December 2005

Sweating my ass off sitting at an outside cafe in Saigon with my Mum. The last few days have been hectically busy but fantastic fun. This place is amazing, I could happily do an expat stint out here. I don’t have much time because New Years is only a few hours away and we are going to get ready to hit the town along with the expected 8 million Vietnamese on their motorbikes. I will post a few photos over the next few days but until then good luck to you all for 2006 and make sure you survive the New Year festivities. Tam Biet !

PS: A few photos are now up on the flickr tab to the right, enjoy!

The next time I see you I’ll be a Nam Vet. I leave on a flight to Hong Kong tomorrow and should be back early January. I may try and update the site whilst I am out there and hopefully post some photos so keep an eye out although I wouldn’t hold your breath!

Have a great Christmas and New Year everybody.

Back in the late 90’s I used to flyfish Durban Harbour almost everyday. Myself, Ben Dyson, Graham Croucamp and Bryan Proctor would wade the sandbanks of the harbour until we reached our spot right in the middle - about 400 metres from shore! We would mainly fish the incoming tide for Springer, Kingfish, Two-spot queenies etc. This is all of little interest to you unless you actually enjoy flyfishing, but I feel I need to tell the world exactly how brave we were in those days. We would stand in waist deep water, throwing a fly out into the deep blue channels of the biggest natural harbour in the Southern Hemisphere.

X marks the spot for those who want to try a bit fishing, read on first before you dive in!

What is brave about that you ask. Well, on many occasions we were surrounded by sharks and I read an article today about the perils of wading and fishing Durban Harbour because of the large shark population. About three years ago a fisherman doing exactly what we used to do lost his leg in a shark attack on one of the sandbanks we used to frequent. It is a well known fact that the Durban Harbour is infested with sharks but back then we were either too dumb or too excited by the prospect of decent fishing to be put off by it. I remember at times we would stay out too late on the incoming tide and be forced to swim some of the way back to shore, although the idea of sharks swimming around us was always on our minds, and I do recall shitting myself about it, I always made sure I swam in the middle!

Yep, Thursday night will be the last bash of 2005 for me in London. The venue will be The Loop Bar near Oxford Circus, three floors of noise and beautiful girls. I will be in the ground level bar from about 6pm and probably in the club downstairs until at least 1am. The matador will be there, along with these two jokers and now that gay marriages are permissable under UK law these two hens might also join the action. Come along if you know whats good for you!

If you think you have bad customer service in SA then try Britain on for size. I have registered with Virgin to receive 2mb broadband at my new house. Phoned them last night to try and set up the modem they sent me. Firstly the call cost me 25p a minute and secondly they told me the driver for Mac OS 10.4 aka Tiger is not on the installation CD and I will need to download it from the their website. Well hello, you numpty, I can’t go online until I have the modem configured.

Tiger has been out for about 9 months now but Virgin are waiting for the CD’s to run out before they print new ones with the Tiger driver on it. Great customer service! Go Branson, Go Branson, whoop whoop!

The chickens have well and truly come home to roost. A few weeks ago now I reacted with disgust that the Rugby World Cup had been awarded to New Zealand. Well, as it turns out, my suspicions of foul play have been proved right!

Remember folks, it was the double vote held by the Irish that swung it New Zealands way! What a surprise then to see that the New Zealand Rugby Union have just announced that they will play two test matches against Ireland next year. Gee, how blatant, no doubt this was agreed between the two parties a few weeks ago resulting in the Irish decision to change their vote and give it to New Zealand. Or maybe it wasn’t agreed a few weeks ago but New Zealand have just decided to thank the Irish. Utterly shameless and unfortunately all it does is serve to remind me why I become cynical when big decisions involve big money.

Over at Aquila Online there is a hysterical comparison of what the R13 Billion the SA government will now spend on the Gautrain project can actually buy. It will now cost almost double the intial budget of R7 billion to connect Joburg and Pretoria by train - this is what you could do with that amount of money……….Check it out - its staggering!

I will leave you with that thought as I hop on Virgins new Pendolino train from London to Chester to visit my father in North Wales for the weekend. Sayanara folks, have a good one!

