Only in Effrika

Nice place if it wasn't for some of the locals
Message
Author
User avatar
Fox3WheresMyBanana
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 12979
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
Location: Great White North
Gender:
Age: 61

Re: Only in Effrika

#141 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:37 pm

Sorry Reverend I missed your post about Canada. Thought that they were a civilised country.
With a PM who orders the War Powers Act when a bunch of truckers hold a protest?
Who fixes his family up with sinecure jobs and fees from a major 'charity' that relies on government funding?
Who watches the Armed Forces collapse whilst he figures out which procurement deals gives him the biggest kickbacks and/or votes?
Etc
I think not, my liege.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#142 Post by TheGreenAnger » Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:51 pm

Smeagol wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:24 pm
TheGreenAnger wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:09 am
Woody wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:20 am
So no electricity or jetA-1 ~X(

https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/ ... t-20220926
I wonder what happened at the Chevron JetA-1 blending plant at the refinery in Milnerton (Caltex in my day)? They had quite a significant Jet A storage depot there too. I guess if they aren't properly scheduling the crude, and the buffer has run out, then we have some significant logistics cockup upstream, which is part of the new regime's modus operandi I guess.

https://www.fluor.com/projects/chevron- ... finery-epc
Interesting TGA, the article you attach, from Fluor has some interesting photos which show the refinery as it currently is, or at least after the Refinery Expansion Project which ran from 1975 to 1978 which was NOT performed by Fluor. This project doubled the size of the refinery to what the photographs show.
The design was by Japanese Gasoline Company (JGC) and the construction by a joint Venture between George Wimpey ME & C from the UK and Murray and Stewart from SA. I started on the project during the site ***** and was grandly titled Utilities Engineer and told to design the utility facilities for the new project office and a labour camp for the 300 Korean workforce (Daelim, who would construct all the piping). I then moved on and became the Assistant Planning Engineer and finally the Planning Engineer.Spent almost 3 years working on that site.

And yes, I do believe they produced Jet fuel.
Interesting to read of your career while working at the refinery and to think of Murray and Stewart again (later Murray and Roberts) who offered me a bursary to study Mech. Eng at UCT, not taken up by me at the time, and probably one of my biggest life mistakes.

My brother in law and one time class mate, like me, lived in Rondebosch in 1978, where he became friendly with with an American contractor at the refinery who persuaded him to study chemical engineering at UCT. He obtained a bursary from Sasol and went to work for them after he completed his degree finishing up with BP here in the UK where he retired last year.

I had the pleasure of working for Total as a project manager in the UK some years back and found the industry fascinating. Was working on a big SAP rollout over the period when Buncefield blew up! Interesting days!
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
Smeagol
Capt
Capt
Posts: 1488
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2018 7:15 pm
Location: UK, Carrot Cruncher Country
Gender:
Age: 72

Re: Only in Effrika

#143 Post by Smeagol » Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:01 pm

"My brother in law and one time class mate, like me, lived in Rondebosch in 1978, where he became friendly with with an American contractor at the refinery who persuaded him to study chemical engineering at UCT. He obtained a bursary from Sasol and went to work for them after he completed his degree finishing up with BP here in the UK where he retired last year."

Almost certainly one of the US nationals who were the Caltex team on the Expansion Project. If you remember the name I almost certainly knew and worked with him.

Good to reminisce some times!
We hates Bagginses!

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#144 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:27 pm

Smeagol wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:01 pm
"My brother in law and one time class mate, like me, lived in Rondebosch in 1978, where he became friendly with with an American contractor at the refinery who persuaded him to study chemical engineering at UCT. He obtained a bursary from Sasol and went to work for them after he completed his degree finishing up with BP here in the UK where he retired last year."

Almost certainly one of the US nationals who were the Caltex team on the Expansion Project. If you remember the name I almost certainly knew and worked with him.

Good to reminisce some times!
The American contractor's name was Steve Nelson and, yes, he worked for Caltex. He was very good with mechanical things, restoring a Jaguar car in SA and now builds clocks in his retirement back in the USA.

www.snclocks.com
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#145 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Oct 05, 2022 9:41 am

This sort of news depresses me more than I can bear to say.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glob ... -lkmmqvssp
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
Ex-Ascot
Test Pilot
Test Pilot
Posts: 13095
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:16 am
Location: Botswana but sometimes Greece
Gender:
Age: 68

Re: Only in Effrika

#146 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:39 pm

Sorry TGA can't read that without subscribing.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8239
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Only in Effrika

#147 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:28 pm

Ex-Ascot wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:39 pm
Sorry TGA can't read that without subscribing.
Same here. ~X(

PP

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#148 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:18 pm

@PhX & Ex-A
As they walked towards the camera through South Africa’s Drakensberg Mountains, Rod and Rachel Saunders were introduced to British viewers on BBC2 as world-renowned botanists who would trek the extra mile to find rare gladioli.

