October 2006

I stole this heading from Someamongus because its perfectly apt and I am not original.

If you want to know why South African rugby is a complete shambles then look no further than this article on Keo. Yes, we have known for years that SA rugby administrators are probably the most inept idiots ever in the history of global sport, and yes, in Jake White we have a coach who has clearly lost his marbles recently but that is not my point.

If you scroll down through the comments in the article you will see exactly why our rugby is in total disarray - we have the most idiotic, short sighted, puerile, stupid fans in the world! I used to enjoy flicking through the comments on Keo’s site but I haven’t done so in months, I often read his articles but I can’t stand the ridiculous comments which the site attracts from a clearly deranged rugby public. This article and the response from the “fans” almost infuriated me more than the ANC Youth League professing their love for Mugabe yesterday. Both articles clearly portray our nation as world leaders in stupidity.

I have watched the Boks play in France, Ireland, Australia and England but have yet to see them win anything abroad! I have paid over £60 for my ticket to watch the Springboks play England at Twickenham on the 18th November. If they lose to England again at Twickers I am going to incite Kirk to stone the Springbok bus!

A few posts ago a debate raged on this website. It was waged between two groups of people, those South Africans who think the country markets itself well, and those who think it is crap. So this morning, when I opened up the Ideate website, I was intrigued by a brilliant post Fred has written titled ‘Marketing South Africa: A Proposed Strategy’. I’d like those who commented on my previous post to go and read it, these guys are, after all, the experts, and sounds like they’d do the job a damn sight better and it goes without saying more in line with how I believe we should be marketing our glorious country. Here’s a snippet:

Lately, I’ve been wondering about the effectiveness of this country’s efforts in getting the word out about South Africa. It has to be said that this is not an easy job, with three massive spanners preventing the cogs from turning:

* Crime
* HIV/AIDS
* Poverty

(You can probably add Zimbabwe to the list, but let’s keep it simple, shall we?)

Despite these not so insignificant problems, the bald truth is that the marketing of this country has been, quite frankly, a bit of a cock-up. The message is frayed and disjointed; there is no cohesion of strategy; and most importantly, we, the people of South Africa, have no idea what is being done – or how we can help. ……..

The post goes on to spell out exactly how we SHOULD be going about it! And then mentions something else which I totally agree with based on my own global travels:

It has often struck me how ineffective South Africa has been in this regard. While travelling abroad, one always notices how, at events all over the place, the more marketing-savvy countries are jumping all over themselves to be in the face of the public. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and India move mountains to get into film festivals, music concerts, art exhibitions, charity events, culinary conventions and fashion extravaganzas.

Congratulations Nicky Hayden, new MotoGP world champion.

What fantastic scenes at the end of the last race of the season in Valencia. All Valentino Rossi had to do was finish the race in front of Hayden having clawed back a 51 point deficit earlier in the season, what odds would you have got on Valentino crashing on the second lap, a riding mistake by The Doctor, unheard of!! Like a true champ he got back on the bike and carried on but by that stage all Hayden had to do was stay on the bike and finish with more than 8 points.

Rossi’s 5 year world championship reign is officially over, but hes still the greatest!

This is a couple of weeks old but I’ve only just managed to go through all the games. Congratulations to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia who is now the undisputed chess champion of the world following his victory in possibly the biggest match in the past 20 years!

He defeated Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov on Friday 13th October in the $1 million World Chess Championship in Elista, Russia. After the regular 12 games finished in a 6-6 tie between the 31-year-old players, Kramnik won the rapid-game tiebreak 2 1/2 -1 1/2. The match unified the world title and ended the schism in the chess world that began 13 years ago.

I won’t bore you with the details but this match had all the intrigue, drama and skill evident in the glory matches of previous years between Spassky and Fischer, Karpov and Korchnoi, and more recently Karpov and Kasparov. Out of the 12 regulation games they played and the 4 “Blitz” games which ultimately clinched it for Kramnik I was amazed to discover that almost all of the games were based on a variation of the Slav Defense, an opening strategy I am fond of and have been known to use a lot. If you don’t know what I’m taking about it starts 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about then go and ask someone.

Today I discovered a wonderful little free programme called FlickrDown. Everybody loves Flickr right, and I do too, I just don’t enjoy having to download photos off Flickr one at a time.

So I did a quick internet search, as you do, and discovered that someone (lots of people actually) has had the same problem as me. He decided to write a programme and make it available to the whole world. Thank you Gregg, it works perfectly. As somebody has already commented:

I think in this bloatware-centric society of tools that “do it all” I’ve found more that don’t do anything, so its great to find stuff that just works. As a programmer its always a welcome addition.

And as a definite non-programmer it is more than a welcome addition, it is allowed in my house, it can eat all my food and even sleep in my spare room if it wants, just like Nils actually!

Read this. The story of a hero living in a sick society.

