On this page you'll find links to my blogs - random observations, rants, raves, complaints and sundry other drivel. Click on the date to read the full text of each blog. Please send all feedback (positive and negative) to PKilfoil@Hotmail.com.

Date	Subject	Contents  RSS Feed
4 Nov 2019	Rugby World Champions ... again	South Africa won the Rugby World Cup for the third time in November 2019, somehow reversing several years of mediocrity and embarrassing defeats ..... more
25 Sep 2019	Truth Coffee ... Part 2	I visited the coffee shop in Cape Town that has been labelled "the best in the world" and found it to be no more than adequate ..... more
19 Sep 2019	The USA tries to buy Greenland	Donald Trump has suggested that the USA buys the mineral and resource-rich island of Greenland from Denmark. He said that it would be nothing more than a "large real estate deal" ..... more
6 Sep 2019	The Big Tree in Namibia	An off-road excursion through the remote desert of north-eastern Namibia resulted in a magical overnight camping experience under the biggest baobab tree I've ever seen ..... more
4 Sep 2019	SQL Server "identity" columns	I discovered recently that SQL Server "identity" columns are not always guaranteed to have either unique or sequential values ..... more
28 Aug 2019	The Pantry in Tokai	The Pantry is a welcome addition to the mix of tenants at Tokai Junction, a shopping centre in Cape Town's south peninsula which has not had a coffee shop for several years now ..... more
7 May 2019	The End of Google+	In December 2018 Google announced that they were shutting down Google Plus, the second iteration of their attempt to gain a foothold in the social network market. Google's first social media effort, Google Buzz, was a dismal failure and now Google+ has followed in its footsteps ..... more
11 Apr 2019	Peak Connect Cafe	Peak Academy, a private study resource centre dedicated to assisting students prepare for their Cambridge International Assessment Examinations, renovated a run-down building in Fish Hoek. A hip and trendy coffee shop has opened on the ground floor ..... more
28 Feb 2019	The Girl on the Train	The Girl on the Train, a debut novel by British journalist Paula Hawkins, was a huge global success when it was published in January 2015. But the main characters are dismal and the style is so unusual that I found it difficult to read ..... more
30 Dec 2018	Morgan's Coffee & Deli	If you're in Table View (a beachfront suburb of Cape Town in South Africa) you won't be disappointed with the coffee at Morgan's Coffee & Deli ..... more
28 Dec 2018	Worldwide Turmoil in 2018	As 2018 draws to a close it appears that the human race is determined to remain in a state of conflict and turmoil ..... more
15 Dec 2018	Appalling Service in Barcelona	My wife and I were put through a two hour ordeal before finally getting into the Barcelona guest house that we'd booked into. The automated system to open the front door remotely proved to be an abject failure and the guest house owners weren't very interested in helping ..... more
14 Dec 2018	Microsoft Edge bites the dust	Microsoft announced that it was throwing in the towel with regard to its Edge web browser and capitulating to the monolithic Google bulldozer, meaning that the ONLY independent web browser available for the Windows platform will be Mozilla Firefox ..... more
13 Dec 2018	Finally Getting Published	One of my earliest childhood memories is of wanting to become an author. I never achieved this goal, but I did finally get a few stories published in a book, albeit one that was self-funded ..... more
14 Oct 2018	Brownies & Downies Cafe	This coffee shop in Cape Town's city centre serves excellent coffee, but does not seem to understand that you have to be fast and efficient early in the morning, otherwise commuters and business people in a hurry will simply go elsewhere ..... more
29 Aug 2018	One Hundred Blog Posts	I have reached the milestone of 100 posts since I started writing blogs back in February 2010. But despite over eight years of effort I am way, WAY down any search engine's results list ..... more
23 Aug 2018	Lee Child's fictional hero Jack Reacher	The 2012 movie "Jack Reacher" (starring Tom Cruise) was based on a character created by author Lee Child. I recently read the first Jack Reacher novel (Killing Floor, originally published in 1997) and enjoyed it, but there were a few things about Child's writing style that irritated me ..... more
22 May 2018	The Camino de Santiago	The Camino de Santiago refers to the multitude of walking trails in Europe that all end at the cathedral of St James in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. My wife and I will be embarking on this journey at the end of May 2018 ..... more
19 May 2018	De Villiers Chocolate Cafe	De Villiers Chocolate Cafe in Franschhoek roasts its own coffee and produces its own chocolate from GMO-free fair trade African beans, which sets it apart from the multitude of other coffee shops in this tourist-oriented town ..... more