“We have been coming to Drakensberg since we were 16 and I’ve always had a passion for high-altitude grassland flora,” Rod explained in a 2018 feature with the Gardeners’ World presenter Nick Bailey. He later described a trek of about 20 miles to find one species not seen for 50 years. “A banshee yell went up when I found the plant,” he said.

Soon after Rod, 74, and Rachel, 63, said farewell to the film crew, however, they were kidnapped, bludgeoned to death and their bodies dumped in a river in KwaZulu-Natal in 2018, prosecutors will tell a trial in Durban this month.

The last known picture of the British couple was a selfie posted on social media by Bailey, who wrote: “These guys know their South African native plants . . . and vitally where to find them. They sell an incredible range of seeds online.”

This week court proceedings began against their alleged killers, Sayfudeen Aslam Del Vecchio, 39, his partner Fatima Bibi Patel, 28, and Mussa Ahmad Jackson, 35, their Malawian lodger at the time. They deny charges of kidnapping, robbery, murder and theft.


Del Vecchio and Patel were arrested at their home, 18 miles from the murder scene, on February 15, 2018, after detectives traced a link to their mobile phones from their victims. Jackson, who rented a room in their home, was arrested a month later.

WhatsApp and Telegram messages also found on their phones added an unexpected twist to the killings. On February 9 the suspects discussed preparing to “kill the kuffar and abduct their alias, to destroy infrastructure and to put fear in the heart of the kuffar”. They also described the couple as “prey” who were ripe for a good “hunt”.

The development prompted the Foreign Office to issue a warning about a possible terrorism threat in South Africa. Detectives found Islamic State pamphlets and a flag at the defendants’ house at the time of the arrest, according to local reports at the time.

Del Vecchio, a convert to Islam, and Patel, the daughter of a Muslim cleric, have featured on the South African security force’s watchlist. Del Vecchio had been seen on a quad bike watching planes taking off and landing at King Shaka airport in Durban more than two years before the murder. The charge that the suspects had links to Isis has not been submitted to trial.

South Africa is Africa’s most industrialised country, and 2 per cent of the population is Muslim. It has never suffered a major Islamist attack but has become a hub of dirty money financing terrorism in southern and east Africa. Its weak security institutions, porous borders and rising lawlessness have led to large-scale trafficking of drugs, arms and people as terrorist groups seek to fill their war chests.

According to official reports, the couple’s remains were recovered after being eaten by crocodiles. Local fishermen said that remnants of their sleeping bags, including zippers, were seen in the teeth of crocodiles months after the bodies were retrieved from the water.

The Saunderses had been married for 30 years, spending up to six months each year scouring the wilds for rare seeds, which they supplied to buyers worldwide in a thriving mail-order business. They left their home in Cape Town in their Toyota Land Cruiser on February 5, 2018, for a meeting with the BBC crew in the mountains, according to court documents.

Their plan, they told staff from their company on February 8 in the last contact they made, was then to camp in Ngoye Forest Reserve, 90 miles north of Durban. They spent one night in the forest before being snatched, and at some point between February 10 and 15, were beaten to death. Their bodies were cocooned in sleeping bags and thrown into the Tugela river, the court has been told.

Staff at Silverhill Seeds, the couple’s business, raised the alarm over the disappearance, an indictment said yesterday. Police said at the time that a fisherman had found Rod’s body. The two were not identified until weeks later when the police requested that DNA tests be carried out on all unaccounted-for bodies in local mortuaries.

The alleged killers used the couple’s Land Cruiser and bank cards to draw out £37,000 in cash. Police also found a drone, camping gear and generators, all bought with the couple’s bank card. Blood from Rachel Saunders was found in the vehicle’s boot.

The trial was adjourned yesterday until October 25, after the judge was forced to recuse herself because of a technicality.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#149 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:26 pm

Comment from that article sums it up well...

