Unless you’re a Dad, or a grammar Nazi.

Previously, we’ve had Man U (who they?) and Spurs coming over for the annual Vodacom Challenge in the English off-season, but according to the Sowetan, it could be the Mags this time around:

“Negotiations are at an advanced stage between the organisers and management of Newcastle United. I think an announcement will be made in a few days’ time,” said a source involved in the negotiations. “The organisers are also toying with the idea of getting Tottenham Hotspur back in the tournament because they are going back to its original format of four clubs, but the appearance fees asked by the English teams are massive.”

Hmm… “a source”.

Anyway, this comes after Cape Town “lost out” on being a host city for the upcoming Afcon tournament, citing a lack of guarantees about costs and a lot of other political nastiness. Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, was on a local radio station at that time suggesting that the city would at least be likely to host one of the Vodacom Challenge matches.

Putting those two unsubstantiated claims together and doing some rudimentary calculations, I have worked out that Newcastle are going to be playing in Cape Town sometime in the next couple of months and my hopes are now raised just high enough to be completely dashed.

Ha’way the lads!

Because:

Greater Manchester Police are investigating a scam in which victims were conned into handing over hundreds of pounds for a bag of potatoes.

The story, which I spotted on BBC News, using the keywords “Manchester”, “Potato” and “Scam”, leaves us tantalisingly short on detail.

Police say at least four people have been approached by two men offering to sell them a laptop or iPhone.

One man paid up to £1,400 and walked away with a rucksack full of potatoes. Other victims received bottles of soft drinks.

Crime, and being a victim of crime, is a terrible thing. It’s in no way a thing to be ridiculed.

Except perhaps, when instead of getting an iPhone for his hard earned £1,400, the victim walks off with a rucksack full of potatoes. Which, it should be noted, would be equally good at displaying Flash content.

How can this have occurred? I can only imagine that there was some sort of hypnotism involved.

You are feeling sleepy…
You are feeling restful and sleepy…
When I click my fingers, you will awaken and believe that this rucksack full of potatoes is an iPhone worth £1,400.

And then, when they get home and the spell wears off, they have to go down to their local police station and report that they thought they were buying an iPhone, but actually, they ended up with a rucksack full of potatoes. And the police have got to keep a straight face. Jeez.

Still, it could be worse, I suppose. They could have ended up with a handful of Blackberry.

Here’s a quick QP of Llandudno (in France).
And here’s me signing off and promising something more exciting tomorrow.

South Africans are LAWLESS. Every day my jaw drops at, in particular, our driving. No indicating, hogging the fast lane, parking anywhere, no servicing and billowing smoke out the back etc etc.
I often wonder what goes on (or doesn’t) in these people’s minds. Is it deliberate, or pure ignorance, or a heady mix?

And I wrote this some time ago:

the laws are there, but the fact that they’re just not enforced means that the driving public feel that they don’t have to obey them.

These facts have been proven further to me on the roads over the last few days.

Firstly, an unsecured toddler on the back seat of a Mazda 323. No, this isn’t a good thing, but sadly it’s something we’re well used to here in SA. So picture my delight when a traffic police car pulls out behind said Mazda. And then picture my disgust when said traffic police officer interacted with the Mazda, not by stopping it and fining the driver to high heaven, but by waving to the child through the back windscreen.

And then today, after a massive road smash on the M5 this evening – one car on its roof on the central reservation – tow trucks, fire engines, ambulances everywhere – and the traffic police, standing by, but not actually doing anything because right then, it was all about the other emergency services doing their thing. Fair enough.

All of which meant that the traffic police officer had plenty of time to chat the incident with the cyclist who had pulled over. I hope it all worked out ok. And it was kind of weird to see a traffic officer and a cyclist discussing… hey… hang on a second. Cyclists aren’t allowed to cycle on the M5 – where were the traffic officers while this conversation was going… hey… hang on a second – they were talking with him.