15 May 2018	High Altitude Trauma	The potentially lethal hazards of high altitude for climbers and trekkers are well documented, but people die every year because they ignore a few simple guidelines ..... more
6 May 2018	The Theory of Everything	Generations of mathematicians and physicists have tried to find a Theory of Everything that resolves the discrepancies between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. But nobody has succeeded and this remains the biggest single unsolved problem in the world of physics ..... more
28 Dec 2017	Police Incompetence in the USA	Way back in 1995 while I was travelling round the USA my rental car was broken into at Venice Beach in California. The story of my dealings with the Los Angeles Police Department over the course of the next ten days makes depressing reading ..... more
22 Oct 2017	Fantastic Web Hosting	Absolute Hosting provide web hosting that is both incredibly fast and incredibly cheap, and after several years of managing web sites at various hosting providers I no longer look anywhere else ..... more
6 Oct 2017	Coffee-Chocolate decadence	Shift Espresso Bar in Green Point offers some amazing speciality coffees, including one that contains Lindt chocolate and whipped cream. You can also get Black Insomnia there, the world's strongest coffee ..... more
5 Oct 2017	Sport, surf and coffee, bru	A surf shop in Fish Hoek recently bashed down two corner walls of their store and built a coffee shop there, aptly called Pull In Brew ..... more
4 Oct 2017	Lavazza in the middle of nowhere	It's odd how you sometimes find outstanding coffee when you least expect it (and, conversely, get rubbish when you think it's bound to be good). My wife and I experienced this recently at a dusty roadside diner in the desolate Eastern Cape interior ..... more
22 Jul 2017	The best coffee in the world?	Steytlerville is an isolated town in South Africa's barren Eastern Cape interior, yet it has a coffee shop proclaiming to serve "the best coffee in the world". That claim is unfortunately not true, but behind the shop are some surprizing finds ..... more
17 Jul 2017	Grahamstown Arts Festival	The 2017 South African National Arts Festival in Grahamstown was the 43'th staging of this annual cultural event, the largest festival of performing arts in Africa ..... more
21 May 2017	Books, books and more books	Despite predictions to the contrary, more books than ever before are being published. And because it has become so easy to have your own book published, more and more aspiring authors are self-publishing their work ..... more
8 May 2017	Football, parkrun, weekend in the city	I went to a Cape Town City match at the Cape Town Stadium on a Friday night then stayed the night in a guest house nearby. Next morning I did the Green Point parkrun ..... more
9 Apr 2017	Century on debut ... then failure	It is an odd statistical quirk of the game of cricket that many of the batsmen who score a century on their Test debut (a rare achievement, suggesting a player of unusual quality) then spiral downwards into mediocrity ..... more
4 Mar 2017	Stag Coffee Company	Fish Hoek, a sleepy seaside suburb of Cape Town, has been made immeasurably more interesting by the appearance of Stag Coffee Company in the centre of town ..... more
28 Feb 2017	A coffee roastery in Worcester	A surprizing find in the rather dull Boland town of Worcester is a cafe that roasts its own coffee ..... more
31 Dec 2016	SQL data paging made simple	Up until a few years ago it was quite a lot of work to implement "paging" on a web page that displayed a long list of data. But thanks to a small addition to the syntax of the SQL select statement this problem is now easily and simply solved ..... more
19 Dec 2016	160 not out, team total 169	In an U-19 Girls' cricket match in South Africa, one batsman scored 160 runs out of the innings total of 169, and the remaining 9 runs were extras! Not one of the other other batsmen managed to score a single run ..... more
14 Dec 2016	Terrible coffee in Nepal	Nepal is a fabulous country, with friendly people, great food and stupendous scenery, but finding a really good cup of coffee is quite difficult. Tea is the beverage of choice across most of Asia ..... more
12 Dec 2016	The worst Springboks ever	In 2016 South Africa had their worst ever season of international rugby, losing eight out of twelve test matches and dropping to sixth place on the world rugby rankings ..... more
4 Dec 2016	Cape Town City Football Club	Cape Town City, a professional football club that was dissolved in 1979, miraculously reappeared on the South African football scene in 2016. Even more remarkable has been the club's run of success in the Premier Soccer League ..... more