Archiebald Auchenlech

I hike in the Drakensberg all the time . Its very safe . However I stay in one of the many well established and high quality lodge/hotels in the area . How this horror unfolded is not clear but obviously the killers knew their victims well and obviously the murdered couple needed to sleep in the field for their research . This murder happened now 5 years ago . An equal tragedy is what is happening in South Africa today with a massive breakdown of law and order . Murderers may get incredibly light sentences or suspect murderers released on bail for 100 pounds and never seen again . How this took 5 years to come to trail is indicitive of the appaling state of the South African judiciary where criminals rights are far greater than victims rights . South Africa is indeed the new breeding ground for Musim extremisim and Isis is pouring billions into the country for this purpose and just a casual walk though Johannesburg airport will tell you all you need to know . Sometimes it looks exactly like Afganistan . CIA / Mossad / MI6 etc need to keep a very close watch on South Africa because South Africa is incapable of doing so .
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
Ex-Ascot
Test Pilot
Test Pilot
Posts: 13095
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:16 am
Location: Botswana but sometimes Greece
Gender:
Age: 68

Re: Only in Effrika

#150 Post by Ex-Ascot » Thu Oct 06, 2022 6:27 am

Thanks GG.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#151 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Oct 08, 2022 12:42 pm

Better days if your skin was a whiter hue and you could ignore the political and racial inequities.



Buying the gondola "a gay social event!". How constricted we have become. Even the language was less fraught and circumscribed in those days... =))
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
Ex-Ascot
Test Pilot
Test Pilot
Posts: 13095
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:16 am
Location: Botswana but sometimes Greece
Gender:
Age: 68

Re: Only in Effrika

#152 Post by Ex-Ascot » Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:57 am

Just about sums it up.
Attachments
Taxis.jpg
Taxis.jpg (60.55 KiB) Viewed 1805 times
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

They must be having a giraffe!

#153 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Oct 20, 2022 3:10 am

ZAair.JPG
How giraffes, guineafowl and a car crash caused three unhappy landings – but not a single injury

Civil Aviation Authority investigators have concluded inquiries into three landings that left planes badly damaged but pilots and passengers unhurt.

In one incident, a tower {?) of giraffes walked across the runway, and the pilot in another broke his nose wheel while avoiding a flock of guineafowl.

The third pilot flew so low as he approached Bethlehem Airport in the Free State that his landing gear hit an SUV driving outside the fence.

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/how-g ... ry-2022-10
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

johngreen
FO
FO
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 4:33 pm
Location: Between the start and finish

Re: Only in Effrika

#154 Post by johngreen » Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:02 am

TGA, as one with such African connections as yourself, I would have though you had heard (!) that the alternative collective nouns for a herd of giraffe are 'tower' and 'corps'... :)

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#155 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Oct 22, 2022 4:13 pm

johngreen wrote:
Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:02 am
TGA, as one with such African connections as yourself, I would have though you had heard (!) that the alternative collective nouns for a herd of giraffe are 'tower' and 'corps'... :)
I am slowly corpseing myself johngreen. That one had passed me by! :-bd
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#156 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:54 am

Back home yesterday...


My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

Karearea
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 4746
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:47 am
Location: The South Island, New Zealand

Re: Only in Effrika

#157 Post by Karearea » Tue Nov 08, 2022 9:22 pm

^ beautiful landscapes, TGA.
And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#158 Post by TheGreenAnger » Mon Nov 14, 2022 4:54 am

While Joburg’s 12,000km road network is in a state of collapse, the head of the city’s road agency insists staff call him ‘Dr’ on the strength of an honorary doctorate which can be bought.

The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) has hired a CEO who claims a Harvard master’s degree that doesn’t exist and demands his staff call him ‘Dr’ Tshepo Mahanuke on the strength of an honorary doctorate you can buy for a small donation.

The JRA appointed Mahanuke in August after “diligent” checks and verification by an agency it won’t name. Republic Monakedi, the CEO Mahanuke replaced, was a twice-failed Limpopo municipal manager who quit as Johannesburg’s 12,000km road network went from bad to worse.

The city still has an average of 45,000 potholes at any one time, even after the private sector’s Pothole Patrol fixed more than 50,000 in the past 18 months. The number of potholes is calculated by resident reports and by JRA visual inspections. They are dangerous and cause accidents, especially in the rain. The Pothole Patrol has calculated R650-million in pothole damages to cars since it started counting.

“The status of the [road] network ranges from poor to very poor and requires rehabilitation or reconstruction,” according to the latest JRA quarterly report. The report says 68 city bridges need urgent repair.

Senior staff at the JRA have told Daily Maverick Mahanuke insists on being called ‘Dr’; in his resumé, he calls himself “Hon. Dr Tshepo Mahanuke”. If memorandums sent to him are not addressed to ‘Dr’, he sends them back, saying his academic qualifications are not being respected by staff. A source said he had been told to call him either ‘Dr’ or ‘Professor’.

