HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUTCHELS!

Sorry buddy had to continue the theme. But you see I haven't used a picture, cos I like to be different. In case the rest of you weren't sure, 'preamble' is in fact Andrew, and he turned a grand old 28 today, in the Netherlands nogal. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Now go eat some kaas and drink some bier. Put a candle in the kaas whydontcha.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREGGLES

HOPE YOUVE HAD A FLIPPIN LEKKER DAY. LOOK FORWARD TO HANGING OUT SOON SOON.
ROSH MUSIC MAN :-)
BAAAAAIIIIII
TALS

Dankie, dankie.

Ag, thanks everyone for the gifts and cards and good wishes. It sucks to be working night shift on your birthday, but then spending the day on the beach is pretty cool.

Also, this isn't really a birthday movie, but flip it's good.

Thanks again everyone!

Dis die Doktor se Verjaarsday!

Veels geluk met jou verjaarsdag! Die spingbokkies sal lekker vir jou speel, die son skyn in Ostralia en dit is al die taal vat ek kan praat! Maar die koek is 'n bruin en blue een, jou ginstelig kleure.... Ek weet nie hoe dit smaak, ma Tannie Ina het dit gebak - natuurlik!

anyone see black book?

My first post in a long time.

Sorry guys, FB (or rather facebook) has taken over for a short while. But I'm back!

And with that, I'd like to find out if anyone else has seen the movie Blackbook? I did tonight with Helen. And I have mixed feelings. Mixed because I feel there was an agenda for having this movie out.

And that's all I'm saying for now.

Onto other things.. Franny, looks like you're having an excellent time! nice one sister!

I've got one more week to go and i'm back in Melbourne. It's been a bumpy, rollercoaster, fabulous, mad, confusing, joyous and unsettling time being back in the land of the cape.
A beautiful city with so much going on. And then at the same time, the same stuff that's been going on for years. Same same but different.
I look forward to coming back here one day and having my kiddies. But don't you all get worried, that's a long time in the future...!

I'm signing out now.

cheerio, tot siens, sala kakuhle

X

What I've been up to:

Seeing the National in NY:


Being a groupie:

(Voxtrot in DC)


Being a tourist in NY:





Being a tourist in DC:

Oh yes. And I have also actually been studying quite hard - but I don't think any of you are particularly interested in seeing pics of that....

in order not to get Evicted.....

Once apon a time there were some hungry swans who lived in St Margrets Loch on the side of a hill in Hollyrood Park...










Please may I have some more bread?

































No Mr Swan, you go away and ask Kate for some bread.

Hmmm, bread! I am so starving I might even eat a pigeon!

Help! They are so hungry that I have to hide behind a bench!



















And the moral of the story is that "A full swan is a happy swan."













God forbid I get evicted by the meglomaniac who is running the blog! Sorry I have been super busy - student life is hard, but have been finding time to explore the city with Paula.

Kate, Paula and I went for a walk up Aurthur's Seat last Saturday, fed the very hungry and friendly swans and came to the conclusion that we were all very unfit.

The real Turning Point in the RWC Final

THANKS, BUT WE DON'T NEED YOU QUEENY!!!

Friday Night Balkan Beats

For all of you that have not been in Cape Town......our Kerry has been slaving away.

In the past couple of weeks her activities have been varied. Including: losing sleep, pouring tea for Helen Zille, chasing and transporting goats, (chasing and transporting israeli band members and their giant Tubas and need for weed), fighting with the council, trying to tame the knee jerk reactions of serious creative minds and ultimately pulling together all the strings that made up one serious party.

This she achieved with much success on Friday night.

Walkie talkie in hand, 2500 guests later, a trip to the hospital (in the name of war and peace, war was declared on the face of 1 Odd enjiner who had to defend his stage), and many incessant phonecalls from the old lady whose Obsevatory(the real one - not the suburb) walls were vibrating the whole of friday night....

Going on 48 hours with only 45 mins of sleep on friday night, 2 slices of pizza and 1 doughnat later - we will not begin to ask Kerry if she did indeed catch all those penalties in the rugby on sat night.

So well done Kez. we are very proud. and here are some pics for you all to enjoy

Happiness is...

MOER HULLE!

A little girl was sitting in her classroom in England when her teacher walked in and started talking about how proud she is to be an English woman, and how wonderful it is to be an England supporter. The teacher then asked everyone who supported the England rugby team to put up their hands. Every hand in the class besides one went up. This surprised the teacher and so she asked the little girl why her hand wasn't up. "Well," said the little girl, "because I don’t support England." Even more surprised, the teacher asked her whom she supported.

"I support the Springboks", she replied. Now a bit irritated, the teacher asked the little girl why she supported the Springboks. "My mom supports the Springboks, and my dad supports the Springboks, so I support the Springboks." The teacher looked at the little girl and with a smirk asked: "Well, if your mom was an idiot and your dad was an idiot, what would you be? The little girl looked up at her teacher, smiled and replied: "An ENGLAND supporter!"

Your political education, volume 3 or 4 (i forget)

Time for another update on SA's deepening political troubles. This is after all my favourite thing, ever. Jokes. Porn is, but I can't say that when I'm trying to sound intelligent.

As you all should know, the ANC's national conference takes place in December this year, in Polokwane. It is here they they erect the new president of the party. Because in SA the head of state and head of government are rolled into one big, hairy shlong, and because we have only a general erection (and not a presidential erection), whomever leads the ANC will surely be our next state president, after the ANC wins by landslide the general erections in 2009.