28 Jun 2016	Iceland defeats England	At the European Championship Finals in 2016, England were beaten by Iceland, a country with a population of less than half a million and only about 15 000 footballers in total. This result continued England's spectacular under-achievement at major football tournaments since 1966 ..... more
13 May 2016	The Hoek Espresso Bar	The Hoek is a specialist coffee shop in Franschhoek, away from the bustle of the over-priced gourmet restaurants in this tourist-oriented town's Main Road ..... more
3 May 2016	Fairy Tale Endings	Leicester City, a little-known English football club that usually either fights for survival or gets relegated, won the 2016 Premier League title in the most astonishingly unlikely of circumstances. Bookmakers had quoted them as 5000 to 1 outsiders at the start of the season ..... more
15 Mar 2016	Coffee at Cooked	Cooked is a simple and unpretentious restaurant in Cape Town's V&A Waterfront, but it serves excellent coffee using their own unique blend of beans roasted locally to their specification ..... more
14 Mar 2016	Chet Sainsbury, RIP	Chet Sainsbury, a legendary figure in the world of running in South Africa, died in February 2016 after a long battle with cancer. He will be remembered as the man who turned the Two Oceans Marathon into the world-class event it is today ..... more
7 Mar 2016	Bootlegger Coffee	I first came across "Bootlegger" coffee when I visited Ou Meul Bakery in Cape Town and enjoyed it immensely. Now they have opened a store in Kalk Bay, serving excellent coffee in a fabulous location ..... more
11 Feb 2016	Rodriguez ... Unknown musical genius	Sixto Rodriguez was an American singer and songwriter who performed in small neighbourhood bars in Detroit in the 1970's. He produced two albums, both of which disappeared without trace in the USA. His lack of success meant that he had to give up his musical career, but unknown to him he commanded a huge following in South Africa ..... more
6 Dec 2015	Coffee at Shoprite/Checkers	The new Checkers supermarket that recently opened near where I live has an in-store restaurant, and not just a counter for quick takeaways but a reasonably-sized area with tables and chairs. All manner of freshly-cooked food is served there, from muffins and croissants to hamburgers and fish and chips ..... more
30 Nov 2015	Self-Belief claptrap	What is it with all these Self Help gurus who proclaim that anybody can achieve absolutely anything they want to, provide they believe in themselves and work hard enough? How often have I shaken my head in amazement at the absurdity of statements like "The world is your oyster - you can do anything you want to do"? ..... more
29 Nov 2015	Africa's greenest hotel	Hotel Verde in Cape Town bills itself as "Africa's greenest hotel" and truly does live up to this claim. This amazing hotel is located adjacent to Cape Town International Airport, in the grim and dusty industrial zone that always seems to exist next to major airports, a most unlikely place for such a forward-thinking enterprise ..... more
31 Aug 2015	Cricket world upside down	What on earth has happened to the traditional and predictable order of international cricket? We are used to Bangladesh and Zimbabwe being hammered, Australia bullying everybody in sight and India arrogantly demanding that they get their own way. But of late the cricket world has been in a state of turmoil ..... more
13 Jul 2015	Cape Town's severe traffic problems	Cape Town is South Africa's most congested city traffic-wise, and the third most congested city in Africa - only Cairo in Egypt and Nairobi in Kenya are worse. One would have thought that Johannesburg would have the biggest traffic problems in South Africa, but ..... more
12 Jun 2015	Lost ship reappears ... after 90 years	I came across a story about a ship that had disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean nearly 90 years ago and was recently "found" in the sea off the coast of Cuba, unmanned and simply floating. But all is not what it seems ..... more
11 May 2015	Great coffee ... at Wimpy!	You find the nicest coffee in the most unlikely of places and when you least expect it. This happened to me recently when I paid a visit to Wimpy, that venerable old South African restaurant institution known for its red vinyl seats, plastic tables and awful coffee ..... more
1 Apr 2015	London to New York by TRAIN?	No, it's not an April Fool's joke ... In March 2015 a Russian plan to build a high speed railway from London to New York via Moscow, a bridge over the Bering Strait to Alaska and then through the frozen wastes of Canada was announced ..... more
27 Mar 2015	Blown Away by Books	Four public libraries in the south peninsula of Cape Town recently organized a book festival. It comprised writing workshops, panel discussions by authors, talks by publishers and poetry readings, all free and open to absolutely everybody. The intention was to promote reading, writing and literacy in this fast-paced era of technology, social media and fleeting attention spans ..... more
