February 2007

Some interesting personal experiences in the UK recently:

- Called Sky to sort out problems with my satellite reception. The call centre guy I dealt with had Tourettes Syndrome. In the middle of sentences and at random points in our conversation he would say “Jihad” or “Al-Jazeehra”. It was nuts, I thought I was going insane as he kept throwing in a random “Jihad” or “Al-Jazeehra”, sometimes even when I was doing the talking! Eventually I stopped and quizzed him on it. He pretended like nothing was wrong and then mumbled something and put the phone down. Surely you can’t work in a call centre if you have tourettes, thats like somebody with dyslexia working as a proof-reader. Whackhead, was that you?

- Heard Lucas Radebe on UK radio today refer to Morne du Plessis as a famous ex-South African cricketer. Really?!

- I was contacted by a producer from the BBC, unfortunately I got the email too late as I was out the office and then out playing late night 5-a-side football. Part of the email:

We will be discussing this question, and John Simpson’s report on crime in Johannesburg, on our programme tonight (Wednesday) from 1830 GMT, on the BBC World Service.

I’d be very interested to talk to you about your views, and about the possibility of joining us on the show to take part in the debate.

PS: No disrespect intended towards Tourettes or Dyslexia sufferers, personally I love those c*cking f*nts!

I nicked the title for this post from a great post on GottaQuirk where eMarketing and Web 2.0 are discussed within the context of the US Presidential race.

It is pretty clear that if the decision to elect the next US President is based on their online efforts the world will be at the mercy of a Democrat, either Hillary or Barrack! I predict that voter turnout in 2008 will be huge, mainly on the back of some “interesting” presidential candidates but also because, more than ever before, candidates are reaching out to a larger portion of the voter population through blogs, websites, Youtube videos etc.

First up the Democrats:

Hillary Clinton

Barrack Obama

And now for the Republicans:

John McCain

Rudi Guiliani

So thats the US but what about the UK or South Africa? Well, in a few months time, so the press lead us to believe, Gordon Brown will be putting his slippers under the bed at 10 Downing Street (no election neccesary). And guess what, he doesn’t even have a website or at least not one that pops up on the first 5 pages of a Google search, Web 2.0, you’re kidding, he’s not even Web 0.1!

David Cameron does have his own site, he pops up on the first page of a google search, I dunno why he bothered though, I opened it up and fell asleep.

South Africa, well, we don’t even have proper broadband let alone proper politicians. Given that both major parties are in the process of appointing new leaders perhaps they will get their act sorted soon.

PS: In researching this post I came across a brilliant site  TheyWorkForYou.com . I am fascinated by it, search for a UK politician and they have everything there is to know about him/her, a lot better than getting your information from the Sun. Check out David Cameron vs Gordon Brown. Imagine how brilliant it would be to have this website up and running in South Africa!

There has been much debate in Britain recently regarding the Niqab, the female head and face garment worn by certain fundamentalist followers of Islam.

Recently an Oxford court upheld a schools decision to disallow a 12 year old girl from wearing the Niqab on her fathers insistence. I agree with this on the basis that a) the Niqab is not a religious garment, you will not find any reference to the Niqab in the entire Qu’ran and b) we should not tolerate a culture of exceptionism towards Islam or any other religion.

Yesterday I got very irate listening to a popular talk show radio DJ Jon Gaunt who has decided that the Niqab serves no purpose in British society and must therefore be categorically banned from the streets of Britain. He justifies this on the basis that some criminals and terrorists have been able to evade security checks at airports etc. because they have not been required to lift their Niqab.

When passing through Airport security, entering a bank etc I wholeheartedly believe that the Niqab should be removed to enable facial identification. This should be required regardless of religion, race or cultural customs, just as gloves would need to be removed when having your fingerprints taken. I would have thought that was obvious!

However, given that Britain is supposed to be a free and liberal society I cannot see how the British government could possibly ban somebody from wearing a particular article of clothing. The Netherlands, another supposed free and liberal society is planning on banning the Niqab altogether. And, interestingly the Muslim countries of Turkey and Tunisia have banned the Niqab outright.

As much as I detest Muslim extremism I also detest nanny-state restrictions on freedom of expression and the right to wear whatever the hell you want to! Yes I believe the Niqab is sexist and unnecessary but banning the Niqab is just wrong, regardless of my personal opinion.