I don’t think that I need to add much of a conclusion here. Even the more intellectually-challenged of my readers can see where I’m going with this. When even the police don’t give a damn, we have a problem.

Frankly, I’m rather depressed by the whole thing.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, in France…

Having decided to “invite” Mrs 6k and her mother around for Mother’s Day lunch, I asked what I should cook for them. My wife thought for a moment and then said that she would prefer something “not too fancy” and suggested something using just one pot “like a paella”. I’ve been married to Mrs 6k for over 7 years now and I am well versed in picking out her subtle hints. Still, it’s important to realise that I’m still my own man. So, taking everything into account, I decided to make a paella.

Never having made a paella before, I quickly taught myself Spanish before heading to the internet and asking that trusted source of pukka recipe goodness, Mr James Oliver. His straightforward, step-by-step instructions took me though the previously unknown vagaries of cocina española, thus.

I don’t have a paella pan, so I made do with a wok, doing my bit and cementing sino-Spanish relations. And it went quite well, if I say so myself. The best bit is that we have about half of it left (simply because of the volume, not because anyone turned their nose up in disgust), so that’s lunch sorted for a few days ahead.

So, my advice to you. If you want to make a paella and you have a wok: do it.

This was a 30 second exposure (which means that the streak across the sky is 233km long) with a bit of luck as the clouds parted to allow a clear shot.

By the time you’ve sighted it and lined up the shot, you only get one go per ISS pass, but you readers don’t get to see the 74 failures that it takes to get just the odd one or two right.

Always good to see someone managing to deal with apparent food-poisoning long enough to have fun with her friends.

Please note Melinda’s (almost) immediate response to her error: “VERTICAL!! I meant vertical!”.

Of course you did, love.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Public Protector stated:

Ms Madonsela stated her concern to colleagues that there had been no incoming requests from the DA for her to investigate any government department, government minister, government linked company or parastatal for almost 24 hours.
This is an unusual situation and had worried Ms Madonsela as the DA contributes over 95% of the investigative work for our office. On the DA’s insistence, we have investigated the Health Department, E-tolling (twice), SAPS Building Leases, Sicelo Shiceka, Richard Mdluli, Jacob Zuma (thirteen times), Susan Shabangu, Oilgate, Bheki Cele and the POIB.
And that’s just off the top of my head. Which they have asked for an investigation into as well.
They submitted no request for any investigation into Minister of Labour Nelisiwe Mildred Oliphant, however, they then submitted a request for an investigation as to why there had been no request for an investigation into Ms Oliphant.

There is much speculation that other DA requests to the Office of the Public Protector, and which were rejected, have not been made public. Rumours suggest that these included the decreasing size of Woolies’ prepared fruit salads, the lack of sunshine in Cape Town last August and the suddenly anatomically-confusing animal designs on Iced Zoo biscuits.

The spokesperson added:

They [the DA] also called for an investigation as to why the Public Protector had investigated the DA-controlled Midvaal municipality, as they never asked us to investigate that. That was a bit of an awkward moment.

However, there was much relief in Ms Madonsela’s office as it turned out that the lack of email requests was because of a Telkom ADSL fault in central Pretoria.

The DA immediately called for the Public Protector to investigate Telkom, by fax.

It really does feel that way at the moment. The sponge is being squeezed and there’s very little bathwater left to drip out.

For us in Cape Town, the next nasty “surprise” is the July 1st rates increase, which inevitably includes hefty hikes in electricity and water as well. While this will obviously prompt shock and outrage from the uninformed population (probably on the 2nd, as the 1st is a Sunday), this happens every year, with alarming regularity.

On a more positive note, we could (could) be looking at a petrol price drop in the meantime. And, if oil continues on its current downward trend and the Rand holds firm for a few more weeks, it might be as much as 55c/litre. That would give you more than 3 weeks to save up so you can light your house in July.

Happy Days!