General

Last night was a disaster, England lost to Croatia at Wembley. I was there and it was awful.

In the pouring rain England were outplayed and out-thought, their Euro dream washed away and with it my football holiday to Austria/Switzerland in the summer of 2008. Bloody morons!

I have been to dozens of new stadiums around the world so I was really looking forward to my first experience at the new Wembley Stadium. I have missed every game since the Stadium opened, I have either been in the US or in the case of the FA Cup Final, I voluntarily gave up my ticket for a mate’s birthday (and I won’t let him forget it).

I love going to England games, the passion, the noise, the general camaraderie. Last night I witnessed none of it (other than 5 minutes of the game when England had drawn level).  I think the new stadium has a crowd problem, the fans are not the same as before, not as vocal, not as loud. It may have been a combination of nerves, stadium design, the rain or even the fact that the new Wembley is now largely attended by the “prawn sandwich” brigade but one thing is certain, the crowd is lacking something. England fans, Wembley is waiting, where are you?

To say the stadium was a waste of money would be the understatement of the year. It is diabolical that over £800 million was spent on creating such a lifeless, boring bowl. It may look pretty from aerial photos or night shots but inside the ground it is simply atrocious. I judge stadiums by their atmosphere, defining features or uniqueness. Sadly Wembley has none of these.

What it does have is logistical problems, plenty of them. England has still not managed to master selling food and drink at stadiums. Queues everywhere until they run out. Its surprising there are any queues at all considering a hotdog costs £4 and a disgusting english burger and chips costs more than £7!

Generally it would take a good 45 minutes to get from the stadium to the train station, standing in huge queues in the pouring rain was not something we felt like doing after such a poor result. So instead we found a pub nearby and waited for the crowds to diminish. All told a really bad night made worse by my disappointment at the £800 million it took to create the greatest stadium flop on earth.

British Airways is pathetic. I have given them considerably more than £10,000 worth of businees over the past couple of years and yet when I make a simple spelling mistake on a booking they insist on charging me £25.

This is the kind of service I have come to expect from British Airways, a national “premium service” carrier with no accountability to its customers whatsoever. I thought I’d check what the budget airlines charge for minor spelling mistake correction, so I called Easyjet and was told they do not charge for this!!

I guess thats why Easyjet are now making all the right headlines and British Airways stagger from one disaster to the next:

It lost 20,000 passengers’ bags, was fined £270 million for collusion and one-third of its flights were late, but British Airways still managed to hike its profits by 26 per cent this summer. (Link)

This incident has also reminded me of my worst airline incident to date, it happened back in April 2007 in Chicago, and yet AGAIN British Airways were at fault. At the time I wrote a letter to BA detailing the incident, I am still waiting for a response, 8 months later……

Read the letter detailing my ordeal below:

Read the rest of this entry »

So whilst watching some of the South Africa vs New Zealand test match today I noticed that the muslim player Hashim Amla does not wear the sponsors logo - Castle lager. Maybe this is old news in SA but I haven’t been aware of it until now. How pathetic that SA Cricket allows this and furthermore that Castle Lager stands for it. This man is allowed to flout rules which apply to everyone else based on his “religion”. SA Cricket is weak, the sport itself is weak judging by Sunday’s attendance at the test match I watched and in comparison to its nearest relative - Baseball - it is dying a slow death.

As well as being an official Olympic sport in Beijing next year, Baseball had a record season in 2007 with revenues topping $6 billion. With the T20 and the world cup this year, I’d love to know how much cricket made.

Yeah but this ain’t no ordinary baker, its Tiger Brands trading as Albany, a household name in South Africa. Turns out they have been colluding with other members of the bread bakers oligopoly in South Africa to fix price increases. This type of collusion within an oligopoly is commonly referred to as a cartel, but unlike some of the other more famous cartels trading in diamonds and oil, this cartel provides a staple food product in a country where thousands of people live below the poverty line.

Only yesterday I wrote about the Airline (and cellphone network) oligopoly in South Africa, now it appears we have a bread oligopoly cartel. Could it be that South Africa is the land of the cartel/oligopoly, just try thinking of a few yourself, maybe start with the paper industry, the sugar industry………

PS: There are many other fascinating oligopoly, duopoly theories you may want to research. Yesterday I mentioned Nash Equilibrium but there are many other economic (and game) theories which apply to oligopoly’s such as the Stackelberg or Cournot or Bertrand competition.

Frustrating at times but overall I’d say its the best phone I’ve ever had. I’ll try and avoid raising common known irritations such as ringtones etc and I’ll refrain from stating the obvious benefits everyone already knows.

Pro’s

The interface, by far the best of any phone I have had, and YES, I have owned an HTC Touch and it is rubbish!

The standard apps like iPod, photo’s, youtube, google maps, phone all work as they are intended to. No lag, delays or crashing….. a welcome change from other pretenters to the crown.

Don’t be put off by EDGE, its actually quicker than I expected and in London there are loads of free wifi hotspots the phone will automatically connect to.

Cons

- Mail doesn’t allow search or list functions, so its basically like SMS 0.1, what the hell were they thinking.

- No cut and paste function. WTF?

- Battery life isn’t that great, you’ll need to be frugal with wifi, bluetooth, videos, ipod etc if you want it to last the WHOLE weekend! I must have played with it a lot because mine did not even last 24 hours.

- Its as slippery as a fish wearing a banana skin jacket! I dropped it in a gooey bowl of icecream within the first 24 hours. I licked off all the icecream and sucked the chocolate sauce out of the cracks - I recommend getting the silicone cover.

- It really takes a long time to charge when synced up with my Macbook, no idea why, but make sure you allow a good few hours for charging if you are charging through your laptop.

- Don’t look at other peoples hacked phones, you will become jealous because yours looks lame and doesn’t have any interesting apps on it (web apps suck ok). Roll on February 2008 when hopefully the true potential of this phone will be unleashed!

NB: This refers to last weekend, I tried posting this but my web hosting company blocked access to my site.

Heavy weekend. Started it off in Putney with a trip to Zulus to watch Kevin “Michael Naicker” Perkins, classic stuff the guy is hysterical, heard a lot of it before but he is still well worth seeing. Haven’t been to that side of the world in many months so we decided to spread ourselves around, hit Zulus, Thai Square and then Fez club all in one horrible booze fueled night, it ended up with a basketball game at 5am on a council estate court outside a mates house in London Bridge.