We need to sort this problem out, the situation has become more desperate each year, it is time we turned to the international community, we should use the opportunity the 2010 World Cup affords us to eradicate the disease. We should be asking the world for help - NOW.

Every year thousands of children leave school faced with the option of becoming unemployed or following a lucrative career in the highest paying “profession” in SA - crime!

PS: For those South Africans who feel better when reading about the woes of other countries, Richard North is always a brilliant read, check out his latest post, hysterical!

I haven’t done a movie review since Be Cool, the atrocious follow up to the brilliant Get Shorty.

I know I’m gonna get crucified for this ‘cos I’ve had a million people tell me its brilliant but seriously don’t waste your time watching The Departed on the big screen. Lame lines and a star studded cast making up numbers to entice you to buy a ticket, there is nothing more to say about this movie, potentially decent plot but completely cocked up and predictable!

If you want to watch a quality film from a similar genre then rent LA Confidential again - in a different league altogether!

PS: Firefox 2.0 spell checker has just told me I spelt “movie” wrong, looks right to me! I guess my spelling problems are not over, perhaps I should move over to the American English dictionary. It also tells me that “Firefox” is spelt wrong !!??

I have been driving past Stonehenge quite a lot recently, 3 or 4 times is a lot when you never expected you’d ever actually witness it in the flesh. On my last drive by a couple of weeks ago I decided to park up and take a walk around it. When you drive past on the main road it looks like a set of primary school papier mâchè creations, when you’re up close though it is extremely impressive and something well worth a day trip out of London to see, although I really wouldn’t bother if there was a big football match on. For those who want to know its just off the A303, South West of London about 1.5 hours away.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I really do think I know how they built it. As I walked up to the structure it hit me immediately. I listened attentively to the entire audio tour and not once did they even remotely allude to my theory on how it was actually built. For the benefit of science I will provide a brief precise of my theory.

The stones were “erected” by dropping them into large man made excavated holes. The holes with the stones standing upright in them were then backfilled. The lintels (horizontal stones) were then placed on top of the vertical stones which were now totally buried in the ground. The entire Stonehenge was then carefully excavated leaving all the stones standing in their current alignment. Too easy!

Can anybody tell me WHY this did not happen, I haven’t done a huge amount of research, very little in fact, but I can’t find reference to this theory anywhere. What I have determined is that the “moat” around Stonehenge was dug up using primitive digging tools found on site, this could also mean these tools were used to dig out stone henge.

I would welcome any input on this, even if it is to tell me that I have got it completely wrong.

PS: Hopefully no more spelling mistakes now that I’ve updated to Firefox 2.0 with there brilliant built in spell-checker.

This weekend I attended Weak-Kneed-Winch’s birthday party. It was held at their house, more like “halls of residence” if you consider the number of dossers there at any one time. The rain threatened but it wasn’t enough to put out the Potjie that Kirk was brewing up for about 30 people. In true Sneedenean fashion Kirk decided to start the Potjie at about 6pm, ensuring that the guests were left waiting for a good 3-4 hours before it did not matter what the hell the food tasted like, they just wanted some!

Potjiekos is a traditional South African dish literally translated as “Little Pot Food”. It is basically a stew which is cooked in a cast iron pot by layering the meat and vegetables and cooking over a smattering of coals (slow heat) for a few hours without stirring.

Kirk is brilliant at making this, and he outdid himself again on Friday night, especially seeing as he had kept his unsolicited promise to me and clubbed an entire 1 litre bottle of Spiced Gold! Potjies are always really tasty and this one was no different, although there was cause for concern when somebody dangled a toilet brush out of a first floor window and shook it off above the Potjie when it had the lid off!

Photos and story on Weak-Kneed-Winch. Well worth checking it out just to laugh at the ridiculous moustache Kirk is now sporting. I’m sure you’ll all agree with me that wiping your face with a clothe as a method of shaving just isn’t working for him anymore.

PS: Sneeds is famous for his braai technique. Invites you round for 6pm, starts the braai at 10pm and finishes it off by microwaving the food at 11pm after running out of charcoal.

A couple of weekends ago I went to the World Golf Championship on a full hospitality package at the main course clubhouse. The Grove is a fantastic course and I thoroughly enjoyed the event. Highlight of the day was obviously getting to meet Tiger Woods and wishing him good luck, as if he needed it! He romped home by 7 shots.

I also got to see Tiger miss a 3 foot eagle putt on the same hole my new favourite golfer Trevor Immelman eagled a few minutes earlier. Also walked past loads of celebs like Michael Douglas, Ian Wright etc.

Ernie and Michael Douglas are really tight, Ernie spotted him and went over for a big high five and back slap before stepping up to the tee and SMASHING a golf ball further than I’ve ever seen one fly!

Great day out, I can highly recommend going to watch a golf tournament, its really not as boring as it sounds, especially if you have VIP grandstand seats on the 18th green. Unfortunately no cameras allowed on the course so I don’t have any photos!