Rob has posted a fascinating story about Ling Valentine. Ling appeared on the phenomonally popular TV show Dragons Den last week. There is no need to go into her perfomance on the show or explain the show itself as this iScatterling post does it perfectly, check it out ‘cos she even comments on his blog, very funny!

I saw her on the show and have since visited her car business website. She is brilliant, funny, wacky and has the chinese knack for business, hard work, ingenuity and chutzpah.

No doubt some of the website designers, web marketers and entrepreneurs out there will go nuts when they see her site but I think its brilliant - cluttered, crazy and hectic! The complete antithesis of what most designers would, I think, deem as a functional business site. You could spend hours on her site messing about before you actually leased a car, but it has a real personal touch and I believe you invest in people not ideas. Her use of Chinglish (chinese english) is classic and the longer you spend on her site the funny and more interesting it becomes, you HAVE to go and check out her site.

PS: Nánfēi = South Africa in Mandarin, or if you can’t pronounce Nánfēi just say Nelson Mandela.

I have said it many times - I don’t believe a magical big event is going to come along and turn South Africa overnight into a brilliantly successful country or alternatively make it suddenly collapse.

Most South Africans, I believe, are waiting for the big event to happen, like the 2010 World Cup suddenly putting SA on the map, instantly turning round crime and corruption whilst solving all the countries woes immediately. An alternative example others believe is the unlikely event of Jacob Zuma becoming president whereupon most believe the country will be ruined and South Africa will overnight become a stereotypical failed African country with widespread crime, corruption and economic disaster!

I don’t subscribe to either of these views, I believe South Africa is currently beset by a general across the board decline, it is occurring gradually where, over time, as a country we continue to lose pace with the rest of the world. I admit I do not know which way SA will go over the next 50 years but I do choose to live in hope that things will turn around and gradually begin to improve.

Unfortunately though if we continue on our current path this will not happen. To turn it around we all need to take an interest in politics and current affairs, we all need to be pro-active about improving South Africa and ultimately hold people in democratic positions of power accountable for what they are doing.

Someamongus wrote today how he feels, being a political commentator, as though his posts always seems to be critical of South Africa. But in my opinion this shows that at least he is doing something, albeit critical, he still cares! Today I came across an article that appeared in The Spectator, unfortunately it is a subscription only site so I will publish it here. An interesting piece which sets out to explain exactly why and how the author believes SA has decayed to its current point. If you care about South Africa, as I do, then you will take the time to read it.

RIAN MALAN, The Spectator
Published: Saturday, November 18, 2006

When the winter rains closed in on Cape Town I thought, to heck with with it, I’m selling and moving somewhere sunny. To this end, I asked the cleaning lady, Primrose Gwayana, to come in and help spruce up the house. We were scrubbing and painting and what have you when Primrose’s broom bumped the dining table, and crack - a leg snapped off. I thought, uh-oh, here’s an omen. Something awful is going to happen. And it has.

Nine months ago, South Africa seemed to be muddling through in a happy-go-lucky fashion. The economy was growing, albeit slowly. Trains ran, if not exactly on time. If you called the police, they eventually came. We thought our table was fairly solid, and that we would sit at it indefinitely, quaffing that old Rainbow Nation ambrosia.

Read the rest of this entry »

South Africa currently dominate world cricket and as the number one ranked team in the world I would hope they can make it count by winning the World Cup which starts next month in the West Indies.

I will be in Melbourne on the day of the World Cup Final, surrounded by Aussies who hopefully have no interest in watching the game ‘cos they didn’t make it to the final.

If you’re Aussie then maybe this quote from an article I read today will make you realise why people support “any team but Australia”. To me, if you feel it necessary to describe your opponents like this, then it is probably you who is insecure!

Among Australians, it is received wisdom that the South African sporting psyche suffers from some deep insecurity, which shrivels their self-belief just when they need it most. Out here, I’ve been reading Adult Book by Malcolm Knox, the only novel to be chosen as Wisden’s book of the year. It is partly set in the middle of a Test at the SCG. South Africa are the visitors and the author takes us inside the head of an Australian batsman, Chris Brand. Crusty, foul-mouthed, compulsively adulterous and playing to save his career, he is possibly the most believable cricketer in fiction. And he has strong views about the South Africans.

