Ding Dong, ………………

“The witch is dead” ,this is a song from the wizard of oz that is climbing the British Pop charts to celebrate the demise of Baroness Margaret Thatcher who died this week and was given a State Funeral.  The following info from news 24.    

“London - Hundreds of opponents of Margaret Thatcher filled London's Trafalgar Square on Saturday evening for a rain-soaked celebration of the former British prime minister's death earlier this week.
Former coal miners involved in the year-long strike against the Iron Lady's government in the 1980's joined far-left activists and students to drink to the Iron Lady's demise.

An effigy of the former Conservative leader was carried through the crowd, complete with her trademark string of pearls, blouse and flowing hair made from orange plastic bags. There was a strong police presence for the demonstration, an informal gathering organised on social media sites.

Among the crowd were ex-miners from the north of England, who saw their communities devastated in a wave of pit closures under Thatcher's 11 years in power from 1979 to 1990”.

I am almost sure that the majority of the people that were celebrating her death are those hard working “stay at home” on the dole Poms. She was tough and she broke the Unions in the UK by not giving into their demands, I liked her because she stayed a friend of South Africa in the dark (pardon the pun) days…………………..RIP Mrs Thatcher.  

The Queen Mary 2 docked in PE harbour early on Monday morning and left that eve to continue her world cruise, didn't get a chance to pop down to the harbour but apparently crowds of people lined the beachfront to get a glimpse of her as she sailed towards Cape Town.  

went to the Legendary Book Club on Thursday night, its the local Harley club that is in PE and what a nice group of guys, i am a "friend" of the club at the moment and the members then decide at a later stage if i am worthy of becoming a full time member. the guy who's house the dop and a chop was at has a lekker garage that has a pub, its Harley decorated and he has a awesome bike in his lounge. 

gotta get a British passport to go to UK as its cheaper than getting an entitlement visa, even though i want to travel on my SA passport i am still entitled to a Pommie passport so i have to pay for the privilege,  makes more sense to get the passport than the visa and as i said its cheaper. will just have to swallow my pride and accept it.   

The Southern Kings continue to impress me as they beat the Melbourne Rebels 30/27 yesterday in Melbourne, the team is surprising many people, especially the ones that don’t want them to do well. I am going to the airport tonight to welcome them back from Australia, they say up to 1000 people will be at the airport, so it should be pretty cool, in local derbies the Stormers beat the Sharks 22/15  and the Bulls stopped the Cheetahs 5 game winning streak with a 26/20 victory at Loftus. We play the Bulls next weekend in what I am sure will be a full stadium.  

Today (Sunday 14^th) is the Iron man, so a large number of “super fit” people are doing a 3.8km swim, 180 km cycle and a 42 km run…………..me after I have done this Blog and gone over some prep work for training on Monday and Tuesday will watch “Iron Man” 

Enjoy your week

Ciao 

SPAD

The Japanese have arrived

Well the Japs invaded or attacked pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 and they have now after an extensive world tour arrived in PE on 5/4/2013.................”WTF  are you on about” i can hear you say, well it means it’s getting nippy here in the mornings and on Tuesday morning in particular that it was “Japanese” ................”A LITTLE NIPPY’  for those that don’t know Nip was the derogative name given to Japanese people in the 2^nd world war and stems from the word Nippon literally translated as “the state of the nation”. 

News from Clarens “and I don’t get much these days”  is that a local that arrived a couple of years ago is prone to gender violence and likes to beat the shit out of people, especially women. Seems that this idiot/clown/asshole is now not wanted in the village and a groundswell of “let’s get the twat out of town” is starting, so hopefully  they will achieve their goal. Good riddance to bad rubbish is all I can say.

Got a  book on ACDC  for my birthday and its “Frikken aesome” I have always loved the group but never gone into their history and I have found reading the book very informative, things like how songs came about, how they struggled to get into the business, how close they where as a family and that Angus Young who always looks like he is on “something” was not into alcohol or stronger substances. As one of their songs on the “High Voltage” album says “It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll”. The group also has a South African influence with SA born “Mutt Lange” having produced a few of their albums and perhaps being the one man that assisted in getting their sound to a level that the Americans would buy. I have  their first 11 albums (yes vinyl albums) and a number of CD’s. The first ACDC album I bought was ‘Back in Black” released after lead singer Bon Scott had died of alcohol poisoning. Its seen as  the definitive Heavy rock album and has sold over 40 million copies since its release in 1980/81. The only album that has sold more copies is “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.   