I just did a quick test online to establish my position in relation to the USA political spectrum. Well it turns out that I am a Centrist witth an inclination towards social conservatism and economic moderation! Sjoe my Broe! Whatever, the questions are pretty brief and the answers are very straightforward but in so many cases I felt that I would have answered differently if there was more substance and justification behind the question. My tag line was that I “Exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness”. Why don’t you try the test yourself over at this website.

Greg Sneeden is getting married this weekend in Thekwini. Congratulations to the boy, I’m pissed I can’t make it but no doubt the Brewery boys will be well represented in my absence!

So somebody has finally been able to nail Sneeds down, the man with the most prolific brush-off in the world. Now if you don’t know what the Sneeden Brush-Off is then allow me to present a fine example, performed by none other than The Terminator aka Arnie Schwarzenegger on a particularly useless individual called Winnie Mandela.

You see it seems that Winnie wanted to meet Arnie to try and persuade him to give a stay of execution to a notorious LA gangsta murderer. Arnie conferred with me on the appropriateness of her concern on saving the measly life of a hoodlum murderer in the States when her country clearly has more pressing needs she could perhaps focus herself on. We both agreed she was out of her depth and out of her head and so, with Terminator like steel, Arnie gave Winnie THE Sneeden Brush-Off.

Read this over at Gary Lemkes site:

The decision to suspend American sprinter Tim Montgomery for doping means that the South African men’s relay 4×100 team of Morne Nagel, Corne du Plessis, Lee-Roy Newton and Matthew Quinn, have become the world champions following their silver medal at the 2001 IAAF World Championships in Edmonton.

So then, South Africa are currently the fastest team in the world on Land and Water!!!

My only question - Where are the black guys in the side? A country with 40 mil black people and 3 mil white people fields a team of 4 white sprinters who win the World Championship. We all know that black guys run faster than white guys. Very strange indeed, 11 years after apartheid and allegedly a lot of money from firms like ABSA etc pumped into development. Personally I think that “development” money is poorly spent and young talent very poorly harnessed in our country, similar to England who produce very few world class sportsmen on the back of huge resource. Lets hope at the next Olympics we have a representative team able to kick ass properly next time. And if that doesn’t work, do ‘roids!

Christmas is almost upon us and for me that means loads of work and even more partying. In less than two weeks now I will be winging my way to Vietnam for a two week relaxing holiday in Saigon and perhaps a few days in Hanoi. It will be fantastic to see my family again, amazing to think that we spent Christmas and New Year in Beijing back in 2002 and now three years later we will spend it in Saigon! I will also be stopping off in Hong Kong for the day and I am thinking of replacing my trusty Canon Ixus v3 I got in Hong Kong 3 years ago for my birthday with a more recent model. Either another Canon or perhaps the super sleek and pocketable Casio Exilim.

The photo above was lifted off Flickr and is reminiscent of the hideout used by Scaramanga, James Bonds adversary in “The Man with the Golden Gun”. Hopefully I will be bringing my own photos back of Halong Bay if we do get up to Hanoi!

Most of you will have heard about the explosion that happened just outside London yesterday. Well its only down the road (about 8 miles) from where I live and could allegedly be heard by people as far away as Holland and France although I’m certain they’re lying! I definitely didn’t hear it although when I did surface from my alcohol fueled slumber I obviously noticed the huge plumes of smoke covering the sky.

The occurance of this remarkable event serves to prove something about something else totally unrelated. Go to the fantastic flickr site and type “explosion” into the search box. There are already literally hundreds of amazing photos instantly accessible on the site. This is amateur photo journalism at its finest, a vehicle for the ordinary person to capture any moment in history and publish it for the world to see!

What a massive weekend! The after-effects of which I am still feeling right now as I sit bleary eyed in front of my PC. I did nuttin’ yestderday, just veged out on the couch at home catching up on the weekends sport and precious sleep.

On Friday night I went for Chistmas drinks with the Albion gang adjacent to the Savoy Hotel. The Monk joined myself Terry, Flan, Mickey etc in a bout of drinking merriment after the announcement that England will have what apears to be the easiest path into the second round of the World Cup ever. Mark my words, I will be in Cologne on the 20th June, hopefully until either England win the Cup or get knocked out!

