A new type of alien tree

The tall alien and the normal pine tree close by.

Driving around the suburbs today I came across a new alien tree.

In fact I found a couple in our suburb and have seen others in places as far away as Plettenberg bay.

It looks like a pine tree and has a very distinctive shape.

As you may be aware pine trees are aliens here in South Africa and have to be chopped down.

This new pine tree does not seem to suffer the same fate.

The odd thing about the tree is that it is taller than most pines I have seen, has a smooth bark and all the trees have exactly the same shape.

They seemed to have been cloned.

They are amazingly fast growers as one day they are not there, and the next they are, and are over 20 metres tall.

Reminds me of Jack and the beanstalk and the magic beans.

I decided to do some research and when I took a closeup look this is what I found.




Look closely and you will see the receivers hidden in the branches

The mobile phone companies have got rather sneaky and don't want to foul up the environment with their nasty shaped repeater stations.

They've come up with a novel idea of disguising them in a metal tree that looks like a pine.

No wonder there are so many of them springing up all over Cape Town.

Next time you use your cellphone look out for the alien that is transferring your call.

Geoff Fairman

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Cape Town's Green Season

Red Sky in morning Shepherd's warning.
Cape Town sky this week at about 7.30 am

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Are you a person who cannot handle the heat, large crowds, hotels that are full, and high prices.

Would you like a larger choice of luxury hotels at lower prices?

How would you like to visit tourist attractions and find that you are first in the queue.

Does this sound to good to be true?

I kid you not!

Cape Town is the place to visit in the green season.

Winters in the northern hemisphere are harsh with snow and temperatures below freezing.

Cape Town winters are exactly the opposite.

Yes it gets cold at night, sometimes below 10 degrees celsius when there is a winter storm with wind and rain lashing the peninsula.

Normally temperatures are mild between 10 and 15 degrees at night and a bit warmer during the day.

One can get out and about with a warmish jacket and do things.

Roads are never covered in ice and when there is a snowfall it happens on the high mountain peaks and even sometimes on Table Mountain.

Snow on Table Mountain is an exception not a rule.

Sometimes the winter season can be like a baby, wet and windy but of late we have had very mild winters where it warms up nicely in the day.

As it is winter in Cape Town not many people expect lovely mild weather so they tend to stay away.

That's the secret to my claims above.

Cape Town has plenty of hotels all willing to put you up and to do so they offer reduced prices during the winter months.




Tygerberg with its lovely green tinge
which just a few short weeks ago was brown.

What makes Cape Town winter's great is that everything turns green.

A few drops of rain and the wild flowers come to life and flowers such as the proteas bloom everywhere.

The summer with its heat is always accompanied by the Cape Doctor the south east wind which blows gales all summer long as it whips over False Bay and across the Cape Flats.

In the winter months the wind turns around and the north west wind lashes the peninsula when the weather is bad.

Cape Town however always warns you a day or two before the time of a coming storm.

Lions Head gets a halo of cloud around its head and when Capetonians see that they know its going to rain.

The weather normally produces a fantastic day or two of the most lovely summer weather, where there is not a breath of wind or cloud in the sky with high temperatures just before a big storm.

This week we had a morning with a red sky which means a couple of days of bad weather is on the way.

True to form we have had a northwest gale for two days with cold weather and the odd shower of rain.

The only thing that is really different from the summer season is that the beaches are deserted as the sun is not warm enough to tan in on most days.

The sea water is normally a bit rougher and a different colour to the lovely turquoise it normally is during summer.

For those who love board sailing and kite boarding, a bit of wind is the answer and that they get with the north wind blowing.

The beaches along the Table Bay coastline are full to capacity with kite surfers when the wind is up.

If you are not a beach person NOW is the time to visit Cape Town.

Hopefully I'll see you here soon.

Geoff Fairman

http://www.turtlesa.com

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The new cultures in South Africa

With the advent of our new government in 1994 things in South Africa began to change.

At first people got freedom of movement.

Where they were previously restricted to certain areas they can go anywhere now, so thousands head for Cape Town every month.

The second thing that happened after the apartheid regime disappeared was that a new pecking order for jobs was introduced. ie African males first!

Everybody else to follow in line as stipulated.

Then it was the turn of affirmative action to be introduced and most jobs advertised were designated AA which meant that only African people could apply.

Many jobs were given to people who had no clue as to how to do them, just so that companies could meet their AA targets.

Somehow many of the people employed in this manner knew how to steal, and boy have they done that!

The number of scams over the last few years that have been highlighted in the press make interesting reading.

Unfortunately many of the people involved in them have managed to pocket millions of taxpayers money and get away with it.

Back when the Nats were in charge there was the odd scam but these days there is just about one a day.

It appears that SA has adopted a system similar to that of the USA where every little matter ends up in court.


Lawyers do not chase ambulances here, but, some certainly know how to defraud the accident fund and the victims of road accidents.

A number of lawyers are behind bars for helping themselves instead of the victims.

With the advent of the new government all sorts of changes to the education system were made.

If you listen to teachers you will find that they are not in favour of most of them.

Where does all this leave the students.

In my opinion most of them are given an inferior school education as the rule states that no one should fail, so learners think that it is not necessary to work.

If someone manages to fail the poor teachers have to write a book as to the reasons why the person failed and why he/she should not be passed.

Another carry over from the apartheid era is that everything should be free.

During that period jobs were scarce for African people, so much of what they got was given to them. (Not a hell of a lot either)

The unfortunate part of all this is that people still think that everything must come on a plate today.

Jobs are there to be abused.

The boss does not have many rights these days.

As far as the worker is concerned he can arrive at any time, do as little as possible and expect to put out his hand for his salary at the end of the month.

In my day it was your responsibility to get to work on time and beware if you turned up late.

You had the riot act read to you.

These days, there is always an excuse, normally the taxis or bus drivers are on strike so the employee cannot get to work.

Once or twice a year I can accept that argument, but not every day.

Here in SA the movie industry is growing and many “extra“
jobs are available to those who take the time and effort to register.

One extra I know has to use public transport to get to the meeting points which are at out of the way places and at odd times, sometimes 3.00 a m in the morning.

He leaves home early using public transport and makes his way to the nearest police station where he asks if he can sleep on the waiting room bench.

That's what I call devoted to duty and if people in SA would have that type of dedication things would get better faster than they are doing today.

An instance I experienced today with a labourer I employed is just the way it is here.

He should have arrived at 8.00 a m, and did not.

He never phoned to say he was going to be late and when I phoned to find out where he was, was told that he had a problem and was not going to get to work at all.

I started my project by myself and at 1.30 pm he arrived.

The only good thing was that he actually made the effort.

EVENTUALLY!

I told him that I no longer needed his services and that he should go home.

His reply was to ask me for his bus fare.

I won't repeat what I told him to do, but decided, that if I must pay him he might as well work for the money I would give him.

It's going to take a long time for us South Africans to get used to the new and sometimes strange cultures we are faced with.


Geoff Fairman

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