Is this really the best South Africa can do?

Posted on

Nothing to do with sport, or blogging, although I’m sure that the phrase will have been used many times in these contexts.

No, while I am uploading photos from LAST weekend, and indeed this weekend, I thought that you might enjoy(?) this biting column by Mark Gevisser on the 20th anniversary of the first democratic vote in SA.

Gevisser compares Zuma and Pistorius far more incisively and accurately (for me) than Jani Allen’s pisspoor open letter managed to compare the latter with Eugene Terreblanche, and paints a damning picture of the current, rather depressing situation here.

With Nelson Mandela dead and his African National Congress increasingly troubled, Pistorius and Zuma have, distressingly, become the poster boys for South Africa’s 20 Years of Freedom celebrations.

We South Africans love an underdog, perhaps because of our history, and both Zuma and Pistorius have milked that role. From an Afrikaner Calvinist tradition, Pistorius offers a story of triumph over adversity through God-fearing hard work. Then Zuma, from a poor rural Zulu and working-class township background, presents a narrative of the cunning trickster with little formal education who always finds himself on his feet and takes what he needs with a nudge and a wink.

Both men have been breathtaking in their perseverance and achievement. Zuma stopped a bloody civil war in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. And, as an undereducated peasant who has risen to the very top, he stands as a symbol to black South Africans that they can be masters of their own destiny. Similarly, Pistorius transforms our understanding of what “able-bodied” means, even in the way he strides up to the dock.

It makes difficult reading, perhaps most worryingly because there’s nothing untrue or even vaguely hyperbolic about what he tells us. So, because I’ve apparently been quite grumpy lately (moi? grumpy?!?), I thought you might like to have a read of just how rubbish it is here right now.

It’s not really. We had a great birthday party for Alex today and there was 15kg of Lego and a chocolate fountain involved.

Hudson’s Claremont, marks out of 10

Posted on

Burgers here with the boys of the MBCC last night. It was fun.

hudos

Burgers: 9. Damn fine burgers, as you might expect from a place that markets itself on its burgers. I had the iconic BOOM BOOM burger, though I could have chosen one of the others from the menu if I had so desired. That’s why they have a menu.

Beer: 9. Nice selection of draughts and bottles. Black Label and Jack Black on tap. Lots of craft, but sadly, very little (branded) One One Eight.

Service: 9. With a smile. Loses one mark because it plainly has an overtly sexist employment policy for waiting staff. If my boy ever wants to work here, he’ll have to somehow be sporting an utterly spectacular cleavage at interview.

Price: 9. Is cheap cheap, eh? Chili popper starter, 250g burger, “frites”, a couple of large draught beers, a coffee (someone substituted an excellent waffle here) and a double whiskey (and tip) came to R250pp. That total is only a little more than the price of (just) a big steak down the road at Barristers. The Barristers steak will be absolute perfection, though.

Music: 9. A bewilderingly random selection featuring Billy Joel, The Bangles, Berri, The Troggs, absolutely no One Direction and more. One after the other. But it worked. All of it. Oh, the memories.

Extractor fans: 1. Got home smelling like I’d been working in their kitchen, which – despite having had a few beers and a nightcap – I’m pretty sure I didn’t. You’re cooking several (or more) burgers each evening. There will be fatty smoke. Deal with it better.

But overall, it’s a pretty decent score (you can do the maths), just let down by the that lack of adequate exhaust from the grill. And I’m sure that once they read this, they’ll sort that forthwith.

This was an excellent night out and drops neatly into the 6000 recommends… category.

Point of Ayre

Posted on

Busy day today. Busy evening ahead too, with LCHF being thrown to the wind as I head out with the boys for beer, banter, burgers and alliteration.

So just time for a quick QP. This one is another gem from Peter Killey of Manxscenes.com:

Point-of-Ayre
It’s the red and white lighthouse at the Point of Ayre in the Isle of Man – the most northerly point on the island. Red and white because there’s nothing directly behind it, so the contrasting colours make is more visible during the day, much like the Cape Agulhas lighthouse, which also has very little directly behind it.

Do we still need lighthouses? Well, the people who look after our lighthouses think so, otherwise there would be no value in spending a lot of money refurbishing them. The (probably not ever so impartial) Lighthouse-News.com warns that an over-reliance on electronic aids and a poor visual lookout can still result in disaster – even in the 21st Century, although the line:

Actually, the presence or absence of the lighthouse made no difference in this case.

probably detracts from his case somewhat.

Do I Wanna Know? cover

Posted on

In response to this from fellow Sheffield expat @YesWeCrann:

Sheffield folk really are a special breed, mate. We’re so lucky to be from there.

I went looking for some Arctic Monkeys this morning. And I found this wonderful cover version by Chvrches:

Beautifully understated. Lauren Mayberry’s innocent voice was made for this sort of song. The only bit missing was the colloquialism “summat”, which she replaces with the more disappointingly mainstream “something”.

Original here.