Friday night turned really ugly at about 1am when we approached the door of Los Locos in Covent Garden to find the familiar sight of Russell Hatcher trying to bargain the entry price with a few bouncers. So three became four and we took over the dance floor. We actually met a few mongolian girls who spoke better English than Jasons’s cockney and probably better english than me because I had begun to slur my words at this stage. I decided to call it a night because Saturday was supposed to be even bigger than Friday and I needed at least a few hours kip! Plus the Monk had met his Mongolian match and started flinging her around like he was at a Buddy Holly concert making me dizzy just watching him!

My Saturday night began with a lovely dinner at Zimzum in Fulham Broadway, highly recommended for those who like Thai food. I went along to Julia’s birthday at 9pm at Tonic bar in Earlsfield and finished the night off at Thai Square somewhere around 2 in the morning. I cried off any further socialising in London on Sunday so had to give Geralds engagement party a miss prefferring instead to recuperate at home watching Man Utd completely stuff the Toffees, Ok not really, all they could manage was a draw.

This weekend I am going to take a well earned break from London and head up to serenity of North Wales to see my father before Christmas!

For any of you folks out there still without Broadband there is now an alternative. Onspeed is a UK company which claims its software can increase the speed of a dial-up connection by 500% !! All for a paltry £2 per month, which makes it the perfect temporary solution for all those South African home PC users who have to suffer huge monthly broadband costs!

This week has been a busy one for me. 7 nights of events means no spare time to do anything else. I did manage to go and see Arsenal play Ajax at Highbury with Flan on Wednesday night. Worst game I have ever watched so not really excited about providing any feedback for you boring gooners, all I’ll say is that Highbury is defintiely a Library!

Oh, and I had Sky Plus re-installed yesterday, thanks to Grayskull and Sky’s refer a friend programme I managed to get the latest and greatest Sky Plus 160 for FREE. Yep thats the new 160gig hard drive box with the ability to pause and rewind live TV and record over 80 hours simultaneously! Gonna have to look at selling the old 40gb box now on ebay!

Get this, over at Gizmodo they have an ariticle on a new site they’re predicting will go huge. Live Paintball played over the net with real targets.

Some girls will believe anything. This theory is not solely based on Peksta’s ability to convince girls he’s a dolphin trainer but rather on recent first hand experience. On the day of the Springbok game in Paris we met a few American girls beforehand. We told them we were going to the game and agreed to meet up afterwards. True to their word they turned up later at The Highlander whereupon massive festivities ensued.

The funniest moment of the night occured when they told us that they had actually watched us play and it was the first time they’d ever watched a rugby game.

Wait, back up the bus, did you say that you actually saw us play?

Yes folks, the girls actually thought that they were watching us PLAY. They were convinced it was us on the field. OK, we were all wearing Bok jerseys but c’mon now, how dumb can you be. I know you guys are thinking *bullshit* but seriously, they honestly thought they were watching us on TV! The same guys, who a few hours before had been drinking with them in a bar, had then caught the train to Stade de France, run out on the field against France in front of 80 000 spectators and then miraculously 1 hour later were back in the Latin Quarter pissing it up again! Jeez if only Percy WAS that hard!

South Africa’s best swimmers Ryk Neethling and Roland Schoeman have both turned down the opportunity to repesent Qatar at the next Olympics. Why is this interesting, well because Mr Schoeman, the fastest man alive in water, has turned down a $2 million offer. It is fair to say that he has lost the opportunity to make himself really rich by declining the offer in a sickly noble and immensely patriotic way. The statement he has released has left a lump in my throat, wait, what am I talking about, its only bloody swimming! You’d think this dude, the fastest man alive in water (have I said that already), was a brilliant rugby player or something:

After serious and thorough consideration I have decided to stand by my initial decision not to swim for Qatar. I have, therefore, given instruction that the negotiations after the second approach from Qatar to swim for them should not be pursued.

You will understand that this was not a simple and straightforward decision. While I fully understand the immediate financial implications of this decision, I believe and trust that solutions to this problem will be found within South Africa.

