost all the flights that were “Diverted to CPT” were on ZS-CMD, and all of them were on Mitsubishi CR9s. The problem seems to go away when they ran a Beech 1900D on the route.

A turbo-prop. That would be my first one in SA, and my first one since that horrific landing at LCY last July. Limpopo next week then. Or CPT, depending on what plane I get.

Annoying x2

That my bank card got cloned is very annoying. It could have been much worse, as whoever did the clonery hit it with one successful transaction yesterday afternoon, and then followed up with another quickfire 8 efforts, but thankfully, only the first one managed to get through.

What’s even worse is that the one transaction that did go through was at a US-based woo-woo dietary supplement site, thus adding pseudoscientific insult to financial injury.

I called the bank immediately, and – credit to them (no pun intended) – they reacted very quickly in stopping anything else from happening, using a scorched earth policy. I can’t help but think that the guy on the other end of the phone – friendly and efficient though he was – wasn’t really bringing much to the conversation by suggesting that it was “probably fraud”. It’s fair to say that everyone involved in the situation was probably well aware of that.

So where did my card get cloned? I don’t know. I used a Nedbank “back of the van” mobile ATM at the races on Saturday (with the card), and I also bought some food there (with the card, but on my phone). I bought some sugary water at a well-known supermarket chain on the way to football yesterday. But if that was the weak link, then we’re really in trouble.

I guess we’ll never know.

I don’t have a bank card at the moment, which is rather frustrating, because I really needed to buy some food today. I guess I’ll just have to manage with the two tonnes of protein powder and multivitamins that have just arrived from Atlanta to keep me going.

All about horse

Today is all about football. I played 5-a-side this morning, during which I was compared to both Ibrahimovic and del Piero. Sadly, it was Keith Ibrahimovic, a plumber from Aylesbury, and Jennifer del Piero, a postgraduate history student from Boston. Still: it’s a start.

And just now, I’m going to put on my big boy pants and brace watching United at Wolves. Such is the injury crisis at Bramall Lane, I think Keith and Jennifer are both on the bench.

But if today is all about football. And it is – I just said that – yesterday was all about horse.

An early start in the grey, drizzly conditions out at Hout Bay for Little Miss 6000 to take half a ton of well-muscled ex-racehorse around the course at a show there:

And then quickly home for a shower and a change before heading out to Kenilworth Racecourse to watch Mrs 6000’s favourite horse come second in a very, very competitive field.

It was an amazing result.

A great day out then, although the weather was distinctly un-February-like: cold, wet, grey. But once you’re wet once, you’re wet. And the fun takes away the cold.

Sort of.