Category: from your comments

“Overall, it’s gone exceptionally well”

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So says Dr Basil Bonner, head of the emergency unit at the Milnerton Medi-Clinic of the Cape Argus Cycle Tour 2008 via iol.co.za. (Thanks, DC)

I’m very glad to hear it, Baz. Let’s see what the good doctor is referring to, shall we?

About 65 people had to be taken to hospital during the Argus Cycle Tour in Cape Town, two of them with suspected heart attacks.

“We had two serious head injuries, a third with a fractured hip and pelvis, and two patients, both in their 60s, with unconfirmed heart attacks. They’re in hospital having tests done,” Dr Basil Bonner, head of the emergency unit at the Milnerton Medi-Clinic, said on Sunday.

“Overall, it’s gone exceptionally well”

Yep – that all sounds just peachy! For a moment there, I was mildly concerned that you might just have been pulling the wool over our eyes and that someone might actually have got hurt while preventing me from taking the family for a relaxing Sunday on Seaforth beach.
But no. Obviously not.

From time to time, the local* doom and gloom merchants accuse me of wearing rose-tinted spectacles**.
However, I think that even they would have to agree that any optimism I dare to show on this site pales into complete insignificance against your blinkered view of the facts.

In fact, I was wondering if I could borrow your phrase to describe completely overlook any bad day I may have in the future:

Yes, I did crash the car twice on the way to the lab this morning. And when I got here, I found that all the data that I’d collected over the past 3 years had been corrupted and the back-up discs had been accidentally sold to a user called BackupDiscSmasher on eBay. Then my hand slipped on the ill-thought-out XDR-TB release lever and consequently, I released a large cloud of XDR-TB across Cape Town. Thus, I was summarily dismissed from my job.
On the way home I crashed my car twice more and arrived back just in time to see the last bits of my house burn down after an electrical fault on my PS2 lit up the pile of braai wood (Namibian Camelthorn, nogal!) I was hiding it under.

But… “overall, it’s gone exceptionally well.”

Mmm! I feel better already.

* local to that pessimists forum, anyway.
** which (proudly) I am, compared to their grey-tinted ones.

Stuff and Nonsense

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Every so often, when there’s nothing big to write about* – crime, politics, rugby, antelopes etc. – every blog has to have a bit of a catch-up post. This is mine.
I generally try to avoid catch-up posts if I can. I prefer my posts to be discrete – that is “separate and individual; not reliant on any other”, rather than discreet – “showing prudence and circumspection; modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious”. If this blog ever becomes discreet, please let me know. I’ll stop.

Anyway, before the stuff – the nonsense: Delboy‘s comment from my last post.

Come on 6K. Have you already forgotten what happened 4 years ago in London? Or, as we are STILL so often reminded, in 1966?… [some more guff about England in 2003]… [some stuff about sour grapes]… (And it DEFINITELY wasn’t a try. And even if it was, you still would have lost by at least 2 points.) Blah.

In writing this, Delboy has demonstrated a level of selective vision I have only seen previously in last night’s bent referee in our game against the brothel-owning Bulgarians**.
He’s also missed the point of this blog. Anyone can write a piece gushing over the SA rugby team’s achievements, describing the match that everyone here watched anyway and metaphorically fellating Schalk Burger through their passage (of words). And everyone has. I like to look for a different angle – because I’m not swept up in all this rugger madness.
And now things are settling down again – lookie here! – political interference in SA sport is the big news.
Me? Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt and sold it on eBay.
And no. It wasn’t a try. I said that too.
Delboy also revealed that his bun-in-the-oven is a little girl. Which is cool. Congrats, mate.

OK, I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep this in for a paragraph and a half already.
Muse are coming to South Africa. Let me repeat that, Seth Rotherham style. Muse are coming to South Africa. Probably one of just two bands that I have wanted to see for ages and haven’t yet managed to get to.
Tickets out tomorrow for the gig (just down the road from us) next March. The only worry about this is that Guns’n’Roses, the much-anticipated (although not by me) headline act for this year’s My Cokefest chickened out at the last minute, citing stair falling bass players and stuff. Surely no repeat though.
But what a refreshing change from the usual rubbish that we get to see down here. Did I mention that Gladys Knight is doing the rounds right now? Awesome.
And this (Muse, not Gladys) is only the first bit of good news. Yes – Ben Trovato has a new book out. Just in time for Christmas, coincidentally. Amazing how these things happen, isn’t it?
Ben and I share views on many things (I think he looks up to me as a father figure in many ways), most recently, the reaction to the RWC. Which wouldn’t please Delboy much.

Unite the nation, my flabby white butt. It’ll take more than 15 green men to pull that off.
They carried the hopes of the country on their shoulders. That’s what the lying dogs in the media told us. That our dreams rested on a couple of white boys kicking a ball between two sticks.
Oh, good. No more lying, cheating, stealing, raping and pillaging. We are one big, happy family full of … HEY! Get away from my car! Put that down, you thieving bastard!

Great minds, hey?

*Or even when there is.
**Another story (obviously).

How to win friends and influence people

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You may recall me mentioning my being interviewed by a journalist. That article has now been published (I made Page 7, just next to the advert for Harris’ Patented Haemorrhoid Preparation), although it’s sadly not available online anywhere just yet.
One of the comments on my last post was from June who read the article in Emigrate SA and asks if I can direct her to Expat clubs and societies in Cape Town.
This request – as well-meaning as I’m sure it is – opens up a huge can of worms.

I certainly did mention that there are a lot of Brits out here – there are. What I didn’t say was that I spent a lot of time with them – I don’t. I’m well aware that June’s situation is probably different from mine, but for me, it was rather refreshing (although certainly difficult at the same time) to get away from the British way of life and to give new things a try. (Of course I couldn’t have managed without this place!)
I recognise that’s not the way everyone wants to go, though. I actually don’t know of any specific British Expat societies in Cape Town – perhaps my readership can help me out here?
It’s always a good plan to try and meet some locals – however, that brings up another notorious obstacle: The Cape Town Clique.
I know that cliques exist everywhere, in every city all over the world, but that’s a girlie thing – it’s genetic, I swear. Here though, it also goes for the blokes as well. Yikes. I’ve never quite worked it out, but I guess that it’s got a lot to do with the way the populations were kept apart during Apartheid. This created a bit of a white enclave in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town and that small-town mentality has never really gone away. It’s all about what school you went to, where you play golf and who you know from “Varsity”. And we all know that most guys are pretty backward at coming forward when meeting other guys , which just exacerbates the problem. Before we go any further and I alienate all those friends I have made (heaven forbid that I should upset [name] again *grin*), let me tell you guys that you are obviously the exception that proves the rule. That said, I have had to pretend to have gone to one of eight different schools, depending on who I’m out with that night.

The point I’m trying to make is that you do have to work very hard to make new friends in Cape Town. And for me, that’s even more reason to make the effort to break the barriers and not stick to “your own kind”. After all, that’s what caused this problem in the first place, right?

In other news, I love medical science (although as a career choice, it could pay more, please).
Great news from friends on IVF yesterday (go guys!) and very promising signs from this little fellow too.

We’re holding thumbs for you both.