Instead of going home, I went straight to the Emirates stadium to watch the football in a pub outside the ground with Russ. Starting drinking again before 1pm and by the end of the game I’d thrown a few too many lagers down my neck to realise that I was running late. Train home, afternoon hangover hits, get ready for the seventies night at Carwash and head back into London.

Carwash was fantastic, full on seventies revival night, everybody dressed up in their disco best, bopping along to the classic tunes of the era. We had a blast but another 5am to bed and dreadful train journey home the next morning laid me out for the rest of Sunday. Roll on this week when hopefully I can take it easy and recover!

I have just spent the last 30 minutes trying to obtain the cheapest flights between Joburg and Cape Town. Its really amazing the number of conventional (SAA, BA, Nationwide) and low cost (Mango, 1Time, Kulula) airline operators in South Africa, and based on my experience using all of them over the last few years, they all generally provide an excellent service relative to other airlines I have flown around the world. My favourite domestic airline is 1Time, mainly due to a combination of excellent service, price, comfortable cabins and punctuality.

I do have one major gripe with the South African domestic airlines though - their websites are pants! Like cellphones, where in nearly every case a phone is perfect except for a few niggly issues which each brand or model fails to perfect, the websites for each of the airlines mentioned above have their own particular glitches, some of which are very annoying. It will take me too long to mention all the frustrations encountered on each website but to provide some proof of my allegations I will give a few quick examples.

The biggest airline in South Africa which also happens to be our national carrier, SAA, can’t even configure their website for Firefox without allowing a few glitches to slip through, try it and see. It might take you a while too, considering their load time was by far the longest out of the 6 airlines.

Try Mango’s website, get all the way to the end and then, oops, you need to change a time or maybe a date, use your browser back button or the button provided on the actual page, and you get sent right back to the homepage, you’ll need to put all the information in again.

1Time has a similar problem but the coding on the website itself allows you to go backwards and forwards during the booking process, just don’t use that browser back button. They also don’t have a calendar function anywhere on their home page, so you have to manually input the dates and need a seperate calendar to confirm the actual day eg. Monday, Tuesday etc. You’d think calendar input should be standard on any travel website.

Nationwide has a pretty decent system which seems to work really quickly, until it comes to selecting the actual flights you want. They have chosen to do things differently to the other 5 airlines by scheduling the inbound and outboud flights together which makes it really difficult to select the exact inbound and outbound times you desire. I gave up and moved on, no time for that kind of bother.

Why does all this matter, surely if they are all pretty much the same, you will take a few minutes extra and go with the cheapest one?

Well thats the problem, they are all priced almost exactly the same, the low cost airlines are around R1300 - R1400 and the conventional airlines are roughly R1350 - R1450. So certainly not enough variance to differentiate them on price, nor is there really enough to differentiate them on service (in my opinion, and not taking into account after-sales service). So perhaps the most important sales weapon is…..wait for it….. the website  - which in the case of modern airlines now doubles as everything from a shop front window to an honest and helpful salesman!

Unfortunately although they’re all really different in appearance, the websites are all just as bad as each other. You’d think that in this supposedly “competitive” market a bit of money invested in a really efficient and user friendly website might give one airline a competive edge over another.

Or would it….? Well, as it turns out maybe not! Maybe most bookings are done over the phone, maybe the percentage of online bookings is really small in a country with limited internet connectivity, maybe the airlines don’t really care because the customers have no real alternatives, maybe the website ACTUALLY doesn’t matter!!

Like cellphone networks, the airlines aren’t really in competition, they have an oligopoly and there is some kind of weird Nash Equilibrium in place where nobody believes that achieving the perfect booking site will actually increase profits, especially seeing as the rest of the cartel group will just copy the perfect site and there will be no change in turnover! Now its easy to see why they are complacent and the customer, going forward, is just going to have to put up with rubbish websites!

OK, so having vented my frustrations, who am I going to go with? Well ultimately 2 things have become the dealbreaker, brand loyalty to 1Time or going with BA and getting the airmiles.  So I am flying BA down to Cape Town and 1Time on the way back!

Lastly, I often get asked who my favourite airline is, for the record the answer is very easy:

Best International Airline - Qantas (Australia)

Best Domestic Airline - 1Time (South Africa)

Somewhere in and amongst the mayhem that was my weekend I managed to get hold of one of the greatest gadgets of 2007 in the new Aliph Jawbone bluetooth noise cancelling headset.

When I first saw the Jawbone in the US a few months ago I knew straight away I had to have one in the UK. Considering the new draconian laws here regarding driving and calling, this little beauty is not just a pleasure to use, it is also going to save me a lot of money and points on my license. Of course, its main selling point is the noise cancelling function which, given that I drive a convertible, should come in very handy, I shall just have to wait until summer to find out.

I figure that playing with the Jawbone this week is the perfect pre-cursor to my impending acquisiton of the iPhone which launches this Friday. I played around with the iPhone in the states when it launched and I’ve also spoken to a few iPhone users, so I know I want it and I also know that its way better than the slow, overhyped, bug-ridden HTC Touch that I have been using for the last 3 months. Even though I have used them for over 3 years now I have really begun to hate Windows Mobile phones, I guess Apple can take a bit of credit for that.

Driverlane really kicks ass and I have been waiting for them to release their debut album for almost a year now, what the hell is taking so long guys? Last year back in SA we were lucky enough to catch a couple of Driverlane gigs, one in Durban and another one in Cape Town. Although I was already a fan of their music before, the stuff they played live blew me away. I’m really hoping to see them again this December and pick up their new album.

I was asked today by a friend from SA whether Razorlight are any good live…..hello….they’re brilliant! I have seen them live three times now and I’d say they’re at least as good as Driverlane, both well worth seeing.

Click here to listen to their new catchy single Radio, the already immensely popular Regular Flavour and the title song from their long awaited new album, Digital Rainbow.

A great day but ultimately just a sports result. I for one am not getting carried away with the political insinuation that this will further unify our country, what bollocks, we won the world cup, we didn’t eradicate crime or build a million houses etc. It may help to resurrect the sport of rugby as a national game, but without a commitment from the public, the rugby community and the government it will become merely a memory of a few days where the South African nation shared a common goal.

What did the World Cup mean to me? Well, I am South African and will always be, I love sport, all sport, and I really love rugby, so this was one of the greatest sporting occasions of my life.

I have feelings of slight guilt that I so vehemently supported South Africa and spent such a vast quantity of money being there. I haven’t lived in SA for almost 5 years and have contributed very little to the economy and well-being of my homeland, but neither do I withdraw anything from SA, on the contrary I relentlessly promote my home country globally.

