Tag: Cape Town

Need a New Year’s Resolution?

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NB: No payment has been made for this post (see below for details).
It’s just a service I’d like to tell you about and advise you to use.

If you want to make a change, why not make it now? Whether it’s Monday, March or May. I mean, why wait? If it’s worth doing, do it. Right?

We’re not all that way inclined though. And some might talk the talk, but not follow through by walking the proverbial walk.
Some people might need a bit of a kick up the butt, and they might be crouched hopefully with their back to New Year’s Eve, because January 1st might be the swinging foot they have been waiting for.

Whichever category you fall into (and for most Capetonians, my experience says you are in the one awaiting the boot), here’s a good idea for something worthwhile that you can do with many, many benefits.

Recycling. It’s all the rage and you may have heard of it before. But while it sounds like a great idea (and it is a great idea), it’s actually a bit of a shlep to do. And so you don’t do it.

What I’m suggesting to you is different.
What I’m suggesting to you is Recycling with Mr Recycle. 

Mr Recycle: the website.

Check the name, bru. It’s like he was born into the trade.

Mr Recycle picks up your recycling each and every week (we’ve been using him for several years now and he is the most reliable regular service I’ve experienced in Cape Town) and takes it to the local recycling facility for you. All you have to do is bag your recycling up and pop it outside your door on the relevant day. It disappears in the early evening without you even knowing and goes where it can be reused, instead of choking a seal.

It’s so easy.

Prices start at a frankly ridiculous R25 a week. And yes, there are terms and conditions to protect both you and Mr Recycle, but it’s hardly rocket surgery, guys.

I’m not being paid in cash or kind to write this, even though I sound like an influencer desperately trying to promote a local hotel in order to be able to desperately promote another local hotel next week. There’s nothing in it for me, but Mr Recycle has just picked up our recycling bang on time again and without any fuss. This guy has helped us to reduce our landfill to less than half a bin a week for a family of four and I think it’s a no-brainer if you’re looking for a worthwhile initiative to support in 2019.

Everyone wins.

Please spread this post far and wide (within Cape Town) and tell your friends to use Mr Recycle – REGISTER HERE – to get their recycling recycled.

Message ends.

December 2018 Cape Town Loadshedding Links

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Like a poor sequel, loadshedding (you may remember it from such terms as “Rolling Blackouts”) has returned, and once again, we are regularly being plunged into darkness.

Being plunged into darkness is never good at the best of times, but if you don’t know that it’s coming, it can be particularly irritating. So, best that you know when it’s coming then, and we’re here to help.

The good news for those of us in Cape Town is that some degree of loadshedding is often mitigated by our spare generation capacity (the hydroelectric unit up at Steenbras).

If you’re going to work out when and how much you’re going to be loadshod, you need a few bits of information. First off, you need to know whether you are supplied by the City or by Eskom and you need to know what stage loadshedding we are on.

To see what stage the local loadshedding is on, check this page.

To check for who your supplier is, look at the map here.

If you’re not in one of the cheerfully coloured areas, you’re an Eskom customer, and you should go here to view the appropriate schedules.

If you are in one of the cheerfully coloured areas, look at which one and then head here to see when you’re going to be cut off.

And that’s it. Loadshedding isn’t an exact science, so no promises made as to what might actually happen on the ground at the time, but this is as good a guideline as you’re going to get.

Loadshedding should last for about 2½ hours a pop. If it goes on much longer than that something has gone wrong (or it wasn’t loadshedding in the first place – other electrical problems are also possible), talk to the City on 0860 103 089 or Eskom on 086 00 37566.

Or do some online shouty stuff:

Don’t forget to not tell them where you live. That’s always helps.

Other useful links:
City twitter
Eskom twitter
Khulu Phasiwe twitter – Eskom spokesperson – DO NOT SHOOT THE MESSENGER.

Does every country have a London?

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Not an actual London, of course. I mean – maybe they do… There’s a Little London on the Isle of Man, there’s East London in South Africa, there’s a London Island in…. Chile? I think…?
I’ll have to look that one up.

[later: looked it up, yes – close to the Western end of the Beagle Channel.]