“The Yaapies jump around. Busy, punky, athletic. They think they’re like us,” Chris muses, “but they’re not, they’re f—ing not at all. Something in their history makes them tough but insecure, hard on the surface but soft-centred. They fight and fight and never give up, but when you’ve beaten them, there’s something in them that accepts it. As if deep down they’re too guilty to take the last step.” This may be the first recorded case of a national team being sledged by a literary novelist.

PS: Calling South Africans “Yaapies” is akin to calling Aussies “Abo’s”, politically incorrect, ignorant and just wrong! Theres no accounting for another nations ignorance.

This is classic, whilst watching the Sharks game on Sky Sports this weekend with Strat we pissed ourselves laughing at two guys in the crowd missing their “high five” after a Percy Montgomery try.

At the end of the game Sky normally do a montage of the highlights and the last clip they showed was the “High five miss”. So I asked Strat the techno wizz kid to download the clip off his Sky box and email me the clip so I could upload it to YouTube. Here it is, only 12 seconds long, if you know these guys please tell them they’ve been YouTubed!!!!

After getting smashed by 10 wickets yesterday the Aussies have just been hit for 6 by the South African parliamentary court jester Terror Lekota.

After yesterdays outburst he has followed up his comments with some good old government logic. Crime is now just an “aberration” and I am a confirmed “rascist” along with the rest of the Australian population.

Can somebody shut this idiot up?

Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota, the current South African Minister of Defence has made it abundantly clear in parliament what the government’s position is on South Africans living abroad. According to the ruling party we are unpatriotic, we are disloyal, we have turned our backs on South Africa and finally, we have been dismissed as stakeholders in South Africa!!!

Nothing new I suppose as the ANC, almost immediately upon assuming power, disenfranchised all South Africans living abroad. Holding an SA passport, owning assets there, having all your family living there, growing up there your whole life etc. is clearly not enough to make my own government accept me as an ordinary citizen with valid input. So given my obvious second class status and inability to vote, how secure can I feel about the treatment I will receive from my government when travelling abroad should I need any assistance from our notoriously lackadaisical foreign office?

So even though our government only two days ago asked us to return to South Africa because of the massive skills shortage we must still put up and shut up about the ridiculous level of crime and corruption inflicting South Africa. When rape, murder and robbery are part of daily life in your home country it becomes imperative to vocally object regardless of where one currently lives.

What about those former political refugees who left South Africa during apartheid, people like our glorious president-in-waiting who likes to finish his speeches by singing songs about machine guns. I’ll bet they didn’t keep quiet about the atrocities committed in SA and now they are heroes. Perhaps one day those filthy rich white expats who have turned their back on South Africa will also be considered heroes!

Looks like the “$100″ laptop I wrote about almost a year ago, although now costing closer to $150, is marching forward! Non-profit organisation One Laptop per Child will be shipping 2 500 machines to eight nations this month as part of their trial before hopefully producin over 5 million units before the end of 2007.

The laptop now looks lime green and white with an amazing amount user interface functionality.

A very interesting point has been made on the the blog OLPCnews.com about the Linux operating system. Like a Mac, if you are building an operating system for a specific piece of hardware it makes life a lot easier, which means the version of Linux found on the OLPC laptop should be the first truly easy desktop distro.

The OLPC laptop has a unique feature, which up until now, only Apple has possessed. The hardware and software configurations are known. So this means that the people writing the software and drivers for the OLPC laptops know exactly what they are writing for.

Up until now, every version of Linux has suffered from this problem. Yes, Ubuntu and the newer flavours of Linux are far better at recognising hardware, and choosing the correct drivers, but soundcards and USB peripherals still often cause problems. OLPC won’t have this issue.

On the way in to work today it was reported on the radio that Marie Stopes recorded their highest number of abortions ever for a single month in Britain. In January 2007 they performed over 6000 abortions in just nine clinics!

The bestselling book Freakonomics attributes the significant drop in crime in the USA over the past decade to the legalisation of abortion in that country following Roe vs Wade. Perhaps their theory is true, although it is hotly contested, and if it is then hopefully the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act passed in South Africa at the end of 1996 may result in a decrease in crime over the course of the next decade.

