Saturday, August 19, 2006

Hermanus





These three pics were taken in Hermanus. The last one is at Hemel En Aarde dam, the middle one at Kwaaiwater, and the top one taken from the cliffs just west of there – the dark blob in the water is a Southern Right Whale, just the top ten percent of him, about forty (maybe less) metres away. I get so beside myself with this that I can’t take proper pictures, and so I missed the rest of him. Nearby was a mother and her calf, they were just moseying around contentedly. Further out in the bay about a dozen others were leaping clear out of the water, and slapping their tails, and generally showing off as though they knew we were watching. Which, of course, they did. How do you know that a whale knows you’re there? If you’re standing on a cliff with a whale in the sea below you, and he rolls so that one great eye looks directly at you, you know that he knows. It’s nothing short of awesome, and it makes this silly world we live in seem irrelevant.
Apart from the whales, the sheer beauty of everything within a three hundred kilometer radius lets you know you’re somewhere special. There’s a valley here, called Hemel En Aarde (Heaven And Earth), and that’s exactly what you get. Who could ask for more?

I am completely in love with Hermanus. I will live there, soon. I’m doing everything in my power to make this happen. I’ve decided this, and once I decide something it’s practically carved in stone. I don’t decide things very often, something has to be monumental before I decide on it so hear ye, hear ye: I will live in Hermanus. I will grow old there, happily. Mark me.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Whinge

I am a very bad blogger. Sometimes, I even forget I have a blog. Today, I remembered, and shuffled over to see if it was still there. It was. Is. Bugger. Did I write all this? How is it that I have time to write this much waffle? And it’s not like I didn’t ask myself, at the beginning, when a blog seemed like an exciting sort of thing to do, how is it that people have so much time to write such waffle? So I knew what I was in for.
But really, what’s this all about? It isn’t real writing or anything and I don’t think anyone thinks it is. At the top end I suppose it’s all about traffic, and the point of it is probably equally divided between peppy popularity and product placement. But down here at the pond-scum end, it’s just us little amoebas whiffling away about whatnot. And haven’t we figured it out by now: the internet is not real life and 99% of the people who live there are not real people? Yes, of course we have. We watch the next generation blissing out on some myspace hallucination, and we know they’ll grow out of it. Or will they? It’s different now. Mind you, all old people say that, when they don’t feel like getting their heads around whatever new thing.

Doug Shaw Update


Doug Shaw loves me. He said so. And not just any old Doug Shaw either, but Doug Shaw Prime. THE Doug Shaw! Not just Doug Shaw the arch villain, or Doug Shaw the mad professor, or Doug Shaw the trapeze artist; but Doug Shaw Himself. Doug Shaw loves me because I mentioned his name so many times, a couple of posts back. So this is how it works, eh? Mention someone’s name enough times and they find your blog, just like that. And then they either love you or they hate you. Doug Shaw loves me, Mandy De Waal hates me: 50/50 odds, not bad… Neil Gaiman, Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman, Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman. Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman, Tori Amos, Neil Gaiman...Tori Amos…


So, Doug Shaw Prime, thank you for solving the Doug Shaw mystery. I’d leave a grateful comment on your blog but I can’t, it won’t let me. I’m not going to push it by hacking either , not because I can’t (he-he), it’s just that I’m dead scared of that half-a-cow corpse you have in your freezer…
Dear readers (all three of you :-) ): you can see the corpse for yourselves by going to
http://revdj.livejournal.com/ and scrolling down a bit.
But, seriously: are people googling themselves or something? ‘Cos, how does this work? What are the chances of you stumbling across your name mentioned on one of a zillion piddly blogs, just by accident? If I google myself I don’t get anything at all. I am unfamous. Infamous would be more interesting and probably quite lucrative. But I’m not going to go there because I still have living relatives and there’d be hell to pay.