I have never complained about quotas in sport, certainly not in rugby, and I realise that whilst away from SA I personally cannot help with rugby development, so I accept any measure that those in government seek to redress the racial imbalance in the team.

I think that instead of moaning about picking teams on merit etc. the rugby fraternity should get out there and capitalise on this momentous win and sponsor development, sponsor players, sponsor teams and sponsor infrastructure. . If you really care about rugby and the future of the sport in SA then give some precious time to coaching and nurturing youngsters in traditionally non rugby environments. Otherwise, like me, you must simply accept that it will continue to be a marginal sport in our great country and government spending on the sport will continue to fall aginast its primary competitor - soccer. And therein lies the crisis for rugby, not that politicians are involved, which I agree is ludicrous, but that government spending on rugby will all but dry up, and rightly so.

Understandably now, rugby and politics are inseparable, but I hope that finally, what the support shown by the entire nation for this win might also do, is provide proof to the politicians, rugby fraternity and general public that this is just a sports team, loved by all because they represent one country and not just one sector of our nation. That is all. I hope to see the same support for the Soccer Team in 2010!

We are the World Champions and I was there to witness it. Thats a great feeling, almost as good as it felt to be there, to soak up the whole day with friends and family, then to celebrate like I had been given 24 hours to live!

This World Cup has been one helluva journey and I have experienced some wonderful lifefulfilling moments. And finally, 7 weeks after the tournament started we have been crowned Champions of the World.

I learnt La Marsellaise and La Pena Baiona, I drank Ricard and Get27 and lots of wine, I ate Tartare and Foie Gras, my face was permanently covered in the paint markings of the Tricolor from cheek kissing both men and women, I danced along to hundreds of brass bands and made friends with people from all over the country, from Carcasonne, Montpellier, Marseille, Reims, Toulon, Nice, Tours and of course Paris!

As a final goodbye I have made a sequenced photo montage of each trip to France with music reminiscent of my time out there - France, amis pour la vie!

Although the BBC Rugby World Cup blog took a lot of flack for wasting the British public’s money, I was grateful that they finally spent money on something worthwhile. And Ben Dirs has proved that with his brilliant post capturing the entire spirit of this magical World Cup. Go and read it right now, to either reminisce over the time you spent in France or to realise what exactly you missed out on, simply the best World Cup EVER!

Eventually I have secured tickets to the World Cup Final.

This is going to be the culmination of a 4 year chapter in my life. I left South Africa four years ago so I could come to London and work for six months before embarking on a month long trip to Australia to watch the World Cup in 2003 . Now, four years later, I have been on a  month long soiree in France for the  World Cup 2007 culminating in what I hope will be a victory for the Springboks on Saturday.

Could my time in the UK be up, I suppose it depends on what happens Saturday!

The biggest game of rugby in the last 4 years is almost upon us. I am going over to Paris tomorrow still without tickets but highly confident that I will be in the Stade de France to witness South Africa’s crowning as World Champions!

Finals are particularly difficult games to call, but I believe it will be a very tight game and as with the Argentina game I think we should put England under pressure and play a territory game as I don’t believe they have the skill to take us on, whereas if they make a mistake we have the ability to capitalise out wide.

Easily the most important player for SA on the day will be Butch James. I have said it for years, Butch James is by far the best flyhalf in SA and there is no way we would be where we are without him. He is the best distributer of the ball in world rugby and has played magnificently during the entire world cup. If on Saturday he tackles well and controls the game like he has done throughout the tournament the Springboks will strangle England and win convincingly.

That being said though, if Percy Montgomery has an off day with the boot and the team starts the first 20 minutes nervously we may be in for a tough ride.

It is John Smits destiny and that of the rest of this team that the trophy will be South Africas this weekend. I hope like hell we go out and play like it is ours. Come on Bokke!!!

Note: I am still looking for at least 4 tickets to the FINAL, if anybody has any to sell please get in touch with me, leave a comment here and I will get back to you!

Tomorrow I leave for what will be my third trip to France and the penulitmate one before going to the Final next weekend. So far this World Cup has been utterly amazing, games have been exciting and things have gone our way up to now. I think that all four teams have a 50-50 chance of winning, I would love to see a South Africa v France final, its the game I wished for at the beginning of the tournament and if all goes according to plan its the game we should get. IF England beat France I will be annoyed, the atmosphere won’t be great this Saturday if France lose but next weekend every Frenchman and his poodle will be supporting the Springboks against England.

Last weekend the atmosphere down in Marseille was fantastic, we stayed on the coast in a small beach resort town called Six Four Les Plages, and yet again I mixed a lot of alcohol, a lot of rugby and plenty all-night parties! I really enjoyed our time down on the Cote d’Azure, the weather was brilliant, the people were great and the passion they showed over the weekend really made for a great time.

Tomorrow we hop on the Eurostar and head over to Paris, I have taught myself the words to La Marseillaise and I am gonna be belting it out along with 50,000 other Frenchmen! I hope the English get stuffed this weekend, one bloody win against Australia and now they think they are the best team in the world. Lets face it Australia had a crap team and they’re missing Larkham, it wasn’t THAT difficult to beat them.

And could the Kiwis please just shut-up and quit whining, you lost against France in the Quarter-Final, deal with it, the best teams in the world DO NOT LOSE in Quarter-Finals. You choked and you’re going home like you do at every world Cup with a lame excuse. If you want to talk referees lets discuss kiwi Steve Walsh (who incidentally has been appointed to referee the Springboks semi-final) and his blatant mistake which cost the Sharks the Super 14 final this year, just look at this if you need proof! If any team in the world has been hard done by when it comes to referees its the Springboks and I’ve never heard a peep out of any Kiwi in support of us before, so you’ll get NO sympathy from me now either, go back to your little island, get that chip on your shoulder sorted out and start practising for 2011.

Onto Argentina, what a fantastic World Cup they’re having, they have beaten France, Ireland and Scotland so far and have arguably produced the player of the tournament in Juan Hernandez their flyhalf. South Africa should beat them, we have never lost to them, but its a world cup semi-final and anything can happen. As long as we play a tight game, and yes, I am advocating a kicking game similar to the way we played against England and make sure we close down Pichot and Hernandez, I think Argentina will play the ball back into our hands and in one or two movements we could score whereas they may struggle to score against us. I predict a really tight game and I am not really looking forward to watching yet another nailbiting finish!

My final prediction though is that John Smit will raise the world cup above his head next weekend*, its his destiny and he will be remembered as one of the greatest captains ever, and the Springboks will once again be the World Champions!