The  South African soldiers (paratroopers) who were attacked by the CAR rebels, and initially   they were seen to be kak  and had their asses kicked but new info shows that they did in fact do themselves as well as SA proud. (received the following info via e-mail).

“From just after 16h00 on Friday 22 March until about 21h00 o’clock on Sunday 24 March 200 South African soldiers fought a series of running battles outside Bangui in the Central African Republic against 3 000 or more well-armed opponents. And did so while the CAR Army (FACA) evaporated around them and the Peacekeeping Forces of the Central African Standby Brigade disappeared from the scene. That series of running battles cost 13 killed and 27 wounded, but the Force retained its cohesion and was able to fall back from two separate engagement areas to its Base and to hold it until their attackers gave up trying to overrun them and proposed a ceasefire and disengagement. By then the Rebels had suffered as many as 500 casualties, Based on estimates by Officers with considerable operational experience and estimated by a number of NGOs in the country.

In the process the soldiers fired off more than 12 000 rounds of 12.7 mm machine gun ammunition, 288 rockets from 107 mm Rocket Launchers and 800 bombs from 81 mm mortars, and thousands of rounds from 7.62 mm machine guns and 5.56 mm rifles. To put that in perspective: The British Army’s 3^rd  Parachute Battalion Battle Group of  1200 soldiers lost 15 killed and 46 wounded, and fired 479 000 rounds of ammunition  over six months in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2006, all the while supported  by light tanks, artillery, attack helicopters, Hercules gunships and fighters. And that is still today regarded as a hard-fought deployment.

This was one of the hardest-fought actions that the SA Army has experienced, and the soldiers fought well, even outstandingly. That is not only reflected in the fact that this small unit retained cohesion to the end of the action, but also in the casualties that it inflicted on its opponents: Such casualties that it was Seleka who proposed a ceasefire and disengagement. Their valour was underlined by the French Force at Bangui Airport when it held a formal Parade to bid farewell to those who died. South Africa has since withdrawn the bulk of its small in the Central African Republic following the fall of the CAR Government. The SA government had wanted to relieve the troops and deploy a stronger Force to stabilise the situation pending a decision by the African Union, but the French Government – whose troops control the only viable Airport – would not permit deployment of new Combat Forces lest it draw an attack on the Airport or on French citizens in Bangui.

Information from Uganda suggests that South Africa is, instead, deploying some Force  elements there and perhaps also to the DRC, to provide early action capability should  Seleka endanger the remaining South African troops in the country, or should the AU decide on a military intervention. There is no such thing as military operations on the cheap: What is saved in cash will be paid for in blood”.

This is how much the draw meant to the Kings

Super Rugby this weekend had many ex-Lions (bitter and twisted) supporters as well as a number of other assholes had said the kings would get their first hiding at the hand of the Brumbies this weekend, well not only did they not get a hiding they drew 28 all with the top team of the Super 15, not only that they put in 4 tries against them (no other team has done that this season). What a game, next week Rebels then they are back home to play the Bulls here in PE on the 20^th. The Sharks season was back on track with a 21/17 win against the Crusaders and the Cheetahs season just gets better with a 5^th straight win as they narrowly beat the Stormers 26/24. The Bulls had a bye this weekend.

The Queen Mary 2 arrives in PE tomorrow, hopefully will be able to sneak away and get a photo.

Next week the Iron man hits PE a large number of super fit men and women who do a 3.8 km swim, 180 km cycle ride and a 42 km run, I have tried to train but never seem to have enough time on my hands so what I did was combine the 3 disciplines so that as I come back from work I can get triple amount the training, I have also watched Iron man videos this last week to ensure that I am suitably psyched up for  the event.  

Well that’s it for this week

CIAO

SPAD

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