Snow falls steadily. Weather app keeps saying 'snow will probably stop in the next few hours', but there is no sign of that.

I'm taking advantage by learning how to run in it. The main advantage is rapid cooling. The main disadvantages are that I can't stop moving or I'll get cold, and downhill slopes can be slippery.

The Offspring picked up from where The Beastie Boys left off, and made it better. I'm right, aren't I?

Try my new file format, OCSV: Oxford Comma Separated Values

I'm tired of Artificial Intelligence. Have we got any Intelligent Artifice?

I read Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between on the weekend. He describes walking across Afghanistan from Herat to Kabul in the winter of 2002, a few weeks after the Taliban were toppled by the Bush invasion. It was clearly insanely dangerous. He nearly died of dysentery in a mountain pass, was attacked at least twice, and nearly executed by Pashtun ex-Taliban when he was a day away from his destination.

It is something of a semi-mystical elegy, of both fallen empires and their ruins, and of his youth and callowness. I think he wrote it a decade after he did it, and I suspect he’s not really sure what the experience did to his psychology, almost as though it happened to another person.

Life is a minestrone
Served up with parmesan cheese

I came very late to 10cc. I feel if I'd heard them when I was a teenager, then I'd be a completely different person now.

Not only Christmas but #Oktoberfest comes early.

#Chakalaka is one of those #SouthAfrican things most foreigners don't know about, but it's a badge of identity.

It's a spicy vegetable sauce, usually served with braai or with pap and vleis. You can easily make it yourself, but it comes in cheap cans and, really, that's the way to eat it.

Tip it out of the can and heat it on the stove, or nuke it. Devour it with your favorite meal, to the music of vuvuzelas and amapiano. Then sit back, relax and sip your last brandewyn en Coke.

Everyone has #L1 support war stories. But sometimes they're good experiences.

I changed my email address for #CapeTown rates bills yesterday. I called the call centre number with the usual trepidation. But after only two press-number hops, Marlon picked up the phone.

He quickly changed my email address. I had called at a good time to do this, he said, since Cape Town Municipality are now phasing out postal bill delivery. The L1 desk has the new task of getting everyone's electronic contacts working. He said he was grateful I'd called, since it was one fewer check to do out of the hundreds of thousands remaining. Because many people don't have email, the alternative is invoicing by SMS, which makes sense.

Then he tested my update by re-sending my current bill, and he waited on the phone until I received it.

I told him he did a great job, that I enjoyed learning about CT's disciplined contact update, and about their creative and well-informed use of the L1 desk.

Do drivers put unopened fabric softener refill packages on their dashboards in other countries, or is this just a #SouthAfrican thing?

This toot finalises the #Gauteng #Mastodon #meetup.

We will meet at the Irene Farm on Sunday 2025-06-01 at 14:00.

I suggest we meet on The Deck restaurant: the top one nearer the car park, beside the shop. Everyone is welcome, please bring non-Mastodon people, they will be welcome with pleasure. Please pay for yourself.

You don't have to reply to this, just rock up.

The meetup is for #beer and #chat, we are not going to take over the world. At least, not yet...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/aAh8zy24wsUAhL5x8

@uastronomer @mensrea @scogings @michaelgraaf@kolektiva.social @swartkoffie @ysb33r @yakubah @Sozhami @FootlooseNomad @onegreenparker @thecontinent @leoncowle @duckwabbit @anagnostes @Gord1i @governorkeagan @nemo @patrickvine @carnun @kalia @weblearning @dtabb73 @anban @setha @gavin @Mzi @sibu @grant_h @mvniekerk @BigG @BenjaminKlein @confluency @RainBow @Green_Kalahari_Guesthouse @junglegeorge @GrahamDowns @karyn @tinyplayerss @announcements @roblaing @GavinChait @jans @claymore @Estrella @Dakspyker @sigstart @george @bigfoot @darrenolivier @Zumbador @phillipdewet @MongeziBiya @bedfordviewmc @pee @kaasbaas @kaasbaas@social.oevents.co.za @jmopp @kimvanwyk @flipsideza @LeYayJay @pyconza @roughiain @Freever @OldManZack @adrian @astrolabe_cat @phyrexian @GinevraCat @mattduplessis @michaelmoss @AEM @ettysh @michaelgraaf@campaign.openworlds.info @wjv @martinbckr @danie10 @hnygd @wogan

#Guavas are unreal.

