+Like a neglected child
May 16th, 2010
April’s been an interesting month. I was preoccupied with a couple of kite trips, mostly to Essex Kite Park which I’ve grown very fond of and also where I managed to hurt my ankle putting me out of action for what was thankfully only a couple of weeks.
The rest of my efforts have been spent on understanding Buddypress & some of it’s non MU template quirks, making a couple of videos and getting our little kite club / London Kite Boarding Group : the Westfellas up and running.
I’d like to apologise for not having a May 2010 Calendar ready to the folks that asked for them and who enjoyed the previous caledars and will do my best not to let it happen again.
Below are videos and some pics from the past 7 weeks 
Meet the Fellas:
Floyd, more like Yoda:
Floyd at Essex kitepark from Casinovision on Vimeo.
Tags: buddypress, essex boys, essex kite park, floyd, kite tricks, kite video, westfellas; london kite park
Posted in Am I the only one? | No Comments »
+April Desktop Calendar
March 31st, 2010
+Free “Kite Faeries” Desktop Calendar for April 2010
You become what you fly
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I spotted these mythical creatures during a visit to Sandwich bay earlier in the month.
It’s been a much better month for flying and I’m delighted to report that we managed to get our wings out & enough trips to sustain the hurting muscles from week to week. Although it’s snowing again, the time’s been moved forward and I can feel good sessions coming on. Fly safe, stay gang*
Tags: april fools, calendar, free desktop, kite faeries, kite surfing, kite surfing sandwich bay, lei, nort rhino, sandwich bay
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+It’s the little things
March 26th, 2010
Yet again the heavens opened up her bladder over my journey home yesterday and I arrived home, miserable, wet and suffering from non-kiting withdrawal like nobody’s business.
When I cycled to work today and I felt the wind, I felt a gothlike self pity and contemplated an impulse purchase of a long jacket and heavy polio unfriendly boots. That feeling worsened when Andy sent me a message that he’s got an early work day and heading to the park to fly with Leo and Claudio. The bastards.
I got so angry my I forgot to feel sorry for myself and headed for the park during my lunch, taking my work’s Canon Ixus 60 point and shoot camera with me.
I figured I’d cycle to the park and have a look to get my junkie fix in like a porn addict.
Claudio must’ve sensed the longing because he kindly offered me his kite, a Peter Lynn Phantom 12m after I put Leo’s harness on ( without asking him (thanks Leo) ). I was elated regardless of the crazy gusts. Everybody was excited whilst Andy and Leo called each other pussy’s for not flying Leo’s new Peter Lynn Venom II 13. Apparently they hit some gusts and got lofted insanely high. Sounds like his kite needs some tweaking or we may all end up a bit nancy.
Cycling back to work, I marvelled at the trivial impulsive things that makes living a whole lot easier.
Thanks Leo, Claudio and Andy, it was marvelous fun!
Tags: Andy ironman, claudio, depower, gunnersbury park, gusty wind, kite jumps, Leo, Lunch, Peter Lynn, the Westfellas, westfellas
Posted in Kiting | No Comments »
+Die Antwoord
March 16th, 2010
Ninja, front man for Die Antwoord
For me, the only music worth buying is South-African music.
Being an artist in SA is no easy task particularly if you are a musician. I always got the impression that other people would look down on them as if to ask “when are you going to grow up and get a real job?” Thanks to Die Antwoord, that’s about to change.
I spotted them back when foOninjas was still up and even posted their ring tune for “enter the ninja” courtesy of the crazy guys over at www.watkykjy.co.za, not that I want to pull in on the whole “I told you they’d be big” thing, but if you don’t believe me, ask my dad who copied all their songs from me last December during my exile in South-Africa
It was with some shock that I discovered this weekend that Ninja used to be Max Normal. I say shock because I’ve owned (and I have to add the word legitimately here) some of his albums, hell, I even bought some of the tracks off the The Fantastic Kill album on Rhythm records when he was known as Watkin Tudor Jones and never even once suspected that Ninja was Max and Max was Ninja. The styles, beats, lyrics and the intelligence that went into his older works are in a league of their own and clearly shows that the man was ahead of his time. Not that the music from Die Antwoord is inferior, it just has a rawness to it and an angry violence that doesn’t really let up. It’s also understandable that so many South-Africans are appalled by their success with their generally high judgemental disposition. An English friend commented that their videos are bad to watch, the kind of bad you experience when you watch car accidents on youtube where you don’t want to watch but can’t stop yourself. He may have something there since they just pushed over the 2.3 million views mark, a fucking far stretch from the 700k views the last time I saw their Enter the Ninja Video.