22 Feb 2015	Five Years of Blogging	I started this blog exactly five years ago - my first entry was a comment on the excellent service provided by Loot Online, a shopping web site based in Cape Town, South Africa. Since then I have published a further 60 blogs and have managed to keep to my commitment of 12 entries a year ..... more
25 Jan 2015	Paradise in Nature's Valley	The tiny, unspoilt village of Nature's Valley in the Western Cape has absolutely everything - kilometres of sandy beaches, a gently-flowing river that opens up into a shallow lagoon, lush sub-tropical vegetation, a mild and balmy climate and none of the crass and tasteless property development that you see in places like Plettenberg Bay ..... more
19 Jan 2015	Peregrine Farm Stall near Grabouw	Peregrine Farm Stall, next to the N2 national road in the Western Cape, has been a firm favourite of travellers since the 1960's. Although the coffee shop was completely destroyed in a fire in May 2014, it has now re-opened in a bright and stylish new building ..... more
2 Jan 2015	From 9 for 6 to 186 all out	In Victoria's second innings against New South Wales in Australia's premier cricket competition, the score was at one stage 9 runs for 6 wickets. The scores of the top seven batsmen were 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 9, 0 before Glenn Maxwell blasted a century at more than a run a ball ..... more
30 Dec 2014	A Year of Highs and Lows	2014 was a year of disasters (for example, the Ebola crisis and the loss of four commercial aircraft with no survivors) and great successes (for example, the landing of a probe on the surface of a comet millions of kilometres from Earth) ..... more
7 Dec 2014	A Trilogy in FOUR Parts	The Hunger Games is a series of three books, the first two of which were released as separate movies in 2012 and 2013. Both were a massive success ; the third book was then split up into TWO (or perhaps more) movies in order to maximise the money-making opportunity of a series that had proved itself a box-office winner ..... more
28 Nov 2014	Microsoft announces Windows 10	Microsoft recently announced that the next version of their flagship operating system would be called "Windows 10". That immediately sounded odd, because the current version of Windows is 8.1 so one would logically expect the next release to be Windows 9 ..... more
29 Oct 2014	25 Years of the World Wide Web	2014 marks Twenty Five Years since the advent of the Internet. The world has changed almost beyond recognition in that time ..... more
30 Sep 2014	What would Tim Noakes say?	The culinary buzzword of 2014 has become "What would Tim Noakes say?" These days you hear this phrase spoken everywhere - in restaurants, coffee shops, supermarkets and at dinner parties. Never before can I recall a theory about nutrition and eating to become so popular ..... more
25 Sep 2014	Registry Cleaning ... yes or no?	It is often said that computers running Microsoft Windows should have the Registry cleaned out every now and then. But is this good advice? Well, the current view is a definite NO - you are more likely to cause damage than effect any major improvement ..... more
13 May 2014	Park Running	Park Running is the concept of free, timed runs over a standard distance of five kilometres in various public open spaces (parks, green belts, beaches, recreation areas, etc). There would be no cost or entrance criteria whatsover - anybody, young or old, fit or otherwise, could participate ; walkers, dogs and people with prams would also be encouraged to take part ..... more
14 Apr 2014	Liverpool Football Club	Liverpool Football Club dominated British and European football in the 1970's and 1980's, but since 1990 their cabinet has been bare of major trophies (apart from a somewhat unexpected European Champions League victory in 2005). Now they are in sight of their first English Premier League title in 24 years ..... more
12 Apr 2014	Ou Meul Bakery	Ou Meul Bakery in Riviersonderend has long been a favourite of travellers plying the route between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Serving delicious home-made pies and pastries, this convenient roadside stop has fuelled generations of weary drivers and cantankerous children. Now the owners have opened a branch in Cape Town's city centre ..... more
23 Mar 2014	The Food Lover's Market	The Food Lover's Market is a chain of fresh food stores in South Africa. I'd previously enjoyed excellent coffee at the store in Cape Town's city centre, so when I was in Claremont recently and looking for a good cup of coffee I had no hesitation in turning my back on the pretentious restaurants in Cavendish Square ..... more
8 Mar 2014	How Travelling has Changed	Since my first travels in 1987, the world has changed almost unimaginably. Getting around foreign countries is now so much easier than it used to be ..... more