*I’m thinking with my heart here, so its more hope than an actual prediciton!

Unbelievable, truly unbelievable, I have to share this with you. A few weeks ago Barry Bonds broke arguably the greatest individual record in any team sport. The ball with which he did it has recently been purchased from the guy who caught it in the stands by Marc Ecko the fashion mogul for $753,000!

Nothing special there, UNTIL you click here and see what he now intends doing with the ball. Poor Barry Bonds, I’m willing to bet this thing either ends up in space or in Cooperstown with a big fat asterisk on it. I can’t wait to see what happens, just for the record I voted for option A and Marc Ecko voted option B …..I wonder if Barry will bother voting!

Having just got back to London I am now off to the States yet again for another 2 week trip to Dallas and Chicago. As always I am looking forward to it as both the people I work with and the friends I have made over there always make my trips to the States enjoyable.

Of course having been in Chicago as much as I have over this past baseball season and going to Wrigley as often as I do I have become a massive Cubs fan. And guess what, they are currently in first place and heading for the playoffs, so there is no better time to be in one of my favourite places in the world. Could this be the year the Cubbies win the World Series and break their 99 year curse…….

During my last visit to Wrigley a couple of weeks ago I took this video of the guys I went with, as I was driving that night I didn’t have as many Mai Tai’s as they did. The Cubs had just beaten their closest rivals and the Cubs victory song was belted out over the sound system. The video was linked to by a number of websites lambasting Cubs fans for being annoying drunks, which is ridiculous considering the game was over and the guys were just having a laugh and enjoying themselves without bothering ayone else. The guy at the end of the vid is taking the piss a bit though.

My body is only now beginning to return to its normal state after the week long hammering it has just taken in France. Partying until 6am (sometimes even later) every day for 7 straight days is not what this man machine has been designed to do.

The Rugby World Cup is now in full flow and it was a fantastic to be in France during the opening week to watch South Africa smash Samoa and then totally destroy England. In fact, destroy is not a strong enough word, England were lucky to get no points!

In between all the partying and general chaos that ensued around our house in Paris we did manage to savour the food, cafe culture and general experience that goes with spending a week in Paris. It is still way down on my list of city’s I enjoy visiting but the general atmosphere in France during this World Cup along with the great people we met has endeared me slightly more to the Parisienne way of life.

I have added a small selection of photographs from the week in Paris, including our trip out to the Champagne region. Click here to see photos.

After almost 2 months in the USA, travelling back and forth between Dallas and Chicago, including a little side journey to the Big Easy, New Orleans, I m now back in London. I might add only temporarily though because for the next 9 days I will be in France watching the Rugby World Cup.

The number varies throughout the week but at any one stage there will be up to 13 South Africans in the 4 bedroom house I have arranged within spitting distance of the Eiffel Tower in the heart of Paris. We’re turning the house into our own Bok Town, complete with SA flags all over and a constantly playing sound system blaring out David Kramer, Johnny Clegg and Leon “every 4 years” Schuster!! If you’re gonna be in Paris drop us a line and join the party………..did I mention the house has an outdoor Jacuzzi and a bar?

Finally I have recently uploaded a number of photos from my recent travels:

Photos of my trip to Las Vegas to see the De La Hoya v Mayweather.

Photos of the Cubs game at Wrigley Field against the Braves including a “riot” and the manager fighting! The turnaround point for the Cubs season, they’re now in first place. Go Cubbies!!

Photos of the Tour de France prologue held in London.

Photos from a wild Friday night on the tiles in Chicago with Pat out from SA and local friends. Please note the charming facial hair (I have yet to upload the photos from the 70’s night that prompted this).

Photos of my trip down to Iowa to play in a golf tournament with friends. I also drove to the famous Field of Dreams, Captain Kirks future birthplace and went to check out an Amish community (felt like an “Amish safari”).

Lastly photos of my trip to New Orleans where I met interesting musicians, barmen, party animals and actresses e.g. Angelina Jolie!! What a great city, I have faith in their post Katrina rebirth. More on this later.

Right now I’m in Dallas, having just spent a few days in Chicago. I have loads of stories lined up for you, but I’ll leave you with this brief one. Arrived in Chicago on Saturday afternoon armed with tickets from a tout for the Travis gig at the Vic.

The venue is brilliant, a tiny little theatre holding about 300-400 people at the most. We settled into the side of the stage right next to a tiny nook bar which served us drinks the whole way through the concert.I met some guy from Milwaukee outside who told me how Travis were going to enter the stage. So we made sure we in location when it happened.

The lights went down and the spotlight was fixed on the back of the crowd, they belted out the Rocky tune and Living in America as Travis entered the back of the crowd dressed in boxing gowns ala Rocky!! The band literally walked through the entire crowd with spotlights on themselves and then when they hit the front they had to turn left to get onto stage, of course I was in the perfect location to high five Fran Healy and the rest of the band. Best entrance by a band ever! Watch the video, tell me you’ve seen a better band entrance, pure class.

D and H had never heard their songs, but recognised a few and really got into it. I loved it the whole way through, especially the intimacy of the venue, the easy access to the bar, I would literally turn my head back and nod at the bar lady, and of course Travis were sensationally good, I saw them play in front of 250,000 people and now I’ve seen them play in front of 400. AND they played all their best numbers, like Sing, Why does it always Rain on Me, Side etc and I even got to hear Pipe Dreams! Check out the Pogo…haha….it gives me goosebumps just watching it again, good shots of the crowd too.

Of course, I’ve done tons more stuff in the last few months I need to catch up on, but until then, just enjoy the videos, I was standing behind the guy who took it so you’re getting the exact same view as me! And if you ever get tickets to see Travis live, do it, and obviously I’d recommend going to the Vic even if Mariah Carey was on stage!

PS: If you’re wondering about the title of the post, it was on Fran Healy’s shirt! And PLEASE watch the vids they’re brilliant!

Thought I’d make all you apple nuts jealous. The iPhone only works with an AT&T contract so it wouldn’t make sense to get one. The keyboard is really difficult to operate with pork sausage fingers, so bad its almost a deal breaker, otherwise this phone is fantastic just a pity its only going to be released in Europe at the end of the year ‘cos I want one badly! Check out the photo I took of an iPhone using an iPhone.

