Ode to Terry Pratchett

I was horrified to learn that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with alzheimers. I adore his work and I thoroughly enjoy the discworld characters.
I've just finished the reaper and am reading Jingo. I remember someone saw one of his latest books - well, for SA anyway! I think it was called Monstrous Regiment or something - at any rate, someone saw the cover which is slightly different to the normal covers and they brought me some books, thinking the author was in the same vein... The books were by Stephen King... I took them to the book exchange the next day! Stephen King is just not my cup of tea, thanks. If anyone knows anything about Discworld, you'll know that there's a guild for just about everything - a thieves guilde and assassins guilde, etc. So, in my feverish state of flu in the last couple of days I watched the news and discovered that there was in fact a "guilde" for unemployment! In Durban or is that KZN? a bunch of unemployed people looted two large chainstores of food and groceries. The representative of the Unemployed Association said that people were hungry - and that they weren't actually looting, they just couldn't pay for the food. ??? I wondered if reality and fiction were slowly beginning to merge, or perhaps the fever was slightly worse than I first suspected!
Where's inspector Vimes and Carrot when you need them?

Ridley gets Weird on us...

I watched A Good Year and I sort of wondered what the heck happend to poor Ridley Scott that he made such a bad, out of character movie. And let it be known that Russell Crowe was positively pathetic - apart from wondering when on earth he was going to shave that stupid dirty face hair off (I think we've discussed the whole issue of not everybody being able to carry off a goatie - well, the same applies to unshaven faces...). The awful hairy mugg made his nose look bulbous and growth like and as for those horrendous "hip" glasses... Evidently, Russell is just not meant to wear glasses as well as sport an unshaven mug.
The scenery is amazing, but lets face it - even the most absurdly inept photographer (if you look that phrase up in the dictionary, you'll find my name) wouldn't be able to mess up the Tuscan landscape. And, having been versed extensively in cinematography, one would sort of expect Ridley to come up trumps when it comes to capturing images and compositions - whether still or in movement.
I don't know if it was Russell's very poor attempt at an english accent that repelled me like citronella does the cats, but honestly - that english/australian drawl was even more laborious to endure than American actors making bad attempts at South African accents (Leonardo excluded).
I'd like to say I could sit through that movie again to soak in the amazing scenery, but I can't - I have some paint on canvas that I'd prefer to watch as it dries!!

Swine Flu

I heard on the news this morning that swine flu has jumped from 2 cases to almost 100 in about a month - maybe less. We're told not to worry since it's only people who have been travelling that have caught it... The number is somewhere around 96 but will only be considered an outbreak if it reaches 100. This sounds really familiar... oh, I know - wasn't this the whole story with Zimbabwe and the infected water and was it a cholera outbreak a few months ago?
I also heard they've discovered that the crime stats have been doctored and crime is really far worse in SA than we're lead to believe. NO! Really?
You might be wondering when we ever get any good news - I'm wondering pretty much the same thing...

Cars and Rain

Richard has a Ford Baki and I have a Ford Tracer - they're great green cars with low running costs but there is one annoying drawback: there's a manufacturing flaw in all these vehicles and the windscreen and some other unknown place I can't find yet in my car LEAKS LIKE A BUCKET! Up until a few weeks back, it wasn't a big deal because we seldom get rain and when we do, it's a maximum of two hours and then it stops. But here's the thing: Rich has this awful problem that when he pulls away or stops, a splash of water lands directly in his lap (how's that for Murphy's Law's aim??) and it's a little embarrassing when he gets out the car. So, when it rains before he leaves for work, he sighs resignedly and hangs his head low as he walks out the door!
Up until last week, I really only had the problem of a puddle developing under the petrol pedal, but last week I noticed in the pelting rain that the windscreen wipers weren't wiping the rain on the windscreen... That was when I realised it was dripping on the INSIDE of the windscreen!! Oh boy! The girls and I had a good laugh at that.