Staff at the JRA are racking up sick leave as the workplace turns toxic: the latest report to the council shows staff have taken 1,910 sick-leave days compared with 1,530 annual leave days.

The JRA board said staff had not escalated the issues to them.

Mahanuke’s qualifications are either lies or overstated in the documents that got him a R3.5-million-a-year job for which he is wholly underqualified, a Daily Maverick investigation has found. The JRA says he must be given time to prove himself.

Here are the details:

Mahanuke’s December 2019 honorary doctorate from the Trinity International University of Ambassadors (TIUA) can be bought for a small “support honorarium”. Trinity, a poorly-ranked evangelical Christian university in the US, says “the expedient way of showing the world your knowledge, abilities, experience and talents is with your degree and use of your title”.

His resumé and CV also claim he has a master’s degree in “Competitive Intelligence” from ACI College, Harvard Business School. Harvard does not offer such a master’s degree and ACI (Academy for Competitive Intelligence) is a separate college.

At a farewell ahead of his appointment at the JRA, Mahanuke was also called ‘Professor’ — in December 2021, TIUA also conferred Mahanuke with the title of a professorship in “Business Intelligence and Strategic Alliance”.

His resumé says he received his “undergraduate engineering degree from the Vaal University of Technology (VUT)”, but it is, in fact, a diploma for a course to become an engineering technician. This is an under-qualification for the complex job of fixing the country’s largest city road network.
Read more here - https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... snt-exist/

When my father remarried, he came out to South Africa with his new English wife, where she went on about how good the roads in Johannesburg were, and it's true that they were very good back in those days, not just by low African standards but by 1st world standards too, well planned, well graded, constructed and maintained, but now like the electrical grid nationally, they suffer from lack of planning and maintenance, management incompetence, theft, and decay. They have become another metaphor for the failure of the regime now in place.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Only in Effrika

#159 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Nov 17, 2022 9:25 pm

South Africa's beloved koeksuster has turned on her own language! Ag pleez Charlene!
Charlize Theron has prompted anger in her native South Africa after suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch colonial settlers, is heading for oblivion.

“There’s about 44 people still speaking it … it’s definitely a dying language, it’s not a very helpful language,” the 47-year-old Oscar-winning actor said this week on a US podcast, Smartless.

Her comments prompted some South Africans to speak out in defence of Afrikaans, which is one of 11 official languages in South Africa and is commonly used by around 12% of the population of nearly 60 million.

Laws imposing Afrikaans played a role in the oppression of black citizens during the apartheid era, and the language remains controversial in some sectors of society today.

A lawmaker from the opposition radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party tweeted in support of Theron’s remarks, but the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus), a small rightwing and predominantly white Afrikaner party, said she was misguided. “She is not up to date with what is going on in her country of birth,” it said.

Jawaahier Petersen, an actor in a long-running Afrikaans-language soap opera in South Africa, told News24: “I wouldn’t say that the language is dying. I think we are in a beautiful place in our country now where there is so much inclusivity for the diversity of Afrikaans and the roots of Afrikaans. Varied roots of Afrikaans. It’s almost like we have rebirth of Afrikaans.”

Theron was born in Benoni, a suburb 40km (25 miles) east of Johannesburg, and moved to the US almost 30 years ago.

She said she didn’t speak English until she was 19 because “nobody” in her predominantly Afrikaans neighbourhood spoke it.

Afrikaans, a mixture of old Dutch spoken by settlers who began to arrive in South Africa in the mid-17th century, some French and local languages spoken well before the colonial era.

Its complex history in South Africa has sparked debate as to whether it should be considered an indigenous or imported language, though it is the country’s third most spoken language after Zulu, which is used by about 25% of the population, and Xhosa, spoken by nearly 15%, according to official statistics.

In 2020, a court overturned a decision by one of South Africa’s largest universities, the University of South Africa (Unisa), to abolish classes taught in Afrikaans.

During widespread unrest in South Africa in 2021, Theron described her native land as “extraordinary in so many ways – diverse, resourceful, proud, accomplished, and so incredibly strong”.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

User avatar
Ex-Ascot
Test Pilot
Test Pilot
Posts: 13095
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:16 am
Location: Botswana but sometimes Greece
Gender:
Age: 68

Re: Only in Effrika

#160 Post by Ex-Ascot » Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:56 am

Most reflectives here speak Afrikaans. We hear it all the time.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

Post Reply