You buy them unripe, and leave them to ripen. But if you don't eat them in the exact five minutes they're ripe - which is probably at 03:25 some random morning - then they spoil.

@uastronomer Okay here we go - invitation to my southafrica list, following a bit of list administration and some regexp:

@mensrea @scogings @michaelgraaf@kolektiva.social @swartkoffie @ysb33r @yakubah @Sozhami @FootlooseNomad @onegreenparker @thecontinent @leoncowle @duckwabbit @anagnostes @Gord1i @governorkeagan @nemo @patrickvine @carnun @kalia @weblearning @weblearning @dtabb73 @anban @setha @gavin @Mzi @sibu @grant_h @mvniekerk @BigG @BenjaminKlein @confluency @RainBow @Green_Kalahari_Guesthouse @junglegeorge @GrahamDowns @karyn @tinyplayerss @announcements @roblaing @GavinChait @jans @claymore @Estrella @Dakspyker @sigstart @george @bigfoot @darrenolivier @Zumbador @uastronomer @phillipdewet @mensrea @MongeziBiya @bedfordviewmc @pee @kaasbaas @kaasbaas@social.oevents.co.za @jmopp @kimvanwyk @flipsideza @LeYayJay @pyconza @roughiain @Freever @OldManZack @adrian @astrolabe_cat @phyrexian @GinevraCat @mattduplessis @michaelmoss @AEM @ettysh @michaelgraaf@campaign.openworlds.info @wjv @martinbckr @danie10 @hnygd @wogan

#Gauteng! Your attention please. #Mastodon #meetup incoming, and you are all invited.

@uastronomer and I will be the Irene Farm this weekend to drink beer and eat Eton mess. https://maps.app.goo.gl/iHiu6H3Wz99NSPWi6

Votes for times are given below.

I'm going to post follow-up messages to this one, with users' names in them. Obvz I don't know everyone, so feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you know.

Middle class #SouthAfricans are familiar with the two-hour flight from #Joburg to #CapeTown and back again.

To give you a sense of the sheer scale of #SouthAfrica: Caitrín is flying from #Manchester to #Dublin this morning - 35 minutes.

The sack, rape, desecration and murder of #empire ...:

* The 1770 #Bengali famine, designed by the #EastIndiaCompany to destroy the local #cotton #fabric industry and invent a poisonous drug trade in its place.
* The looting and burning of the #OldSummerPalace near #Beijing, ordered by the same #Elgin who chopped up the #Parthenon.
* The destruction of the #Irish language through imperial policy, as dramatised in #BrianFriel 's #Translations (a magnificent and ambiguous play, describing linguistic polarisation, but not itself partisan).
* Labour #racism and engineered #alcoholism in #SouthAfrican #gold mines, from the 19th Century, with repercussions even until now - #ZamaZama mining is its modern evolution.

None of this is forgotten. Let it never be forgotten.

Here's a boost for The Apple Tree and Meat World in Elarduspark in #Pretoria, #SouthAfrica.

These two shops are run by the same family concern. They're famous in the local area, and have lots of local patrons.

The Apple Tree sells fresh fruit and vegetables, general groceries. And Meat World sells ... meat. The shops are very good value. I think and hope they're doing well.

The short-term effect of #Ramaphosa meeting #Trump is becoming visible to him. What happens then is completely unpredictable. The only objective he could obtain is to to get out of the meeting with his dignity intact. #Ramaphosa did that, to the extent that he possibly could. He might not have met any other specific objective, but he can't be blamed for that.

The main long-term meaning of meeting Trump is that he joins the club of leaders who have gone through the same baptism of fire. This is the next important goal for #SouthAfrica: figure out how to posse up with the rest of the world. Ramaphosa should talk to #Carney, #Starmer, #Macron, #Xi, #VonDerLeyen. That's where the diplomatic future lies for the moment.

Caitrín and I had the most amazing farewell lunch. She's off to Ireland on Thursday.

We went to the Irene Farm, to one of its restaurants. And we had pork, burger, melktert and Eton mess, which is bashed meringues with cream and fruit compote.

German chancellors are an uncharismatic bunch, aren't they? With the exception of Mutti, who had a covert charm and an ingenious sense of humour.