For what it’s worth, I’m a fan of Ninja and Yo-landie Visser. They’ve come a damn long way and they are more deserving than the shit people are forced to listen to in South-Africa, more so since they were signed this week with interscope. If I had it my way, they would sign the rock legends Fokofpolisiekar too.
Die Antwoord Featuring progeria survivor Leon Botha
I don’t care if people say it’s all a show, the guy clearly submerges himself into what he does. If that isn’t passion I do not know what is. If you haven’t checked out their Flex on the interweb, what are you doing hanging around here for?
- 19/03/2010 My friend Jester Thump just told me about this little gem filmed pre-Ninja:
and this one that’s slightly prophetic
Tags: $O$, die antwoord, enter the ninja, interscope, max norma, ninja, progeria, the answer, watkin tudor jones, yo-landi visser, zef side
Posted in Say what?!? | 1 Comment »
+March Desktop Calendar
March 4th, 2010
+Free “Wet Venom” Desktop Calendar for March 2010
Wet Kites are shiny kites too
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To set it as your monitor back ground, click on the link and once it’s loaded, right click your mouse and choose ” Set as desktop background “
It’s been a wet and stupid month. I’ve gone out to kite every Saturday in February and even the first one in March. On two occasions, it rained ( no thanks to the fools at Metoffice who said it wouldn’t ) and I got soaked to the bone. There were brief moments when the sun would peek out to mock me when I’d quickly launch to dry my beautifully wet like a shimmering oily pornstar 16m Peter Lynn VenomII baby in the chilly London skies. Oh how I long for the spring to arrive!
Tags: gunnersbury park, London kite flying, peter lynn venom II 16m, westfellas, winter kite
Posted in Desktop Calendar | No Comments »
+Swansea love story
February 18th, 2010
This thing made me think of a documentary I saw last year that had me in tears and I’m not talking about Borat tears here.
This thing makes me appreciate lot’s of other things…..
Watch it
Tags: drug addicts, heroin, swansea, vbs, wales
Posted in Say what?!? | No Comments »
+Feb2010 Calendar
January 22nd, 2010
+Free “spidey made me pee” Desktop Calendar for February 2010
This guy made me pee when I chopped wood and touched it
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To save it as your monitor back ground, right click your mouse and choose ” Set as desktop background “
Tags: february 2010 calendar, free calendar, free desktop, spider
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+Easy Exile
January 22nd, 2010
Doug came to visit with his pet Burmese Python
The awesome thing about leaving your own country is that you can reinvent yourself thanks to the anonymity the new country provides. I think this was one of the best things I liked about living in the UK because, where I live in SA, people know me and worse yet, they know about me. The bad thing about this is that it makes it bloody hard for you to change yourself because people naturally want other people to fail. I think this is why the human race is such a successful species.
Hang on, I wanted to make a quick post about going back to the UK.
Her Majesty’s Home Office has deemed me fit to return and I’ll be heading for the Mud Island this coming Wednesday the 27th of January. I’ll lie if I said I didn’t enjoy my stay in South-Africa, even if all my time spent this month has been to catch up with friends, family and sorting out loads of crap that’s accumulated the past three and a half years in my absence. Highlights have certainly been trivial things like breaking all kinds of minor traffic laws thanks to the great lack of enforcement people enjoy in this country, being constipated from the masses of meat my diet consisted of, spending time with my Dads, the awesome weather and playing with our dogs every day.
Right, I’m off to sort more shit and see more friends whom I’ve neglected in my exile, then I’m heading back home, to the UK………
Stephan came to visit with his beautiful daughter
Tags: constipation, exile, head office, i love the queen, law enforecment
Posted in South-Africa 2010 | 1 Comment »
+Freestate Dad
January 15th, 2010
My wife and I went to visit my Dad last weekend, something I’ve been looking forward to for over 3 years.
His treat was to take us to a place close to Lesoto called Clarens a little art village surrounded by Massive sandstone mountains. It was magical and we spent our time catching up, exploring gallery’s taking a multitude of photographs, gorging herds of meat and relaxing incredibly hard at the Maluti Mountian Lodge.
Clarens is the kind of place that makes you believe you can be an artist and the nearby Golden Gate mountains laugh at you for thinking you are so significant in the great scheme of things.