SA defence minister Ronnie “Cowboy” Kasrils has been the South African government torch bearer during their ongoing anti-Israel tirade. Yesterday he stood up and made yet another speech in Parliament to support the ANC led (everybody else rejected it) resolution through parliament. Most of his speech was laughably inaccurate but I thought I’d share this particularly funny part:

“The biblical narrative was evoked to proclaim Palestine as the Promised Land reserved exclusively for God’s “chosen people” and their civilising mission. It sounds all too familiar as a vision the Voortrekkers had in this country. It gives rise to racism, apartheid and a total onslaught on those who stand in your way, whether blacks or Arabs or Red Indians.“

Somebody really should tell our bumbling minister that the term “Red Indians” is a pejorative saying  only used in the USA by rascists. Not only did he make this speech in our supposedly politically correct and non-rascist parliament but the speech is on the South African Government Information official site here.

I would have thought that with Mugabe as our next door neighbour and crime raging out of control he has more important and relevant things to worry about than making an arse of himself yet again.

Of course, bringing down the Jews is more important to the ANC government. Until influential South Africans (read middle class)  take an actual and active interest in politics the current government will never be held accountable for ignoring the crime problem or the failure of our dithering foreign policy on the ruins called Zimbabwe.

How sweet is the new appliction recently added to Google maps. You can now zoom into the map and view photos from street level. Right now the only cities available are San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and Denver.

I zoomed in on one of my favourite casinos in Vegas - O’Sheas, a little Irish casino on the strip dwarfed by the big players but always worth a visit for the fun, friendly, party vibe inside, especially at 4am!

Check this out, the Top 15 sightings on Google Street View, no wonder people are complaing about privacy laws being violated.

UPDATE: Here are some more classic shots with dierect links to google street view, a girl revealing too much and some guy picking his nose on a bench

I have always hated Basketball, I never understood the rules, it looks boring to play and its damn boring to watch a bunch of tall ugly ungainly looking guys trying to throw a ball into a hoop.  Seriously I never really grasped what made a skillful b-ball player any good and I certainly never understood the phenomenon of Michael Jordan.

Well all that has changed thanks to one spectacular man.

I sat and watched game 5 of the playoffs, Cleveland Cavaliers vs Detroit Pistons and was totally blown away by the skill and atheliticsm of the 22 year old superstar LeBron James.

I had seen the highlights of the previous two games with LeBron literally snatching victory away from the Pistons to bring the Cavs within two games of making the finals. So when I sat down to watch the game (in HD of course)  I was hoping to witness something special from LeBron James and the Cavs. Not only was it something special but it will go down as one of the greatest games of all time. Double overtime and one of the greatest performances by a player of all time. LeBron had to be put on an IV drip after the game he was so tired, but he had led his team to a 3-2 series lead and two nights later they won the last game and were through to the final.

I get it, I finally get it, thank-you LeBron James, you’re absolutely unbelievable! Go Cavs, I will be watching the finals thats for sure!!!

Here are a few good reasons why I haven’t written a single post while I was away:

Drinking a beer in the Chicago sun on a long weekend - $6

Watching the Cubs get spanked at Wrigley field, not once but twice - $60

Getting to do this on a work trip - Priceless.

I booked my flights yesterday for my trip to Chicago and Dallas on Saturday. Unfortunately I will have to relinquish my seat at Wembley to watch England vs Brazil for my seat at Wrigley to watch the Cubs play the Marlins! I will be there for a week and then back in London for a couple of weeks.

The weather in London has been brilliant lately and it’s been great to get back onto the golf course. Tomorrow night I will be in the West End, Marlyebone to start off with and then onwards from there.

I know I still need to get my photos up and write some stories about the trip but I am still waiting for a few people to send me their pics (Truman, Terry) and I really need to put aside some time to do it.

See you in a few days!

Given the choice between writing on my blog or circumnavigating the globe, I chose the latter, and wow, what a circumnavigation it turned out to be, my best yet.

3 weeks ago I knew nothing about Melbourne or Orange County or Las Vegas, I now know lots! There is nothing like returning home either, and South Africa was as fun as always. And although I have been to Dallas before I still managed to squeeze in things like a Rodeo and the more mundane things like ….. work!

I have to admit I have found the thought of commencing blogging again after a 4 week sabbatical pretty daunting. I am really struggling to find the words which could even begin to describe some of my holiday exploits. Nothing I write seems to do it justice and photos unfortunately just don’t seem to capture the atmosphere adequately. At least by writing this post my guilt is alleviated somewhat and I can start posting about other interesting things rather than just my life.

A few of my sports predictions have also come true. Man Utd won the Premiership and the Sharks are in the super 14 final with a chance to go all the way!!!!

Its a huge day for rugby in SA tomorrow and hopefully the Sharks can become the first SA team to win the Super 14. I am banking on a Man Utd FA cup win tomorrow and a glorious Sharks victory in Durban.

I’m leaving this afternoon for my 3 week round the world trip, 2 weddings, a boxing match and a few meetings later and I’ll be back in London sometime in the middle of May.

London-Johannesburg-Durban-Johannesburg-Sydney-Melbourne-Los Angeles- San Diego-Las Vegas-Dallas-London.

I will try and update as much as possible. Take the weather!

An American friend I know in Washington DC, we’ll call her Aliss Pyne, has just started writing a blog. It was strange how it all happened.

She has told me before how my blog led to her getting hooked on reading the popular girl bloggers in SA e.g. Peas on Toast, Champagne Heathen etc. Check her first paragraph

I know a guy who is a faithful blogger (wozafriday.com) and thinks I should take advantage of this medium of communication. Due to my profession and otherwise private nature (meaning I don’t want my life spread across the web), I have never felt compelled to follow his lead. I do admit that I rather enjoy reading the updates on his existence and have subsequently become addicted to some of the blog links from his site. Weird. . . I know! They are kind of like a daily mini-installment of Grey’s Anatomy. And, most of the blogs I read are South African (no, I’m not); it’s kinda like traveling and meeting other people. Yeah, that doesn’t make it any less weird.

She always swore that she’d never start a blog but then I flagged up a trackback to my blog one day and visited a new blog I hadn’t heard of. After reading the first post I was convinced it was her, so when we caught up in DC last week and I told her I had discovered her blog, she was mortified and stupidified at the same time. After discussing it further she realised an IT savvy friend of hers had set the blog up in her name and used a few of her emails as blog posts.

Finally she has taken over the blog as her own and I’m really glad she’s started posting, maybe now the saffa can stalk the american’s blog instead of the other way around.

Not really a topic I can pretend to know much about but I do know that I liked this poem. So in honour of National Poetry Month (h/t Ten Taxis) here is one composed by a friend who I really think should publish her work!