But I’m not referring to lazy colonial nomenclature. I mean the essence of London. For many people, that means excitement, bright lights, a cosmopolitan lifestyle and world-famous landmarks.

After all:

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

I love London. But in small doses.
Could I live there? No.

Oxford seemed a good compromise. All that London razzmatazz was just an hour away, but equally also a world away. Much like someone else’s cute but irritating toddler, it was nice to be able to play politely for a while, then hand it back over, make one’s excuses, and leave.

[Gets out broad brush]
London is a deeply impersonal, insular place. Gone are the days of the friendly cockney market traders. They’ve been replaced by soulless automatons, looking out only for number one. Maybe I shouldn’t blame them – maybe it’s the city that has shaped the people who have then shaped the city. A vicious Circle Line.

Alan Partridge gets it:

Go to London! I guarantee you’ll either be mugged or not appreciated.
Catch the train to London, stopping at Rejection, Disappointment, Backstabbing Central and Shattered Dreams Parkway.

Of course, it might just be me. Square peg, round hole and all that.

But no. London is often not a nice place to be. Unless you belong.

All of which leads me back to the question in the title of the post. And ‘m pretty sure that everyone in SA will agree that out local London is right here under Table Mountain.

Cape Town isn’t exactly London… squeezed between the mountain and the ocean, the geography and its Apartheid history dictate its society.

But can it compare? Sure it can.

Because yes. Cape Town is often not a nice place to be. Unless you belong.

In saying this, I’m not suggesting that I don’t belong here. At least, I feel that I belong here as much as anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
I’m also not trying to criticise the city for being the way it is. Cities evolve, and as individual residents we have very little control over what direction that evolution takes. But I do find it interesting that if you were asked to single out a city in either of the countries in which I have lived that fitted this description, you wouldn’t hesitate to name London and Cape Town.

Not Birmingham or Johannesburg. Or Manchester and Durban. Or Leicester and Bloemfont-look I think you get my point.

So – is there a London (or a Cape Town) in your country? Or, if you’re in the UK or SA, do you agree with what I wrote above?

New road

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I read some articles and I put two and two together and I don’t think this is very good news for Cape Town.

The first news article was a piece in Quartz about the heroin trade in Mozambique. This is literally the first line:

That road is the infamous EN1. And while that might be interesting, and it might be in Africa, it has very little impact on Cape Town.

Or does it?

Here’s a map from the same article:

All roads lead to Rome Cape Town (apart from that one to Uganda). And by extrapolation, those solid lines indicate “certain” corridors for the drug trade. Genuine. Proven.

Not great. But at least no-one is not doing anything to make those corridors any more usable.

Or are they?

Basically, that road that was mentioned in the first line is being improved, to the tune of R10-billion (which is ironically the estimated annual value of the heroin trade in Moz), thus:

A project which includes the construction of Africa’s longest suspension bridge (±3km, photographed here in 2016):

Add that to the 2010 infrastructure project at the Tanzanian border and the upcoming improvement plans for the EN1, the “one reliable road that has become the backbone of the lucrative heroin trade” and – along with all the mutually beneficial economic benefits for the three countries involved – you’re also tacitly assisting the flow of heroin from Asia to… well… to Cape Town.

There’s a lot in the Quartz article about the disruption and decentralisation of the heroin trade in Mozambique, but the EN1 remains central to the trafficking of the drug from Tanzania to South Africa.
I can’t see that all these improvements are going to reduce the flow of heroin through Mozambique.

And that’s not very good news for Cape Town.

Apartment To Let

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From time to time, I like to help people out by mentioning their cause on this blog.
This is one of those times.

Here’s it:

Apartment To Let

Observatory, Cape Town.
Unfurnished.
Top floor of brand new building.
Excellent security, communal gym, rooftop braai area, pool.
2 bed, 2 bath.
2 secure parking spaces.
Viewz. For. Dayz. (Devils Peak, Lions Head, Waterfront, Harbour, Table Bay…)
Available now.
R11500pm.

Apparently, that’s R500 less than other similar units, so don’t hang around.

For more details – including more photos – drop me an email at:

and I’ll put you in touch with the people who are waiting for your call.

Oh, and please share this widely in case that dream tenant is on your timeline.
Thanks.