Perhaps though the concept of legal abortion is fundamentally flawed as studies in the USA have shown that conception rates have increased significantly since abortion was legalized. It seems to indicate that “legal abortion is a major cause of what it was supposed to cure — unwanted pregnancies.”

I know I am strongly in favour of legalised abortion, but I do think that there are better ways for the government to prevent abortion from becoming just another method of retroactive contraception. I mean, surely it is cheaper, more effective and less traumatic to make the morning after pill more accessible in countries were abortion is already legal.

Finally, when discussing abortion in the US you are either pro-choice or pro-life. What a ridiculous way of descibing it. Pro-life?? Does that mean if you support legalised abortion then you are pro-death? Really ridiculous. You either support or oppose legal abortion, that should be the term of reference.

Watched Blood Diamond last night. Turned out to be the usual cheesy Hollywood schlock with a fairly garbled message.

It was good to see so many South African/Mozambican actors employed! And, yes, as so many have already pointed out Leonardo di Caprio’s South African accent was a fairly good attempt.

In my search to find out the truth behind the movie I have discovered some very interesting facts. You might be interested to know that the attack helicopter shown in the film was NOT a South African Rooivalk but rather a Russian Military Mi-24 Hind Gunship. Turns out this specific helicopter was operated in Sierra Leone by Neall Ellis a former SA airforce colonel who contracted out his services as a mercenary to the Sierra Leone government fighting against the RUF rebels.

You can watch a video of Neall Ellis and his crew preparing the helicopter and then going into battle in the Sierra Leone bush almost exactly as portrayed in the movie. This is the real thing, a South African mercenary for hire, with a lethal helicopter, killing rebels and anyone who gets in the way.

Having defeated the national army and confounded two peacekeeping forces in the course of a nine-year civil war, the RUF fear only one thing - what Neall Ellis calls his office - a Russian built Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship, which he flies under contract to the Sierra Leone Army.

A former South African colonel, Ellis has fought in Angola, Zaire, Bosnia and now Sierra Leone. He’s worked for the big names in freelance soldiering, the UK-based “Sandline International” and the now-defunct South African outfit “Executive Outcomes”.

Check out this fascinating article about Neall Ellis, his crew and his Mi-24 gunship in Sierre Leone from September 2000.

and now the real deal:

Watch a video of the helicopter in action in the Sierra Leone bush along with interviews etc.

Probably the only time in history a lone helicopter gunship, flown by a lone pilot, has turned the tide of an entire war; his gunship was recognized with abject terror by every rebel in the country.

It appears, rather ironically, that this man had a conscience. He often went unpaid for many months choosing to put his life in danger by killing thousands of rebels and preventing the country from being overrun by butchers intent on severing limbs and massacring people.

Having read a few stories about this particular time and place in history I am almost certain there are many sides to a lot of different stories. What is clear is that elite mercenary armies played a huge part in this war, and it wasn’t always negative! Food for thought.

UPDATE: We have just signed the second best rugby player in the world (after JW), Frederic Michalak, the French flyhalf has agreed a one year contract with the Sharks for the 2008 season!

I forgot about my mandatory beginning-of-the-Super 14-season “GO SHARKS” post. Looks like we have a decent team this season and barring our usual end of season choke we should hopefully make the playoffs.

The Super 14 is arguably my favourite sporting competition, no complaints about salary caps, no Russian billionaires to upset the balance, just good hard rugby played with a lot of flair.

Admittedly the South African teams are at a distinct disadvantage due to their travel schedule but perhaps this year we will finally see a Super Rugby victory by the most successful SA team in the modern era. After beating the Bulls last weekend, tonight we take on the Waratahs, one of the powerhouse teams from last year. Beat them and we will be nicely set-up to roll into the Semi-finals. If Butch James has a good season then I can see us going all the way. GO SHARKS!

NB: Looks like Sky Sports coverage is going to be superb this year, can’t wait!

On March 24th, less than 7 weeks away, I am running a half marathon in Prague, Czech Republic. I have done hardly any training up to this point and don’t think I can run further than 5 kilometres without stopping for a beer let alone 21 kilometres! In true Brewery Boy tradition I will be doing just that. OH YES, I am definitely carbo loading on beer during the race, check it out, my favourite beer as well, Staropramen, just a pity its nonalcoholic:

Prague refreshes marathoners like no one else in the world. With nonalcoholic beer.