I am acutely aware that South Africa is where it is today because of the sacrifice and commitment of large numbers of people over many years. As well, that the stability and democracy we have attained thus far has not been founded on pursuing short-term gains.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yup, its that time of year again and as always I have left it till the last minute!! Well, almost the last minute but not quite. I am arranging another trip to Kasberg Grunau in Austria and hopefully we’ll get a mahusive group of death defying party animal boarders together. We’re going in January, tentative at the moment, heres the email I sent out in case you weren’t one of the lucky ones to receive it. Everybodys welcome, especially if you’re a scandanavian girl and want to share a bed room with me!

Boys and Girls

I need to have some indication of numbers for a Snowboarding/skiing trip to Austria.

Last year seven of us went, ranging from total beginner to advanced, all of us thoroughly enjoyed it. The snow is brilliant and powder in places is wicked, the lifts are brand new, there are over 40km of piste, the food is great, the board park rocks, the hotel/hostel is fantastic, in fact probably the only negative is that this particular area of Austria is not touristy – www.kasberg.at . It is mainly used by Austrians and consequently the Apres Ski is almost non-existent although there are a few bars and restaurants in the village and on the slopes. Last year we went for 4 days and that was long enough to have a great time.

The hotel has double rooms, triples and quads, all with en-suite facilities. The Bar downstairs is pretty fun with pool table, foosball, music etc. The breakfast is good and so is dinner. Trust me this place was a serious find last year!!

I have worked out the trip at roughly £200 for flights, accom, breakfast and dinner, lift pass, board/ski hire + boots! If we fly out on Wednesday afternoon and return on Monday afternoon then we have 5 nights and 4 days of snowboarding!

I would like to go 25th January to 30th January. Let me know if you can make it. I am NOT organizing this trip, I will tell you exactly how to do it, how to book and who to pay. The dates are flexible ie. If you want to go for a shorter or longer duration – the per day cost is roughly the same – around £40!

I will be going for these dates so anybody who wants to join me let me know and I can find availability. The more people coming the cheaper I can get the rooms and obviously the more fun it will be!

I will probably go boarding again sometime in March, hopefully to Fieberbrunn in Austria. BUT if it doesn’t come off then I may well go back to Kasberg again, probably for another 5 day stint.

Auf Wiedersehen

PS: Feel to bring anybody you want, hopefully we can turn this into a PARTY!

When we were in Paree we had a huge shindig at a bar called The Highlander - highly recommended if you’re ever in Paris, basically the only bar that doesn’t become a sausage factory late at night - and we met a whole bunch of French guys who had been to the game. We had a great time with them drinking red wine and singing all the Johnny Clegg numbers which they actually knew damn well!! Anyway today I received an email from Flo, I totally forgot I let mine boy out dancing until he reminded me:

Bonjour bonjour les loosers!!! Ahahaha!!

Whao ! hope you enjoyed your stay in Paris ! I don’t exactly remember the end of this Saturday night when some rugby team from a very very far country, where they “try” to play rugby…the only thing I remember is I had a lot of fun singing asibonanga and watching david dancing in front on the bathroom….anyway I just wanted to have some news of you like: when do u come back in France? You have to come and visit my farm in Bretagne to tell me if we can make a golf or not? Are u aware that the French will win the world cup? And many many other questions….

Forward you some pictures and a movie of this night…

Hope everything s OK in UK….

Santé and see you soon

Florent

Ps: I and cyrille may come in London soon, are you far from the city centre?

When I flew out from Dulles airport two weeks ago I thought I’d buy a book on baseball for the flight home. I picked up a copy of a book which I later learned actually changed the way one of the biggest sports in the world is played. Moneyball by Michael Lewis focused on the Oakland Athletics and their analytically brilliant General Manager Billy Beane. Basically the book follows the A’s GM during the beginning of a season when he and his 27 year old Assistant Paul DePodesta applied Sabermetrics (baseball statistics) to the art of managing a baseball team.