It’s not all art and inner reflection though, I spotted a little bike shop lacking a sign as we went to stock up on a couple of beers. The only reason I spotted it was because there was a bike with a funk ass retro colour design in the doorway, half sticking out. I popped in and immediately liked Andy who was mulling deep in concentration over a bike design or something other. The shop is called Redneck Customs and they even hire out low pro Cruiser bicycles. You can call Andy on 0027 824736545 or email him: andycaveclarens@gmail.com. There are loads to do in Clarens besides being an Art browser or Bike poser, like Flyfishing, Rock painting, River rafting, Horse Riding, Quad biking, Paintballing and Hot air balooning.
If you visit South-Africa for the 2010 Football I strongly suggest you take a detour to Clarens, that is, if the deep potholes on your way there don’t kill you first.
Tags: art gallery, bike trip, clarens, Drakensberg, Goldengate, Hot air balooning, Lesoto, Marlutti Mountain lodge, paintballing, ramble, Redneck Customs, Sasolburg, Vaalpark
Posted in South-Africa 2010 | No Comments »
+Cat murder
January 8th, 2010
Sunset in the African bushveld
I made it to SA and had 4 hours sleep when my step Dad woke me to propose we hit the bushveld for 3 days. Usually that’s not an issue for me, but having 6 parents makes things tricky, particularly if you haven’t seen them for over 3 and a half years. I figured I needed to debrief from the UK so I went a long and we headed for Naboomspruit, named after it’s abundance of highly poisonous and interesting Naboom tree in the Northern parts of South-Africa. It was gloriously warm with temperatures pushing past 30 degrees celcius every day. The heat didn’t deter the wild animals we saw in the neighboring camp and I hold a fond memory of my Step dad driving with his 4×4 Nissan Sani through the bush with a full glass of whiskey and spilling it all over himself as he navigated the bush roads.
The potholes on the roads here are larger than I remembered them and we narrowly avoided a collision with oncoming traffic trying to dodge a cauldron sized pothole. I think this is why it seems like 80% of road users own 4×4’s. Other things I’ve noticed is the huge gap that exists between those that have and those that don’t have, something I grew immune to before I left for the UK. It’s heart breaking and frankly, I’d be a criminal too if I had to live like some of the South-African people are forced to live here.
3 days ago, I went walking with my Mother in-laws dogs on their small holding and got a fright when one of the larger dogs, Ntsiki, sped away in a madden frenzy after something towards the shed. I now know the full extent of the term “ape-shit” when I saw Ntsiki trying to make her way towards the back of a fully packed shed after the creature. All her attention was directed towards a half full lawnmower bucket and I was forced to watch from the side of the shed through the wired fence. In the crazy 10 seconds that followed I thought she was after a snake or a skunk as she repeatedly retreated and attacked with her head ducking in and out of the lawn mower bucket followed by some yelps of pain. When Ntsiki next pulled her head out, it had a furious cat attached to her face. At the time I thought it wasn’t so bad since it wasn’t a snake ( we’ve lost dogs to the popular Rinkhals snakes who seems to thrive in the area ) but a few seconds later the dogs stopped being crazy and I managed to get them out of the shed. Poor wild cat. Almost eaten in half as it gave it’s last nervous system convulsions.
I buried it close to one of my favorite dogs.
WARNING:
Some images in this gallery is not suitable for sensitive viewers
2 days later with the murdered wild cat still fresh in my mind I thought I imagined hearing kittens. Upon investigation (and a lot of work keeping the dogs at bay) I found 3 kittens barely 5 days old meeoing their tiny little heads off. Shame, poor things didn’t know the half of it I thought as I organized some straws and reduced milk to force feed them and nurture them. If I had tits, I’d have gladly let them suckle on them. The next day, I took them to the SPCA for fear that the dogs would eventually chow them too if my in-laws were to keep them, something they considered because they were bloody beautiful and incredibly cute. I felt like a shit if I’m honest and the donation we gave didn’t do anything for the feeling of abandonment I was suffering but would you believe it, it turned out that they had a wild cat in the back that had 2 week old kittens running around like crazy. When the girl put the 3 orphans close to her, the rocketed like barracuda to her teets and went deadly silent as she let them suckle. I feel tears well up as I’m writing this and I’m thankful that I have never before been forced to deal with the issue of adoption.
This episode with the dog that killed the cat and her orphan kittens that got left behind brought up some strange reminders about my previous years in SA.
Ok, I’m off to see my Dad for the next 4 days and uber excited to learn that he is taking us to an art town nestled in the the Drakensberg mountains called Clarens. Bet your fur ball I’ll get some images for you
Pool side service is pretty good here
Tags: clarens, constantia, dog killed cat, gauteng, kittens, krugersdorp, mpumalanga, naboomspruit, oaktree, potholes, South-Africa 2010, wild cat
Posted in South-Africa 2010 | No Comments »