tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64065612024-03-19T05:47:11.084+02:00Left a good job in the cityPom du Cap: Ramblings of an expat Brit in Cape Town.
Currently experiencing intermittent service. Put your feet up.Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comBlogger157125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-40847445657893659942011-03-31T22:26:00.001+02:002011-03-31T22:26:25.736+02:00AndroidNew phone, swype keyboard, new blogger interface. Finally managed to persuade email to work, and rather enjoying being able to customise everything. Let's hope this interface works first go as I'm running out of tech stamina...
Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-31368494514017855862010-03-02T11:16:00.000+02:002010-03-02T11:17:14.199+02:00Tie me upSo a Tory peer has come out as a non dom. Presumably he's therefore a sub, like the rest of the Tory peers?Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-46381705265293280622009-12-04T19:54:00.000+02:002009-12-04T20:05:39.289+02:00Happy birthdayI have to write about this - I need to get it out of my system.Most of us make friends among the people we work with. As a consultant, a lot of the people I work with, therefore some of my work friends, are clients; now ex-clients. I have been to two weddings and a 50th birthday in the recent past of ex-clients. This post is about a specific client, who I invited to my 40th, but he forgot to comePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-51883803634649597852009-10-26T22:24:00.000+02:002009-10-26T22:30:15.889+02:00Nothing gonna break my strideI have been doing a fair bit of running recently, spurred by the milestone birthday that I’ve just passed, and trying to get fit. The problem is that I have also been concurrently celebrating that birthday in the usual fashion. I am now happily fit, fat and forty. Onwards and upwards, the next challenge is a marathon. Here in South Africa, marathons are a bit commonplace, with ultra marathons a Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-44324013441386302452009-10-16T13:02:00.000+02:002009-10-16T13:03:50.036+02:00Run baby runHoly crap! The Red Cross just called to tell me that they have accepted me to be one of their runners in the London Marathon in April. I'm chuffed to bits, and terrified all at once. Sponsorship details will be going up here soon - so start saving. I can't believe how fast it's all happened - I only sent them an application a few days ago.Now all I have to do is train...Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-40256056381635476512009-10-15T10:16:00.000+02:002009-10-15T10:22:41.732+02:00Nothing but a hound dogNumber one son is too young, even at the advanced age of nine and a half, to have been exposed to all the cynicism of the world, or to have heard all the adages of the ages. I do my bit on the grumpy old cynic front, but some things you have to learn for yourself. He's been trying to teach the dog to fetch. He started by throwing bits of food. The next step was to put the food into an old tennis Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-72560909657334192052009-10-01T09:02:00.000+02:002009-10-01T09:05:13.722+02:00Fame!Good morning to anyone who has come here from Jonny B's place. Sorry it's a bit messy - haven't been around much lately. I hope you enjoy my growing police car collection. If you haven't come from Jonny's, then what are you waiting for?Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-33127987590814147812009-09-16T08:27:00.000+02:002009-09-16T08:28:43.097+02:00It's raining......and he's got no seatbelt on. You'll have to take my word for it, but you can see the absence of any line from the door pillar to his shoulder. Still working on a better one.Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-90480085910292985432009-06-18T10:39:00.001+02:002009-06-18T10:39:28.463+02:00Here, There ...Loaded yet another new thing on the old iPhone, this time for blogging, so let's see if it works...Posted with LifeCastPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-57459029318773537422009-05-26T08:42:00.000+02:002009-05-26T08:45:56.544+02:00Out of state plates?Well, still more pictures of crash barriers than policemen with no seatbelts. It's remarkably difficult to take a picture of one moving vehicle from another with a phone camera. I did however enlist the help of my son to take this picture in traffic on the way to the IPL cricket. It was a good time to be illegal, since every cop in Cape Town was at Newlands, but still - a police car with no Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-91245381188061820942009-05-24T22:13:00.000+02:002009-05-24T22:13:35.968+02:00The safety belt wouldn'tSince South Africa has no other crime issues to speak of, the government has decided to outlaw one or two things that you might argue don't do anyone else much harm. One is smoking in public, about which I blogged a while ago. The second is wearing seatbelts while driving. Both of these rules are often ignored by sections of the population that you would think would know better. On cigarette Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-24911627474190965752009-03-21T11:52:00.003+02:002009-03-21T11:55:54.683+02:00Crazy how things happenYou couldn't make this up department, entry no 17: Sekunjalo (JSE:SKJ) have just appointed as an executive director the Chairman's (Ego's) PA. The obvious question is: blackmail, or blowjob?Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-29188668741583307122009-02-18T21:00:00.005+02:002009-04-11T17:34:36.550+02:00Learned at schoolEverything you need to know about life, you learned in the playground. Of course you don't figure that out for another 30 or 40 years. Maybe as parents we can learn from kid related dilemmas. Let me give you an example.Son no. 1 goes to the local school. It's a lovely school, but is not really big enough to support extensive facilities, and seems to be teetering perpetually on the margins of Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-13191664646791601082009-02-18T20:27:00.002+02:002009-02-18T20:40:45.726+02:00Tie me downJust over a year since my last post. Nice going. I felt like blogging again, since blogs are the new facebook - or something - and decided to read what I last wrote before I started. Valentine's day last year was the last time I wore a tie - at that board meeting in Gaborone - until the same date this year. This time it was a bow tie.We Poms are inclined not to take things too seriously, which isPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-81325023252241717382008-02-14T18:54:00.004+02:002008-02-14T19:02:20.125+02:00Pause for thoughtPopping up to Botswana for the day again, and watching the silent movie content that South African Airways force-feeds you in cattle class. Along with the slapstick TV gags, they have a loop that runs on the TV plugging Kwa Zulu Natal. One of the features is an artist, who is apparently from an "imminent" family in KZN. Maybe she's pregnant. It reminds me of one of my old posts on a similar Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-53042516364539483152008-02-05T08:30:00.000+02:002008-02-05T20:38:40.985+02:00Such a long timeI've just noticed that it's over a year since my last blog here. In the meantime I'd been blogging elsewhere about my work woes - elsewhere because I had got a bit liberal with the address of this blog. I don't mind complete strangers reading about my professional life, but the concern that it might get to the people it was about led me to create another one. Anyway the upshot of the business Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1169812847345014762007-01-26T13:56:00.000+02:002007-01-26T14:00:47.376+02:00Hot hot hotOne of the nice things about South Africa is that it’s a metric country. What this means for a relocated Pom is that I live in blissful ignorance of some of the important issues of daily life. For example, I find from the scales in the gym that I weigh about 96kg. Sounds good to me. Then I converted it, and discover that I am over 15 stone, which came as a bit of a shock. I’m not a complete fat Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1169755566710195402007-01-25T22:04:00.000+02:002007-01-25T22:06:06.723+02:00Cars and GirlsOne of those email pictures that does the rounds every so often has a picture of an alluring young lady, with a caption that reads something like “somebody, somewhere is tired of her crap”. So it is with old cars. To pinch the old adage from the yachting fraternity, the two happiest days of your life are the day that you buy your classic car – and the day that you sell it. When you first clap Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1163746963238705972006-11-17T09:01:00.000+02:002006-11-17T09:02:43.250+02:00One more cup of coffeeLet me recount an incident that I witnessed a while ago. It took place at a coffee shop near my kids’ school – the one with a carpark that fills up at 8am with 4x4s, erratcially parked by mothers the wrong side of their first cup of coffee. This place is quite smart – it even has some white waitresses, and all the staff are friendly and efficient. I was having a cup of coffee and minding my own Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1157239015344163862006-09-03T01:15:00.000+02:002006-09-03T01:16:55.360+02:00Dancing in the sheetsMy wife is pregnant (he remarks as if he his last blog was just yesterday), which is creating a bit of a problem in bed. The additional girth, you see, creates a bit of a physical problem. It’s the duvet. Under normal circumstances, I am bigger than my wife, and therefore I have the edge in the nocturnal battle over the duvet, Cape Town still being a bit chilly in the evenings towards the end of Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1144852563192979012006-04-12T16:29:00.000+02:002006-04-12T16:36:03.230+02:00He doesn't speak the languageThis really is the best time of year in Cape Town. The weather is still warm but not too hot, the wind has died down a bit, and most of the tourists have gone. Don't tell anyone. Better still is that the combination of a Christian heritage (Easter), the peaceful revolution (the first elections), and some communists in power (Workers' Day), we get four 4-day weeks in a row!I just found an article Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1141808306162518052006-03-08T10:40:00.000+02:002006-03-08T10:58:26.210+02:00You'd better leaveI have a colleague / employee who just resigned. By email. Let's call him Phil.Anyway he's now sitting in the office, sulkily serving out his notice period because not having him starting on what he wants to do next actually suits us. Trouble is, I'm now in the same situation as when you've just decided to dump a girlfriend (or a wife - haven't you got the Phil Collins link yet?). His continued Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1140683683015844112006-02-23T10:14:00.000+02:002006-02-23T10:34:43.026+02:00Turn out the light, bolt the doorCape Town is dark. Well part of the time anyway. Thanks to someone leaving a bolt in the reactor (or something very similar) when they repaired it, one of the nuclear reactors is down. The other reactor can't cope. The western cape's power comes from a nuclear power station just north of the city. One of the many angry letters to the local paper claimed that it is built to the same design as Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1139213955241942242006-02-06T09:34:00.000+02:002006-02-06T10:19:15.296+02:00Space hardwareI had a bit of a dilemma this weekend. My son, soon to turn 6, has been playing what he calls “Lego Star Wars” on the Playstation belonging to his friend’s big brother. I have no idea whether this Lego thing is some kind of joint marketing campaign, or some misunderstanding on my part, but the Playstation bit explains why he thinks everyone comes back from the dead. Anyway, having seen the game, Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6406561.post-1138959111369824282006-02-03T09:00:00.000+02:002006-02-03T11:31:51.770+02:00Hooray, hoorayI love this country! Local elections on the 1st of March - you know the kind of thing. Only the local politicians are interested and only their immediate family bothers to vote. You typically get a level of turnout that would make a bisexual Muslim punk in Texas look popular.Anyway, there are clearly certain forces at play. One: the ANC is in power. In a big way. Two: unlike a national election, Phttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04213208245268542771noreply@blogger.com