9 Jan 2014	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Stieg Larsson was a relatively unknown Swedish journalist and photographer who died suddenly in 2004 after climbing a flight of stairs. After his death a set of three manuscripts that he had written at home were published, each of which became a runaway bestseller ..... more
19 Dec 2013	Slip Slops Kitchen-Bar	The south-western corner of the little cluster of shops on Noordhoek's Beach Road has a superb view of Noordhoek Beach and the sea and is now home to Slip Slops Kitchen-Bar, a welcome new addition to the South Peninsula restaurant scene. The place has a relaxed, beach-bar style ..... more
17 Nov 2013	The (Relatively) Quantum Universe	Our perception of the world is based on our very limited experiences in everyday life, but at a fundamental level that is not how the universe works. You can choose from two versions of reality : Relativity (describing the behaviour of objects at extreme speed or extreme gravity or both) or Quantum Mechanics (describing the behaviour of microscopically-sized objects such as atoms) ..... more
12 Oct 2013	The mathematics of standard paper sizes	Much of mathematics is arcane and theoretical, way beyond the grasp of the average person, but you would be surprized to discover how many things in everyday life came about because of the application of mathematics. Take the humble A4 sheet of paper for example ..... more
5 Oct 2013	Voyager 1 enters Interstellar Space	In September 2013 NASA announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft had become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. Many news reports incorrectly stated that the ship had left the Solar System - unfortunately that won't happen for another 30 thousand years or so ..... more
11 Sep 2013	Train station for sale	Fancy buying a disused train station? Well, you can - Brompton Road underground station in central London is for sale. Closed in 1934 and used by the military as a command centre until the early 1950's, it has been locked up and abandoned for 60 years ..... more
30 Aug 2013	Fortran ... still in use today!	I was asked the other day to do some work on a suite of programs that were written in Fortran. Yes, you read right, Fortran - the very first "high level programming language" ever devised and which is still alive and well and kicking in the 21'st century ..... more
22 Jul 2013	Honeybun Deli in Observatory	Observatory is an inner-city suburb of Cape Town, a Bohemian sort of place with old, dilapidated buildings, narrow streets and a general air of decrepitude. Students, Rastafarians, refugees and backpackers on a tight budget crowd the sidewalks and cars jostle for space in the congested streets ..... more
12 Jul 2013	Chrome vs Firefox, the Version War	Remember the days when new versions of PC software came out about once a year, and new releases were given version numbers like 2.1.06? Google's entrance into the mainstream PC market with their Chrome web browser has radically changed that - in the five years since it was first released, Chrome is already on version 28 ..... more
7 Jul 2013	Edward Snowden : Hero or Traitor?	Edward Snowden, an employee of the United States National Security Agency, went public with details of the agency's illegal clandestine activities. He was branded a traitor by the US government and has been on the run ever since. But Snowden's evidence of large-scale surveillance by the NSA of almost every aspect of American life (emails, phone calls, internet activity, etc) is so compelling and convincing ..... more
24 May 2013	Unbelievably cheap coffee	A restaurant in Stellenbosch has filter coffee on their menu for only seven Rand a cup ; refills cost only three Rand. In May 2013 that seems scarcely credible ..... more
6 May 2013	General Relativity passes another test	Observations of a pair of tightly-orbiting stars have been able to provide further evidence for the existence of gravitational waves, one of the hitherto undetected predictions of Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. A neutron star and a white dwarf 7000 light years away ..... more
5 May 2013	La Sal Cafe in Fish Hoek	A new restaurant recently opened in Main Road, Fish Hoek. It is called La Sal (Spanish for "The Salt") and boasts the somewhat intriguing signage "The Salt of Life" and "Meet. Eat. Drink". The interior is light and airy ..... more
4 May 2013	Sun Valley Eco Watch (SVEW)	I live in a suburb of Cape Town in South Africa that is surrounded by a fantastic natural environment, including mountains, oceans, dunes, rivers and wetlands. Unfortunately the area has become degraded due to urban sprawl - rivers are polluted, public open spaces such as parks are full of litter and graffiti is making its ominous presence felt ..... more