The book was fascinating to read and shows just how a $40 mil team can compete with a $160 mil team like the Yankees. Shrewd player trading and ruthlessly sticking to the game plan and the laws that the statisticians throw out led to general success for the financially poor A’s. Oakland didn’t go on to win the World Series but in 2005 the Boston Red Sox did. They won it under the guidance of Theo Epstein, the Red Sox general manager appointed in 2002 who decided to adopt exactly the same tactics as Billy Beane. He appointed certain “cult” sabermetricians, none of whom had actually played professional Baseball, in fact neither had Theo.

The most remarkable thing about this story is that Theo Epstein was only 28 years old when he was appointed the General Manager of one of the biggest sports teams in the world! Unbelievebly he has resigned this year, the same year he lead them to a title they have coveted for over 75 years! His bio makes a very interesting read even if it does make you feel like you haven’t achieved much in life, certainly in comparison to this guy! Mind you, all he did was apply the fundamentals of Moneyball, nah, thats not fair, this guy is a legend!

Standing on the quayside at Dover, ladies turn away now!

Thinsulate, polarfleece, gortex………..all a distant second to the big daddy of jackets - the Beer Coat!!! We don’t even look cold, and trust me it was below zero and snowing, what the Romans call poes koud!

Has Kramer really spent two years in London, it can’t be! Well, maybe it can, when you consider all the grief he’s had on Wozafriday over the past year. Remember I did not reveal everything when I wrote about our trip to the Oktoberfest, nor did I actually publish the worst photo of my boh when I dissed him about Bar Rash. I did publish the story about Kramers suicide bomber paranoia, but it wasn’t me who nailed him. In truth he nails himself, like when I wrote about his trip to Egypt and the infamous Kramerisms rearing their ugly head.

Remember this photo, yeeowzer, as Pat said the other day, one day the man is going to die from Bar Rash.

Tonight we’re hitting a few bars in the the city and then we might, just maybe, head back to the Putney hunting ground of Thai Square.

Kramer I’ll miss you you in London champion. How can I ever forget the time you first arrived off the boat and said “Is that London eye thing some kind of executive offices”, or even better when I pointed out Hyde Park “Dave what is that, a commercial or residential development?” The best ever though was when we crossed the river Thames (pronounced as spelled by Kramer). He looked out at the River and asked me “How do they fill this dam, is just full because it always rains”.

Tonight we drink to Kramer! Where are the laughs coming from next stallion?

If you thought Firefox was good before then you’re obviously a supremely intelligent being. Well NOW it absolutely rips the competion apart because Firefox 1.5 has just been released. It is blitz in comparison to unsafe, boring and user unfriendly Internet Explorer. This has almost made my weekend. Kramers farewell tonight and Bertie boys Crimbo party tomorrow have a lot to live up to.

Jeez, I have just read what I wrote above and along with my previous post I sound like a serious tech geek. What the hell am I talking about, seriously, I know I am a walking example that partying hard is actually the elixir of life, and I WILL stay true to that image. There is no way that a Firefox update can excite me as much as this weekends events. Forgive me, but I had to find a way to express the true gravity of todays discovery.

My companies cell-phone policy really sucks. I am still using my old SPV c500 which I have had for over a year and a half, mainly because I don’t want to join the company phone scheme and get shafted into using a shite Nokia. Currently my Windows smartphone using my Tomtom GPS navigation software which is really useful in London, I use it to sync with my desktop Calendar, Outlook etc, stuff which a Nokia just can’t do.

If I am going to join the phone scheme I have to leave my beloved Orange and join O2! In order to do that I need to get a phone that is able to do everything I require. So here it is the iMate SP5m with Windows Mobile 2005, 1.3 mp camera, built in Wifi, awesome MP3 player etc.

Is this not the coolest advert you’ve ever seen, picked it up from the salami over at splattermail !! When I started looking at it I realised I have seen a LOT of these bands live:

Deep Purple
U2
Crowded House
Scissor Sisters
The Killers
Green Day
Madonna
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Pet Shop Boys
Snoop Dogg
REM

See how many you can get, there are supposed to be over 75 bands represented in http://virgindigital.com/wallpapers/virgindigital1280×960.jpg.

PS: Just checked out the Virgin Digital site and its pretty awesome. I have also realised that the image I linked to above has had the sides cropped slightly. I am busy looking or the wider one.