March 2006

The TV programme - Beyond Tomorrow - aired tonight in Australia with a segment about Topgolf in Washington DC. I mentioned a while back about the interview I did for the show and it turns out I do actually feature! It broadcast on Channel 7 in Australia so if you didn’t catch it then look out for repeats soon. I believe that it also goes out on the Discovery Channel so those of you in other places may also get to see it.

London, its a busy place to live. Last night the dogs, tonight dinner in Egham with the family from Lions River, tomorrow night in to town for the Razorlight concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Sunday is the Oxford Cambridge boat race and afterwards Simon has organised us tickets to the official Cambridge boat race afterparty.

Work is also a busy place to be right now. I am spending a lot of my time between Birmingham and London trying to ensure our latest project is ready for the London Golf Show in a few weeks time. Posting has taken a backseat recently, but you can occupy yourselves by reading through Peksta’s recent trip to London with some of the photos now up.

Finally spring is here, my 2nd full winter in London is over and I am almost certain I wouldn’t want to face another two. Living here you really do appreciate the onset of Spring and imminent arrival of Summer. South African’s (less capetonians than others) have very little appreciation for the arrival of summer. I have not worn a pair of shorts for almost 5 months, appreciate that my legs look like wax paper and my sandals are in serious need of a bit of exercise.

I arrived with only £20 in my pocket which was enough for the three course dinner we were having but certainly not enough when you’re “trackside”. I needed an ATM fast, or so I thought.  I laid a  £2 trifecta bet on the first race, how difficult can it be to pick the first 3 dogs in a 6 dog race? Not at all difficult, I won 40 quid! That set me up sweetly for the rest of the evening as I went on to make about £160 from my measly £20. What a great night all round, only disapointment was missing out on the legendary Charlie Chans nightclub afterwards!

Been meaning to post for a while now about Guy’s brilliant new Wine Diaries over on his site - Chateau Toby. The man obviously likes the finer wines in life, unlike me where the only wine I truly like is distilled until its called Brandy! Anyway check out his Wine Diaries introduction and keep a look out for his recommendations, hes already done one where he found a fantastic wine for only £4, the bergies in Cape Town would love this Guy!

Today is Human Rights Day in South Africa, its a public holiday marking the anniversary of one of the darkest days in South African history - the Sharpeville Massacre. This post by Someamongus should be a compulsory read for most Saffas - especially seeing as I can almost guarantee that 99% of people reading this post were not even born 46 years ago!

Why exactly eezit that all the winners of the SA Blog Awards were white? Did Oscar winning Crash not make enough of an impact on you to vote for the a black man/woman? The ethnicity and racial makeup of the SA blogging community do not accurately represent the demographics of the South African nation. Whats going on?!?

Heres the thing, blogging wasn’t around before 1994 so technically discrimination could not have occurred. Why then are there no black bloggers at the awards, and why did I not win an award, is it because I is black?

Check out the photos of the Joburg jol here, and the Cape Town  cavort  here!

One of my favourite finds from the SA Blog Awards is definitely Inky Goblin. Its probably only for you saffas out there given that its a political satire on South Africa. Do yourself a favour and watch the InkyGoblin TV video clips, if you don’t capsize after watching “Fattima” talking about “traditional phsycologists” etc. then you need to leave the country NOW!

Check out their sister site my bru, its about Durban, and I’m tuning you lahnees its Mckoi!

Just a quick post to say that I managed to get the Runner-up spot in the category Best Overseas SA Blog. Go and check out the results here.

A big thank-you to all of you who voted for me! And huge thanks to people like Cherryflava, Aquila and Jo’blog for organising, documenting and hosting/paying for the event.

Well, what DIDN’T we do this weekend!

Had mahusive nights on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and in between that squeezed in Arsenal’s 3-0 win at Highbury, St Patricks day celebrations, boat trip down the Thames, a site seeing hike that took in practically the entire London west end and city, the quickest art gallery visit ever (in to see Sunflowers by Van Gogh and then straight out again), a few potential police arrests narrowly averted, breaking into Hamleys the worlds most famous toy store at 3am, the Brick Lane experience, met Justin Marshall.

No doubt Peksta will summarise his weekend a lot better than I can, just as soon as he recovers back in Durban.

Haven’t been in the office this week and I won’t be in tomorrow either because the editor of The Weekly Ale lands in London in a couple of hours and the intention is to go huge this weekend.

St Paddys day tomorrow night in London should be one helluva shindig and then on Saturday its off to watch Arsenal at Highbury. It’s Pekstas boyhood dream to go and see his beloved gunners but for me its just another shitty club with a boring ground! Only kidding, we’ll be dropping around £500 on 4 tickets which is quite a lot considering I have vowed never to return to the Library ground. When you promise yourself it never seems to stick!