3 Mar 2013	Julius Malema : Hero, Villain or Joke?	For several years Julius Malema headed up the official youth wing of South Africa's governing party (the ANC Youth League), a period best described as "shambolic". Malema was fond of appearing at meetings in semi-military garb, complete with beret, although he never served in any armed force in any capacity whatsoever ..... more
20 Feb 2013	Two massive meteors ... on the SAME day	Some time ago NASA announced that a 46-metre wide asteroid was heading for the Earth and at its closest approach would pass by within 27 000 kilometres of us. In cosmic terms that is too close for comfort - satellites that are in geosynchronous orbit round the Earth are further away than that! The Moon is ..... more
5 Feb 2013	Century on debut ... batting at number 10	Cricket is the strangest game on the planet. It could only have been invented by the British, and was spread to the far-flung corners of the Empire where the phrase "mad dogs and Englishmen out in the midday sun" was entirely appropriate. Cricket also throws up odd coincidences that defy explanation ..... more
18 Jan 2013	Bafana Bafana play in Cape Town	In January 2013 South Africa played a friendly football international against Norway in Cape Town, only the second time that the national team has played in the Mother City since Cape Town's new stadium was completed in 2010 ..... more
2 Dec 2012	Fourth Innings batting heroics	When Faf du Plessis batted for almost eight hours in November 2012 to save South Africa from near-certain defeat in a cricket test match against Australia, he continued a fine tradition of heroic fourth-innings defensive efforts. Jacques Kallis in 1997 and Jacques Rudolph in 2005 had scored fighting centuries ..... more
21 Nov 2012	CIA chief resigns in disgrace	The head of the CIA fell on his sword recently after an extra-marital affair was made public. General David Petraeus' sexual exploits with Paula Broadwell continue a long and noble tradition among leaders in the USA, from John F Kennedy's rampant womanising to Bill Clinton's unseemly conduct with Monica Lewinsky ..... more
12 Nov 2012	Bamboo trains in Cambodia	Years of conflict, war and neglect has left Cambodia with wrecked roads and no railway service. But the railway tracks themselves had survived and lay disused, rusting in the sun and tropical humidity. So locals came up with a simple and ingenious solution - why not run our own trains? And thus was born the "Bamboo Train" ..... more
11 Oct 2012	Gordon Igesund at last!	After years of bumbling around, the South African Football Association has finally appointed the best possible coach for the national team - Gordon Igesund. Media and football fans alike have been clamouring for Igesund for several years, and now, at last, his proven pedigree as a football coach has been recognized ..... more
8 Aug 2012	Experiences on Chinese Trains	My wife and I travelled on several long-distance trains while exploring China in June and July 2012. During the course of this trip I made a number of observations about China Railways ..... more
2 Jul 2012	Travelling in China	Travelling around China is hard. Nothing can quite prepare you for the total and complete culture shock that hits you - you cannot read anything written anywhere, bus and train schedules are a total mystery, the language is incomprehensible and even ordering food in a restaurant becomes a bit of a lottery .....more
7 Jun 2012	Facebook goes public	Facebook became a public company on 18 May 2012 ; the initial share price of $38 gave it a staggering overall value of $104 billion. Has the entire world gone mad? 104 billion dollars for a company that has absolutely no products, no long-term business strategy, no sales of any kind .....more
22 May 2012	Franschhoek Literary Festival	The Franschhoek Literary Festival is a celebration of all things book-related that takes place annually in this charming country town. The festival lasts three days (Friday to Sunday) and comprises ..... more
19 May 2012	The Franschhoek Wine Tram	A group of local people dreamed of seeing trains once again operating over the picturesque rail route through the Franschhoek valley, abandoned and derelict since 1993. A brand new, custom-built tram has been delivered to Franschhoek and is being tested ..... more
14 May 2012	Tablets, Netbooks and Common Sense	The world's insane desire to be both fashionable and connected, fuelled by some extremely clever marketing strategies, has resulted in explosive sales of hand-held devices like the Apple iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab. It seems like everybody either has an iPad or wants one ..... more
6 Apr 2012	Hacker group targets China	The shadowy organization called Anonymous, an informal collection of computer hackers who describe themselves as "hacktivists", attacked and defaced several hundred Chinese government web sites ..... more