Yet things are not so simple. Mbeki can and will run for a third term as party president. If he wins, and his chances are not insubstantial, this implies that one of two things must happen, both unprecedented, neither hot like greg's mom. One, the country, sorry limpdick parliament, agrees to amend the most holy and sacred part of our constitution, allowing Mbeki to have a third go at fucking our country up the arse (well at least the social bits - the economy's doing rather well, in fact better than EVER before, in ALL of history, under our washington consensus vibe). Or two, the ANC figures out how to deal with having one guy running the party and another running the state. I honestly cannot decide which is worse. Holiday in Kabul, or nursing job at Frere Hospital? What a CHOICE!

Door number one turfs us officially onto the top of the slippery slope to oblivion, african style. Door number 2 beats out of us what little tolerance we have left for psycho-politics by forcing us to live with a megalomaniacal party leader utterly unwilling to just let the fuck go, plotting and undermining whomever is trying to run the state. Worse, no-one yet seems to have a clue how, if Mbeki is still ANC president come 2009, the ANC will be able to find another douchebag to take over the state presidency without tearing itself, and the entire fabric of our democracy, asunder. Indeed just trying to erect a new party leader is already doing that. Like Oom always says, 'n vis VERROT van die KOP af.

The proverbial third way is of course also the most likely: Zuma wins the ANC erection in December, and assumes the state thrown, in the new presidential palace built with Chinese money, in 2009. Everyone is now saying it's his to lose (and by everyone I mean the serious analyst guys who write in the koerants, not kunty du plessis in the car mechanic shop what still haat daai vokkin aapies).

I still have my doubts. Tribalism remains the most hardcore form of 'racism' in this country. I'm struggling to see how the ANC bigwigs (and there are lots we never really hear about or know anything about), who are all isiXhosa, will let some zulu fuck run THEIR liberation organisation and THEIR country. Yes Luthuli was a Zulu, but that's ancient history. Back then there was a common enemy.

But, I also struggle to see how they will successfully manipulate the vote. Even chunks of the Eastern Cape branches now seem to prefer Zuma (if you believe polls in this country).

And the sad fact remains that even if there is some serious alternative to a run-off between Mbeki and Zuma... well there just isn't, klaar. That's a sad fact indeed. There's only 2 months left for chrissakes. Only madiba would be able to campaign not at all, get nominated at the last minute, and win. And Tokyo has campaigned, but like, please.

The final hot poker applied to your ball sack? Just in case you weren't feeling impotent already? The ANC's just finished it's membership audit - they need to do this prior to every national conference to figure out who has voting rights and who doesn't. Only paid-up members get to vote in December (you should have a healthy sense of foreboding by now). They've managed to scratch together a grand total of 650,000-odd members. That's right, less than 2% of this country's population will determine its medium-term future! Still think voting in 2009 will be worthwhile?

Think about THAT mud monkeys!

I do apologise for the crude language - I have been with an australian and a kiwi for 3 days now. I do love their forthrightness. But a touch crude, indeed.

Disclaimer: no matter what happens, the sun still shines in mzansi, and the country is still totally rad. I am not a white pessimist. I am helluva concerned about things though.

You're on notice!

If you're on the blog, and you've never blogged, you have thirty days to do so, otherwise we're doing a clean-up. Its nothing personal, its just that Phil is upset that so many are riding the golden coattails of his joumaseblog genius. He didn't actually say anything like that, but he implied it. Its just time for a clean up. Kerry agrees.

Keep it ghetto gangstas!

Everything you suspected about the iPhone...

...but were too afraid to ask, is candidly addressed in this hilarious little diatribe.

He seems to like Nokia's, which is a little disappointing, but still, it's pretty fuckin' funny...

What's hot and what's not

What's hot :

• The XXXchange remix of The Eraser by Thom Yorke
• Lindt 70% dark chocolate
• Summer
• The Springboks
• The Chasers War on Everything (podcast it!)
• This blog (well, lukewarm at the moment)
• Jogging without a bra

What's not :

• Anything from that douchebag Mika
• Lindt 85% dark chocolate (bleggh!)
• Endless winters (sorry Al)
• Argentina
• Any reality dance show (give it a rest ffs!)
• Facebook
• Jogging 'commando'

Drink Vodka, roll in the hay with pigs

Shameless marketing I know, but this is what I do all day at the mo so needed to share :)

Guess where I went this morning?? To a Jewish fundraising breakfast with Helen Zille. Charismatic and interesting. Weird to hang out with corporate Jewish cape town and their wives though :)

CRITICAL INFO FROM THE BBC

Jogging your way to saggy breasts

Millions of women may be jogging their way to sagging breasts as they set off on New Year fitness regimes without suitable bras, research suggests.

Some 9.5 million British women could be irreversibly damaging their busts by exercising without a proper sports bra, the Portsmouth University team said.

They found breasts moved in a 3D figure of eight and that uncontrolled movement strained fragile tissues and ligaments.

The study suggested as a woman runs a mile, her breasts bounced 135m.

The report found each breast moved independently of the body by an average of 9cm for every step taken on the treadmill.

With the average breast weighing between 200 and 300 grams, this movement puts great stress on the breast's fragile support structure - the outer skin and connective tissues known as Cooper's ligaments.

Irreversible breast sag

The research team found breast movements resulted in temporary pain and discomfort.

But it also led to a more permanent stretching of the Cooper's ligament which leads to irreversible breast sag.

They claim that wearing an ordinary T-shirt bra reduced bounce by 38%, but wearing a sports bra by the firm Shock Absorber - which sponsored the research - reduced bounce by 78%.

Dr Joanne Scurr who carried out the research said women needed to be aware of the effects of exercising without properly supporting their breasts.

"People rightly spend time and effort to get the right footwear for exercise and it is equally important to wear the correct sports bra.

"Proper support for breasts will reduce the stretch to the Cooper's ligament."