Valentine flower

The Orchid stands in her vase
Broken by sunlight and growling
At me with a protracted,
Wet tongue and a regal
Green stem leaning
To one side.
Her white petticoat, splattered
With running red droplets
Has opened,
No longer concealing a
Blushing crimson centre
Which now winks
Provocatively at the
Passerby like a harlot tease.

And I marvel how you
Knew not to send
Me a rose. ©

I have posted a few photos of the two baseball games I went to. The second game at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington was fantastic, the weather was great, the game was high scoring and the stadium is one of the best I have ever experienced.

The Rookie with Dennis Quaid was based on the true life story of a guy who made his major league debut very late in life, in the movie, as in real life, he makes his debut pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays against the Texas Rangers at Arlington. Exactly the same game as I watched!

Talking about stadiums and games, Truman has managed to get us tickets to see Collingwood v Essendon at the 100,000 seater MCG on ANZAC day. This is THE fixture of the AFL regular season and I’m really looking forward to it.

I think I might also try and take in a Padres game in San Diego or a Dodgers game in LA, and then in little under two months time I will be going to watch England take on Brazil at the new Wembley stadium! Still looking to get FA cup final tickets and obviously in 3 weeks time I have the big one - the De La Hoya v Mayweather fight in Vegas. The hype for this fight seems to be a little lacklustre on this side of the Atlantic but when I was in the States I saw quite a bit on TV and most people were well aware of it!

For 4 solid days during my recent visit to the USA one could’ve been forgiven for thinking that the entire world was in hibernation, there were no wars, no bombings, no court cases, no sports games, no elections etc! All I saw on TV, read about in the newspapers or listened to on radio was the hysteria following a three word phrase Imus used on a radio programme.

In a country where free speech is meant to be a protected right may Allah save your rascist soul if you’re ever caught saying the words “Nappy Headed Ho’s” when used to descibe a womans (multi-racial) basketball team. Don Imus is a big name radio DJ I’d never heard of who is allegedly infamous for being controversial and deliberately saying the wrong thing.

So I tried to find out what “Nappy headed ho’s” means, ‘cos like, you know, if, as the players themselves claim, it has left them “scarred for life” (direct quote) it must be pretty harsh. All I could find, I didn’t search that hard, was this.

These poor little basketball players will carry this with them for the rest of their lives.

Scarred for life, haha, as laughable as that notion is, it is also an insult to the millions of black people who were on the receiving end of apartheid and have subsequently forgiven , forgotten and moved on with their lives!

You won’t find exactly what he said in the papers or on the TV, yet trust me when I tell you that this fiasco was all you heard, read or saw in 4 days. R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S.

This now eclipses my favourite un-newsworthy story to date, the “Injured Parrot saved by Skateboarder in Park” headline I saw on the front page of an Aussie daily newspaper a few years back.

I had to post this photo, I’m still chiuckling while typing this. A friend in London’s Bulls/Stag/Bachelor party, he wore the outfit to the Boat Race, must’ve been seen by over 10,000 people. Read the full story here with more hysterical photos!

Sitting here with a hangover from a crusher of a night out in Dallas. I’m flying back to London in 2 hours.

I ended up getting my bags back from BA but it was a bit a drama, lucky tho because we went to the White Sox game and it was cold, like -2 degrees (or 28 F as you can see in the photo) with the odd snow flurry. People in Chicago are really funny, there were loads of people there in Bears gear shouting “Go Bears” sarcastically referring to the type of weather usually reserved for Bears games. Baseball is NOT a winter sport. Finally I got to see a game where more than one run was scored, still the game wasn’t exciting but at least the White Sox won 3-0 over the Twins!

We ended up eating Chicago style Pizza that night and then hitting my Chicago favourite, the duelling piano bar Howl at the Moon. What a riot, especially all the drunk people trying to sing and dance along, for once I can say I was not included in that group.

Went to DC yesterday, ended up down in Old Town for a few beers tried to keep it light because I had an important meeting yesterday. Now I’m in Dallas and back to semi-normal weather although it is still cold here, there were snow flurries this weekend….in Dallas, TEXAS!!!

Tomorrow night the Texas Rangers are playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Arlington stadium, I am definitely going. The stadium was designed by the same architect who did Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles), which means, if you didn’t know, its gonna be a beautiful ball park.

I feel a bit isolated from the rest of the world here, Man Utd are playing in the Champions League and SA are playing in the cricket world cup today but trust me when I tell you that other than going on the net later there is no way whatsoever of finding the result let alone even watching the game.

Driving on the right hand side of the road again is fun and I know that over the course of the next few nights I am gonna have a riot out in Mid-town and Lower Greeneville. Dallas is a really fun place to go out.

Just arrived in Chicago, so happy to be here. The city looks great, so much better in spring than mid-winter. British Airways didn’t send my bag so I’m well pissed. Its -5 C outside and I don’t have any clothes - no jacket, gloves, hat etc. We also had tickets behind home plate for tonights White Sox game but the game has been called off due to the cold weather and possible snow flurries tonight! Probably a good thing as I would’ve got frostbite at the game courtesy of BA!

This photo was taken 5 minutes ago from the balcony of Denise’s apartment, in the shadow of the tallest building in America, the Sears Tower! Getting ready now to hit the town. Despite all the hassle, I am really stoked to be here, I get a huge kick out of the vibe here and we’re going to have a monster party tonight. I love this city!

We’re gonna go to the game tomorrow afternoon now instead. Tickets organised, as I type this.

I took this photo at O’ Hare Airport the last time I was there. It was pretty cool to see the SA flag flying in the airport. Weather report says its gonna be snowing when I get there, I’ll be miffed if they call off the baseball game, really looking forward to my first baseball game in about a year!

Last night I played a leisurely round of golf followed by a great dinner at the local Thai restaurant in downtown Rickmansworth, my home village! Afterwards we went to another local pub to watch the cricket/football and I made a remarkable discovery!

The pub has a live satellite feed which picks up all the SuperSport South Africa channels. This is the first time I have seen SuperSport broadcast in the UK having seen it before abroad in Vietnam and China. WOW!

This pub televises every Super 14 game! More importantly in Britain, they can televise every Premiership football game, whereas with Sky they will only get 2 games a weekend if they’re lucky. SuperSport coverage is undoubtedly the best in the world!

So I asked the bar manager how he did it thinking that maybe I could get it at home. He told me it was completely legal and was run through a company called Euroview Sports, whats more, the monthly subscription is half the cost of Sky! After checking the website it appears they only do pub license packages and no domestic installations for personal use.

If this company can do it, why aren’t there other companies in the UK offering domestic SuperSport satellite packages? And why the hell don’t all the Walkabouts etc. subscribe to this?