PS: Its superb to see Truman still hurting from the Aussie capitulation last week.

Who said cricket was boring? This was one of the most exciting games I have seen in any sport!!

Got home today in time to catch the second half of the Australia v South Africa One Day cricket international. This was the series deciding final game held at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. South Africa succeeding in beating the Aussies and taking the series win 3-2.

Already the game has been labelled as the greatest game of all time! Australia succeeded in smashing the previous highest score innings total by reaching 434. They were then rolled over by the victorious South Africans who took the record away from the Aussies in a matter of hours by blasting a total of 438!

Check this comment by former Aussie cricketer Dean Jones made half way through the game before SA started batting.

“This knock of 434 is the greatest ever in one day cricket and might not be conquered ever. The way Australia is murdering their opponents, makes them invincible,”

Hahahahahahaha…………

There are only a few people in the world who will complete the Kiliman

• summit Kilimanjaro (5895 m)
• compete in a two day mountain bike race around Kilimanjaro (283 km) and
• finish the Kilimanjaro Marathon (42,2 km).

One of them was my Uncle. So well done Nick for finishing 4th, sounds like an amazing event! Clearly the genes weren’t passed down!

As the title says, I’m flabbergasted.

Flabbergasted by the on-going testimony in the rape case of our Ex-Deputy President Jacob Zuma. The SA press is dominated by this case with a multitude of revelations being unveiled every day. The rape accuser and her family are very closely connected to the family of Jacob Zuma and, nepotism being as bad as it is in the current government, members of her family obviously have jobs in very important government agencies etc etc

Well imagine my surprise when THIS ARTICLE described how the rape accuser/victim/whatever formally testified in a court of law that she had a 5 month abortion. Nothing wrong with that except she then goes on to say that she does not remember having sex, so….. she must have been raped without knowing it!! That was not enough of a joke to make me flabbergasted, oh no, not nearly, this is the clincher: she then mentioned that she believes it was her school master who raped her (without her knowing) because her mother said the 5 month old aborted foetus looked like him!!!!

Got back fom the states on Monday, in time to catch the highlights of the Oscars. It was great to see Tsotsi win the best foreign language film category. Does this make it the best ever SA movie?

Hopefully the soundtrack to the movie will increase the profile of Kwaito music around the world!

And how about Crash winning the Oscar for best film. What an average, racially antagonistic and poorly scripted movie!

Have yet to see Brokeback Mountain, Munich or Capote but want to, and will, shortly.

Just picked out a little bit of sporting news which made me smile. Its always good to see a headline like the one below. Problem is trying to explain to all the americans around me why I have a grin on my face, they have no idea what cricket are, never mind is!!!

AUSTRALIA CRUSHED BY SOUTH AFRICA

Fast bowler Makhaya Ntini took six wickets as South Africa crushed Australia by 196 runs to take a 2-0 lead in the one-day series on Friday. Read the BBC article here.

Arrived in DC on Tuesday night, it just happened to be Fat Tuesday and the first day of Mardi Gras. They don’t only celebrate it in New Orleans which judging by the news reports would still have been a pretty good year to go in spite of the hurricane.

My first encounter with the “beads” happened as I stepped off the plane, the customs/border control guy had about 10 bead necklaces around him. OK then I guess they do celebrate Mardi Gras all over.

Went to my favourite restaurant Mikes with no beads and walked out with loads of them, if you have a non-american accent over here you’re immediately in the money!!

Since then I’ve been working, relaxing, partying and obviously eating, ‘cos thats americas favourite pastime! Just missed the Washington Wizards v Indiana Pacers NBA game last night, got out of here to late to get to the game, but I might get to go up to Philly and catch a game over the next few days!

Not much to report really but if you head along to the SA Blog Awards site and vote for me I’ll let you in on an important tip for those people out there who can only afford to fly economy class.

Ok you don’t have to vote for me to get the tip, but it would be appreciated, especially as today is the last day of voting and then I get a list of IP addresses showing which people have voted for me/haven’t voted for me!

This has only ever worked with BA, I’ve tried it with Cathay since and Brendan tried it with Singapore Airlines but both to no avail. When you get to the check-in desk ask them if the economy section flight is full, if it is then ask for a window seat, if there isn’t one then ask them to mark your boarding pass SFU (suitable for upgrade). They nearly always laugh/smile and ask you how you know the term SFU. Just smile back and tell them you fly a lot with your favourite airline BA! If you’re polite and friendly you’ll get upgraded when you get to the gate. Trust me, it works, evertime so far (5 times or so)! Remember friendly and polite, no making them offers they can’t refuse approach!!