It’s not uncommon for runners to carbo load with beer and pasta before a big race. It’s certainly not uncommon for runners to quench their thirst with a cold beer afterward. But beer during the race? That’s new.

Yet here in the city that makes what is arguably the world’s best beer, they’re going to give it a try at this year’s Volkswagen Prague Marathon. Race partner Staropramen will be offering (alcohol-free) beer to runners at designated refreshment points along the course. In addition, regular refreshment points along the course will provide the usual assortment of water, fruit and isotonic beverages.

Asked how many runners he thought would opt for the beer, race director Carlo Capalbo responded, “I don’t have a clue. But it’s a fun idea, isn’t it?” As is the tradition at the VW Prague Marathon, Staropramen will supply regular beer to runners free of charge at the Marathon’s pre-race pasta party. And at the conclusion of the marathon. “Sampling Staropramen at the city’s many pubs prior to the race,” Capalbo says, “is strongly encouraged.”

I woke up this morning to the biggest overnight snowfall I have witnessed in 4 years of living here. In my back driveway I measured the snow at about 15 cm (6 inches) which is huge in London terms.

I love it when it snows, it is so tranquil and serene. Snow fall is silent and very eerie, feel like strapping a board to my feet and hitting a slope somewhere but unfortunately I’m at work after a harrowing drive this morning. I have uploaded a few photos to my Flickr account, click here or on the photo.

It was only yesterday when I got back from the US that I was able to tune into the rest of the world again, only to hear about the latest bird flu outbreak (yawn) and yet ANOTHER attempt by the South African government to gag anybody who criticises them.

In this case it was First National Bank who sought to undertake a campaign to make the government sit up and take notice about crime. Well the blogosphere and the media thankfully are not going to be silenced and you can see exactly what the campaign entailed over at realsouthafrica.co.za. Thank-you FNB for standing up to the Government and helping the people of South Africa who are brutalized daily by crime! Its not easy to promote South Africa abroad, paint too rosy a picture and either you’re lying or the national news broadcaster is, like this one in New Zealand. Clearly S’bu Ndebele does not care about South Africans.

Got this comment the other day on a previous post about Virsa:

Thank you for linking us and for all the support.
My name is Pinky, one of the virsa members. We’ll be having marches in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg on March 10th 2007; to make our president aware of the millions of South Africans suffering.
We’d like people to help as much as they can. The things we need help with are: Paper (for printing pamphlets), Printing of pamphlets, T-shirts that people can wear at the march, Volunteers to help sign petition forms and money so the volunteers can eat and have sunscreen.

We’d also like to put ads in newspapers to create awareness. There is a petition that we’d like signed too. Please go to http://www.virsa.org.za/articles/what_is_VIRSA.htm and read the things we’d like to do. Please contact us on crime@virsa.org.za

The least you can do is join the march, although I prefer to call them demonstration as march sounds too militant, but hey, maybe being militant is the only way to get the message across to this government.

So watching the Superbowl in Chicago was great, especially the first crowd eruption after the Bears scored a touchdown from the kick-off return about 10 seconds into the game!! But I also got to see all the commercials, you can see them all here, some where lame, some were mildly funny but these were easily my favourites - Bud Light: Class Mencia & Bud Light: Fist Bump & Coke: Videogame

Just got back into London after a fantastic trip. Even had good weather, it snowed in Dallas and hit lows of -20 degrees CELSIUS in Chicago with the wind chill factor taking things down as low as -35 !!!! A pity the Chicago Bears didn’t win the Superbowl ‘cos I actually postponed my flight till the following day so I could stay and celebrate with the millions of fans who were hoping for a Bears victory.

I’ll write something soon about my trip but I’ll leave two photos with you, the beautiful city skyline (notice the frozen lake) from the Sears Tower and my shirt put up as a trophy when I ran (actually I walked, because gentlemen never run) over 400 yards down the main bar street to Wrigley Field and back again completely topless to take a photo outside Wrigley. My prize - the look of utter dismay on peoples faces along the way, free drinks the entire night and notoriety forever in the Ivy on Clark! Ever tried walking completely topless in -20 F (-29 C)?