UPDATE: Just spoke to the M.D., he reckons he does supply the equipment for domestic use. £120 per month for the first year and then £45 a month thereafter. It also includes hundreds of movie channels etc.

I had a fairly eventful Saturday this weekend and managed to squeeze in a few necessary activities before flying out to the States this easter.

I started off Saturday with my mandatory poached eggs on toast and a quick Soccer AM session. Then it was on to Battersea park for a skating session, my first since last year, I was a bit rusty but hopefully by the end of this year I’ll be able to do a few London Rollers!

My knees are still sore from the half marathon the week before so I decided to head into East Sheen to a store called Up and Running and have my gait and running style assessed. I ended up leaving the store with a pair of brand (damn expensive) new Brooks Trance 6. The owner Chris was so confident of his diagnosis he told me if the new shoes don’t fix my problem I can take them back and get another pair!

So we got back to Carla’s place (she had also purchased some new shoes) and the three of us went for a run down to Hammersmith bridge and back. I realise my knees were still too sore to run too far so I only did 6km’s. Suitably cream crackered after the run we got dressed and ready to rock out with Zomes and Hayley in Putney. Downhill from there on really, met up with Dave, Wiggy etc. and only got home at 4am!

I had a killer hangover yesterday, which was only slightly improved by a Sunday Roast at the Sun in Barnes and the thought that in less than 5 days I will be in Chicago hanging out with Denise and Heather watching the White Sox taking on the Minnesota Twins!

Bring on US Cellular Field

The results of the SA Blog Awards are out. The Missing Link guys aka Jo’blog have put up a video of all the winners on the night and it looks like great fun was had by all. I missed out, got drilled by the Hollywood Reporter in best overseas blog category and out of nowhere Steve Hofmeyers blog walked away with the best political blog. Congratulations to all the winners, there are some really good ones in there and a few surprising results by  some newcomers. All the blogs on there make for interesting reading and I have certainly found some new ones I’ve added to my feed reader!

Bring on next year, and hopefully in the interim we can all have our say in improving the format. I believe the awards should be judged only by panel judges in each category and they should be guided by criteria applicable to their category.  I think the winners may have been slightly different, but, on the whole the outcome is good enough.

I wish I could have been there ‘cos I definitely would have won something, my foosball is smokin hot right now!

The aerial photo I posted last year of the Reading festival comes up right at the top of a google image search for “Reading festival aerial photo”. Consequently a lot of people have been pilfering my bandwidth!

Somebody has finally scanned the newspaper clip sky photo of Reading 2006 which shows just how big it was! We were right at the back in the Camper Van section. Its one massive festival.

PS: Looks like Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Razorlight are headlining this year!

Herewith an email transcript (slightly edited) between old friends (both atheists). I thought I’d share it because a) I think its interesting and b) I am too busy to post anything else at the moment:

This is brilliant. I was watching a political debate involving Peter Hitchens on TV so I looked up his bio on Wikipedia. I dunno if you know who he is, you have probably heard of his slightly more famous - certainly in the context of the US - brother Christopher. I think Christopher is normally pretty spot on and I remember reading ages ago about how the two brothers didn’t get on. This was the first time I had researched what Peter was all about. I set about reading his bio which I found myself agreeing with most of his thinking when I got to the part about his religious belief:

Hitchens sees evolution as a speculative and unfalsifiable theory
which cannot be observed in progress. He reasons that if it took place
in the past it did so before there were any human witnesses, and that
if it is taking place now it is operating so slowly that our
civilisation is likely to perish long before it has been able to
record it in action.

Read the rest of this entry »

Think about your web presence, think about how much you can actually squeeze into your day and where best to spend your time online. Thats what I’m doing right now.

Firstly there’s your own personal blog, something that lets you track what your thoughts are and provides a platform to the world for your opinions. Jon Cherry mentioned, on both Amplitude and his TV interview, the need to find your blog niche and then stick to that topic, something he does really well with CherryFlava. My blog is not about that, rather its a platform to discuss whatever it is I feel like talking about, I am not one dimensional in life and my blog reflects that. Being active in the SA blogosphere has resulted in my exposure to many new forms of social blog related activity. I have found myself embracing and enjoying each new thing as it comes along, I am an avid Muti fan and I’m already addicted to the brand spanking new Amatomu.

So what about Facebook, MyBlogLog, MySpace, Twitter etc. Well, Facebook is probably the next generation of MySpace, and yes I also have a MySpace account but I don’t really use it. Facebook still has its problems and can be very frustrating but its miles ahead of MySpace.

MyBlogLog irritates me, why is it so difficult to use properly, I shouldn’t have to use the back button to get around a social interface site! I don’t really use it ‘cos I don’t want to waste my time fiddling around a user unfriendly site.

I get Twitter, I really do, its fun knowing “what people are doing” but some things have to be sacrificed for others and I guess I am making a decision that the best way to keep people informed about my life and my opinions is through my Blog.

So let it be known, tomorrow I am flying to Prague to run a half-marathon, next week Wednesday I am playing golf at the Grove, the course Tiger introduced himself to me at before going on to win the World Golf Championship last year, you jealous yet? In about 2 weeks time I am flying to Washington DC and then onto Dallas and then in less than a month I embark on my round the world trip, taking in Durban, Joburg, Melbourne, LA, San Diego, Las Vegas, Dallas, Chicago and then home.

Now I ask you, given what you’ve read above, if you’ve bothered reading this far, are you not surprised I haven’t discussed online dating. Fortunately I have enough game not to need it.

“You’re so money baby!”

Last night on the Gadget Show I saw a review of a great little software add-on for Skype. Its a lie-detector by KishKish, and according to the test they did on the show it actually works. Download it, call somebody on Skype and check whether or not they’re lying. Nifty!

Kevin is gathering some amazing photos of the crazy scenes on Durban beaches, go check them out.

I remember this happening back in 1998/99 (?) . 

You gotta be slightly crazy to go out surfing in those waves. Come to think of it I know exactly who is…….

I was quoted in the Sunday Times this weekend in an article about the Blog Awards controversy. I feel like I need to clarify my position on the awards because when only one line is quoted from an entire post with 50 + comments things can sometimes get lost in translation. It may appear from this one quote that I am against the awards, but this is certainly not the case.

I fully support the awards, the way it is being run and I think it is far better than in previous years. I don’t however agree with the whole “can’t we just all get along” brigade who try and stifle debate and contructive criticism. The organisers have called it a “democracy” and have encouraged those with ideas on improving the awards sytem for next year to come forward. So discussing it like adults is what we should be doing rather than “flaming” each other by referring to people as “whiney bastards” or calling the awards a sham.