26 Mar 2012	Century City by Train	Getting to Century City and Canal Walk using public transport has always been difficult. But the new train station constructed nearby (which was used as a "park and ride" facility during the 2010 Football World Cup) means that access by train from Cape Town is now possible ..... more
15 Mar 2012	Google vs Duck Duck Go?	Google's web search service provides incredibly good results, but it is now so bloated with relentless advertisements and add-ons that I find myself getting increasingly irritated with it. So I was pleasantly surprized to discover a new search engine recently called Duck Duck Go ..... more
12 Mar 2012	Green Point Park	An open area next to Cape Town Stadium has been transformed into a verdant and tranquil public park, with different areas for picnicing, exercising and strolling through a showcase of wetlands and indigenous plants ..... more
6 Mar 2012	The truth about Truth Coffee	Truth Coffee Cult is a coffee shop and roastery located in the front section of the Prestwich Memorial, a building constructed in memory of the many slaves who lived and died in Cape Town. But beware of ordering a single espresso there ..... more
8 Jan 2012	Cape Town's MyCiTi Bus Service	Recently my wife and I took one of the new "MyCiTi" buses from Cape Town to Table View. This route is part of Cape Town's ambitious Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) system, whereby buses travelling in dedicated lanes will supplement the existing commuter rail network ..... more
31 Dec 2011	Brutal Chinese Rule in Tibet	Tibet has been a so-called "Autonomous Region" of China since 1951, when Chinese troops invaded the country and placed Tibet under military rule. The spurious reason often put forward by the Chinese government for this act of naked aggression is that Tibet was historically ruled by China ..... more
28 Nov 2011	Decks Cafe in Kommetjie	My wife and I were recently pleasantly surprized to discover a new coffee shop/restaurant in Kommetjie - Decks Cafe. Somebody has invested a LOT of money in renovating the place, because it has been completely remodelled and now boasts a stunning interior ..... more
12 Nov 2011	Why is Graeme Smith criticized so much?	Graeme Smith has been captain of South Africa's Test cricket team since 2003. He has brought his own brand of confidence, aggression and directness to the captaincy, together with a "never back down" attitude and a propensity for scoring big runs when they are needed the most. But why is he hated so much? ..... more
25 Sep 2011	Technical Support telephone scam	I recently received a telephone call from a lady with a broad Indian accent, very obviously calling from a foreign location. She told me a long story about how "the Windows users" had been reporting problems with their computers and because ..... more
21 Aug 2011	The Cost of Data Storage	In February 2008 I bought a 160 Giga Byte (Gb) portable hard drive for about R750. Just over two years later, in May 2010, I bought a 1 Tera Byte (Tb) external hard drive for under R1000 - six times the space for only a little more cash ..... more
29 Apr 2011	The Ups and Downs of Self-employment	At the end of May 2010 I left full-time employment and started working for myself from an office at home. Thus far it has been a very interesting, rewarding and challenging experience - no more answering to a boss with whom I may disagree, no more filling in tedious timesheets ..... more
10 Dec 2010	Simon's Town railway still closed	In December 2009 a severe storm caused damage to the railway line that runs from Cape Town to Simon's Town down the east coast of the Cape Peninsula. Trains could not travel over the affected section of track so the line was closed between between Fish Hoek and Simon's Town ..... more
2 May 2010	Free/open source software	There are so many outstanding, free-to-use computer software applications out there that I often wonder why people even bother using commercial stuff ..... more
11 Apr 2010	Visiting Cape Town's World Cup stadium	On Saturday 10 April 2010 the third "trial run" of the newly-completed Cape Town stadium was held. This was the last trial before the stadium was handed over to FIFA, and included the use of the floodlights ..... more
5 Apr 2010	Terrible driving on Route 27	My wife and I explored the Western Cape's West Coast over the 2010 Easter Weekend. Driving north out of Cape Town on route 27 (the R27, also known as the "West Coast Road"), we were amazed, shocked and taken aback ..... more
13 Mar 2010	Tribeca Bakery/Coffee Shop in Kalk Bay	Tribeca Bakery and Coffee shop, located on the Main Road in Kalk Bay (a suburb of Cape Town) serves delicious coffee in a setting reminiscent of New York City ..... more
22 Feb 2010	Fantastic service at Loot.co.za	I am always amazed at the outstanding service I receive from Loot, an online store based in the Western Cape of South Africa. Not only that, their prices for books, CDs and DVDs are always consistently lower than anywhere ..... more