Friday, July 25, 2008

Green Point Lighthouse, Mouille Point, Cape Town, Monday To Friday, 10am To 3pm

Green Point Lighthouse LEGO Minifig

Green Point Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in South Africa (1824), is situated in the Cape Town Atlantic Seaboard suburb of Mouille Point, not in the suburb of Green Point, which is a few hundred metres away.

Feel free to take a moment to let that sink in. Your brief confusion is perfectly natural.

The Green Point Lighthouse is actually so easy to find in Mouille Point that I don't even need to post a photo of it (and, in any case, LEGO totally trumps everything else in my world).

You can find this little guy just inside the entrance to the lighthouse near the reception desk. He's been carefully placed behind the photo's decorative porthole to keep him nice and safe.

Entrance to the lighthouse costs R15 and it's open from Monday to Friday, 10am to 3pm.

Green Point Lighthouse LEGO Minifig

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

A Senryu* In Protest Of Vicious Snack Food

The shard of popcorn
sliced my tongue; I bled to death.
It was very sad.

*(of sorts)

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Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Loop Street, Cape Town, Early Evening


Loop Street is a one-way street that runs the length of the city into the CBD parallel to Long Street, another one-way street that runs in the opposite direction towards the mountain. Loop is probably best known as the street you park in when you can't find parking in Long, which is one of Cape Town's most vibrant - and therefore busiest - areas and is filled with restaurants, bars, and night spots to cater to most tastes. It is certainly an experience I would recommend to tourists.

Anyway, the parking issue was certainly the case one evening last week when I met friends for dinner and had to park in Loop due to a lack of bays anywhere else. Although, at night, Loop Street is almost deserted, bar the parked cars, in sharp contrast to Long, it still draws the parking attendants (both official and unofficial) and, I found, construction takes place well into the evening.

About 10 years ago Loop had a bit more of an identity than it has now (although it could never compete with Long) and you would find interesting establishments tucked in between the drab architecture, such as an independent record store that specialised in obscure music and artists that were hard to find in those days, or a small, quaint, and unpretentious coffee shop that offered value for money and a great place to have a drink with friends after studying at Michaelis or CityVarsity.

Nowadays much of that atmosphere has been lost and recently the street has seen its fair share of urban renewal (which usually comprises a block suddenly being knocked down so that slightly taller buildings can be built), but the atmosphere and tone have always been a work in progress, while we all vaguely wonder who is building what (and why). No one says "Let's go to Loop Street" yet you will often hear the locals mention Long or Kloof streets. For a while now Loop has remained a faily non descript thoroughfare that's really just the road you use when you want to get to the middle of the city from the upper edges (which is a peculiar, fascinating mix of Bohemiasm and yuppiedom that somehow manages to co-exist peacefully).

At night Loop's most notable attraction, which can be seen from quite a distance due to the eerie blue glow cast upon the street by the lights around the entrance, is Teazers, a strip club or "gentleman's" bar, or whatever else one might want to call it (I've never been inside so I cannot attest to its quality, or potential lack thereof - an investigation and a post for another time, perhaps?). Outside a couple of hefty bouncers sit eyeing the passing foot traffic suspiciously and somehow making just walking past the establishment feel like the creepiest experience on earth.

On the night that I took this photograph a massive black limo was parked outside on the other side of the road. I don't know if it resides there permanently or was just being utilised for the evening but it was the most garish limo I've ever seen. It was, in essence, an extended 4x4. You can see that quite clearly if you look at the back of the vehicle.

There really is no accounting for taste.



Extra Flickr Photo: [1]

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Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Janez In The Closet

Yanez In The Closet

A cutout of Top Billing's Janez Vermeiren has been drifting around the COSMO office for the past few days. Earlier this year he was voted as being the hottest man in COSMO's 2008 Sexiest Men Calendar (he's Mr September if you wish to haul out your calendar for purposes of ogling) and is listed as one of COSMO's 101 Hottest Men Alive (to find out where he's ranked you'll have to get yourself a copy of the June issue, which is no longer on the stands - ha haaa!). The cutout was made to advertise the June "Hot Men" issue.

Cutouts are quite freaky as they are life size and if you're too near to one you always catch sight of it out of the corner of your eye or feel as if someone is looming over you if it's behind you, both of which can be quite disconcerting, so cutouts never stay in one place for very long before someone quietly moves them elsewhere for some mental relief.

A few years ago a Robbie Williams cutout drifted around the COSMO office for months, scaring small children and most of the staff members who would turn a corner to find themselves unexpectedly face to face with Robbie and his bulging crotch (I make no jokes here).

Anyway, I've been eyeing the Janez cutout since it arrived with the intention of doing something with it (it's an opportunity not to be lost), but no actual idea. This afternoon it finally made its way to behind my desk (in case you are wondering I was not involved in the relocation, I just did not object to it) and I had this bright idea to put it in a nearby closet and take a picture, for some sort of nefarious future use yet to be determined.

Halfway to the closet I paused to say something to a colleague, resting against the rather bulky cutout and cradling it in my arms so that it wouldn't fall over.

"Now that's something I never expected to see," the editor, drifting past in a well-timed manoeuvre, exclaimed.

"...what?" I, oblivious as usual, perturbedly muttered, looking to my colleagues for assistance out of my confusion.

"You, cradling Janez so lovingly and tenderly with his abs resting against you,"* she replied, before drifting off.

I stood there, briefly, then lifted up the cutout, put it in the closet, and took a photo, but by that point I couldn't remember why I wanted to do it.


*(I may have paraphrased this bit slightly because at that moment, caught off guard, all I could think was "Oh, crap!")

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