The awards are not a sham, they were created to expose the local blogosphere ahead of their secondary function which is to acknowledge the winners of each category. As I have said before the awards should be considered frivolous fun, prizes and acknowledgement should be seen as a positive spin-off. What certainly isn’t frivolous though is the work that has gone into the awards and I’m sure the people putting all their hard work into it would like to see it improved as much as possible given the amount of “free time” actually available.

I won’t go into all my specific reservations about the actual awards process as they’re pretty clear in my previous post. I do however agree with WiredGecko and a few others that the primary cause for controversy stems from a lack of communication. The awards site tries its best to explain a fairly tricky system but unfortunately it left a bit too much hanging. A lot more has come out recently from those working behind the scenes to suggest the system is working as best as it possibly can.

Which brings me onto the final issue I have to address. I think once and for all a decision must be made as to whether 2oceansvibe is actually a blog. It surely already qualifies as a blog by virtue of the fact it has won many awards in the past and it currently features in these awards as a nominated blog in many categories, which begs the question: If the 2oceansvibe allegations are true, then why exactly was 2oceansvibe deliberately removed from the Best Blog category nomination by the organisers? It is an extremely popular blog and surely that is what ultimately defines a good blog. In this blog awards contest the public vote only counts for 50%, but if a blog is not nominated the public vote counts for sweet FA!

Today is the last day to vote for the great South African Blog Awards, so if you haven’t cast your ballot then please do so by clicking the “vote for me” button on the left. There are some brilliant blogs out there and although there is mild “controversy” surrounding the actual process of the awards the event itself is a brilliant way to publicise and generate interest in local South African blogging.

Tomorrow is St Paddy’s day and it looks set to be a ripper, my last blow-out before the half marathon next Saturday in Prague. The Beast is in town, the Monk is back from Brazil and Hatcher is up for it big time.

When I lived in South Africa I didn’t quite appreciate how beautiful and magnificent Cape Town actually is. You see, I had only lived, worked and studied in 3 cities (Durban, Joburg , Cape Town) and had never left South Africa, so I really did not have much to compare it against. Now that I have travelled the world a bit I can say with conviction that in comparison to other famously beautiful cities Cape Town is amazing!

I had a great time in Cape Town when I was back in December, visiting some of my favourite places like Franschoek and Langebaan. Only last night did I get the chance to upload the first batch of photos from my trip back to SA, so check out some of the Cape Town photos now.

PS: I have also added photos of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, the site where JFK was shot. I think I have said it before but if you ever get the chance do not miss the JFK museum on the 6th Floor of the Book Depository, where you can actually stand next to the window he was shot from.

Last night I stayed up to watch the opening ceremony of the Cricket World Cup in Jamaica. So far I have read reports from those who actually attended the event and they seemed to have enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, thought it was terrible. It was uncoordinated, confusing, cheap and boring, in one word - shambolic. Now I appreciate this is the West Indies and they’re hardly known for their production prowess, this really showed in the broadcast I watched, the sound quality was horrendous and the choreography was clearly not made for TV. What was with all the miming and pretend drum beating?!

Seriously, if you’re gonna put on a production the world is watching try and do it well, otherwise take the money and spend it on something worthwhile.

My gripe about the opening ceremony aside, I think this is going to be a great world cup. The atmosphere in the Caribbean will be fantastic and I think we’re gonna see some great games. I reckon Sri Lanka will win it although I hope finally South Africa win what is rightfully theirs as the number 1 team in the world!

Staying with sport, my beloved Sharks are playing some great rugby at the moment and I reckon they could go all the way. Provided of course the Auckland Blues never again play as well as they did this weekend and we get a home semi and final. A long way still to go!

This year a panel of judges have been selected to help determine the outcome of the South African Blog awards. Let me first say I think the award process is far better this year (no more ballot stuffing, more tech friendly etc) and I take my hat off to the guys who have organised it. The thing is, like legislation, once you start trying to improve something you open up other loopholes. I won’t go into the debate about the new logo, that looks like it’s been well sorted, but here are my reservations about the actual awards process.

I have no idea how or who determined the panelists but it does strike me as inappropriate that most of the panelists are also nominated for awards, as well as some obvious omissions from the panelists, I’d be intrigued to know how the judges got the nod.

I don’t quite understand what the judging criteria will be. How will a panel judge, who may never have read a certain blog, be able to objectively determine whether that blog deserves an award over another blog which the panelist has read the entire year. Are the panelists going to read the archives of all the blogs they have to judge. If they are, they’ll have a hard time doing that with bloggers like Peas and Champs who don’t allow access to their archives, at best the judges will have to assess the blogs on their last week of writing, no pressure on them next week then!
What makes certain panelists experts on the different categories, I stand to be corrected but I have not noticed a single panelist ever comment on any of the political blogs, except perhaps mine and Champs which are more social blogs than political blogs.

Perhaps there should be a seperate award, for example, a Panelists Award and then a Public Award.

Obviously the decision to implement a judging panel was to avoid the awards becoming a simple popularity vote. But then surely this same procedure should have been applied to the nominations stage where there are clearly instances of popular blogs being nominated in categories they simply shouldn’t be. A good example is Splattermail, a very popular and brilliantly funny blog which has righly been nominated in a number of categories but has also been nominated in the category “Best Design”, a bit absurd when you consider the blog is a standard Wordpress Kubrick template with a personalised header.

Finally, there are people out there who think something sinister is behind the awards process this year (check the comments here). They believe that the SA Blogosphere is a “closed club” using words like “cliquey” and “cronyism” to describe it. In my opinion the SA blogosphere is fantastic, it is small, yes, but it is extremely interactive which is what blogging is all about. Blogging is about being social and getting involved. I have met very few fellow bloggers, but I feel like I could email any one of the blogs I read regularly and have an offline conversation about something of mutual interest. The SA blogosphere is extremely friendly, helpful and most of all inclusive. If you’re not involved, its not the fault of those who are, you just need to interACT.

Reminds me of a joke I often throw into heated discussions to confuse or difuse the situation “As an outsider, what do you think of the Human Race?”

So you you’re out for a cruise, posing in your brothers car with a mate. You steam round the corner and crash into a pregnant woman in a Vauxhall (Opel) Astra, literally smashing the UK record for the most expensive write-off!

Check out more photos of the smashed Bugatti Veyron which crashed just outside London on Sunday.