Quote of the weekend - Tiger Woods’ speech after “only” getting a birdie on the 530 yard 18th hole Par 5 when he had eagled the hole three days in a row: “Sorry about the bogey on the last hole, that is probably the toughest par 3 I’ve ever played!”

Last night BBC 2 broadcast a documentary on the South African tabloid newspaper The Daily Sun . I was alerted to the programme by my work colleagues who this morning told me that watching it made them never want to visit South Africa, in their exact words, “It looks like hell on earth!”.

Great, I thought, just the kind of negative publicity our country needs, as if we didnt have enough already! When I first came to Britain I was pretty scathing of this country’s predominantly tabloid media, as a South African I claimed the moral highground on the basis that South Africa’s written media wasn’t sensationalist or biased! Now however we have our own tabloid, and it is arguably far more asinine than anything produced in Britain. Given the serious social and political issues facing SA it is very sad that our nation chooses to read a newspaper that publishes ficticious stories about witchdoctors over the rape of 14 year old girls. At the same time The Daily Sun wields enormous power by virtue of their large readership, and I hope one day soon they turn their attention to improving South Africa by publicising and criticising the wrongs committed by our government in allowing the propagation of crime, corruption, AIDS etc.

Whilst they were at it, the BBC seemed to do a great job of making white people look elitist, patronising, rascist and totally out of touch with modern South Africa. I suppose one has to understand the BBC target audience - middle class Britain - they know very little about Africa and unfortunately take what they see on the BBC at face value, they are also the people our totally ineffective Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism are trying to target.

After a quick internet search I have found the link to the programme, dunno how long it will be there, but well worth watching, especially if you want to see how SA is portrayed in the British mainstream media. Watch it now, or go to the “BBC - This World” page.

Right now on the other side of the world, somewhere in Vietnam, a 29 year old english girl who recently quit her job is undertaking a massive round the world backpacking trip, avoiding military coups and accumulating as many mosquito bites as she possibly can.

Jenni stalks reads my site regularly, even though she has never commented! She managed to keep her site fairly quiet ….until now that is, I found it today and have read every post on it. Its really interesting and well worth a read if you want to know what backpacking through the East, Australasia and South America is like. Particularly interesting for all you twenty something girls who feel the onset of a pre-mid-life crisis. Go take a look.

PS: Jen, I will make sure Nils is a good boy in London while you’re gone. No need to thank me, I know how much you trust me.

From 35 deg Dallas on a “business” trip to 10 deg Moscow, Russia for a long weekend holiday in the space of only a couple of days. Should be exciting, my mother is there for work at the moment so I get to visit and avoid paying the extraordinarily high hotel costs.

Moscow has just been voted the most expensive city in the world so I am going to be doing a lot of site seeing and not much partying, especially after running around Dallas with a large hole in my pocket.

Na zdorovje!

I’m back from 6 really busy days in Dallas, Texas. What a week I had, the two highlights were definitely the JFK museum and my once in a lifetime attendance of the Red River Rivalry - Texas Longhorns vs Oklahoma Sooners college football game.

As South Africans we generally have no idea about American Pro Football, and even less of an idea about College Football. Let me tell you, College Football is HUGE. The passion, the fans, the game, it is one massive event, and they don’t come much bigger than Texas OU weekend. Every year the University of Texas plays Oklahoma University in what is considered one of the biggest games of the year. One half of Dallas wears burnt orange and the other half wears crimson. The game is played at the 79,000 seater Cotton Bowl within the annual State Fair of Texas, the biggest fair in North America.

I scalped a ticket outside the game for $170, luckily a considerable way below what the going rate, but I would have paid more because it was worth every cent! I have never experienced anything like it. There were huge marching bands, about 4 different groups of cheerleaders, the crowds sung songs like they do at English football games, there were canons at both ends of the ground firing extremely loud blanks throughout the day, fighter jet formation flyovers, the entire stadium was in party mode, everybody dressed in their team colours, and loads of girls dressed in short denim mini’s with knee length cowboy boots.

College football is followed by all walks of life, you could liken it to club soccer in England. Each team has fanatical support, far more so than NFL (teams like the Dallas Cowboys etc) and you don’t have to be an alumni of the college to follow that team. I met guys in their 50’s and 60’s who’d flown in from as far afield as San Diego and Seattle to watch this game and support the Longhorns. Forget NFL, this is real sport with real support, I loved it.

The game was fantastic, Texas smashed OU 28-10 and we saw some great plays from both sides. It is definitely something I will go to again and again. Next year hopefully I will attend another big derby day, like Ohio v Michigan or USC v UCLA. If I’m really lucky I’ll get to go to this game next year!!!

Hook ‘em HORNS! (Check another one of my video’s here, I will try and upload a few more, click on the photo above to go to my gallery)