Bafunny Bafunny

Went to watch super team of South African stand up comedy last night at Carnival City. Comprising of Mark Banks, Barry Hilton, Marc Lottering, Kagiso Lediga, Nik Rabinowitz, Loyiso Gola, John Flismas and Trevor Noah, it was missing only one other top comic in my books - David Kau.

Politically incorrect (to the extreme in the case of John Flismas), most comics focused on a healthy dose of politics (Zuma, Malema and Zille being the prime targets), immigration, crime and off course soccer (with a smattering of rugby and cricket). Personally Nik Rabinowitz and Trevor Noah were the best comics in the show, but each of the comics had their standout moments.

Given a show time of about 3 hours including the interval, the R200 for the tickets was well worth it. However, Carnival City as a venue, is certainly not my favourite. Not only is it far, but the traffic congestion within the parking lot was horrible (took almost an hour to get out).

Super 14 Final

Rugby in Soweto - not as novel as last week, but still an incredible experience. One of our key security suppliers invited a colleague and myself to the final, and it was an incredible experience.

It was not only the setting - but the atmosphere outside the ground was also quite impressive. The locals really took it to heart, and well, tried to make a few bucks also by offering "secure parking"; often with signs in Afrikaans to help, such as the offer of "koue biere vir Blou Bulle".

Orland Stadium is actually very impressive, with excellent view of the field. The "big screens" are rather small, but apart from that, it is an excellent stadium for sport watching; with an incredible atmosphere. And the vuvuzelas, really trumpeted; mostly blown by the rugby supporters themselves; as opposed to being blown by locals. Given this, I think it is highly hypocritical for rugby authorities to ban vuvuzelas from their stadiums!

The game itself, while good rugby, was marred by the Stormers consistently giving away penalties, within kickable distance from the posts. That more than anything else gave the Bulls the victory. And while it can be debated whether the Stormers were denied a try; Bulls did, overall, play a better game.

But the standout memory of the afternoon occurred on the way to the game. About a KM away, while waiting in traffic, one of the guys needed to go to take a leak. So he and his friend jumped out, and went to the toilet at one of the houses on the side. Later, he commented, any other suburb in predominately white communities, this would be unheard off - even if it was in the neighborhood of Loftus or Newlands! And when they came back, a French girl, also jumped in. She was a reporter for a French radio station, and spent some time interviewing us of what we thought of the event and our experiences so far. Just before the stadium, she jumped out, probably to interview more people!

Apple Standardised?

One of the people in the Super 14 party yesterday, commented that one of the nice things she likes about her new Apple iPhone is the "standardised connector". At first pass, this sounded rather wierd - but she explained that both her iPod (about 4 years old), her kids' iPod (more recent), her husband's iPod (very new) and her iPhone (also new) - all used the same connector, and for that matter same charger system. In comparison, her Nokia phones she had used previously all had different chargers; while her husband's Blackberry (he is on his third or fourth one now) has also had different chargers.

In the IT world, we think that standardisation is a globally agreed set of principles - but maybe, just consitency in usage and design within a manufacturer is enough! Maybe, the whole concept of long standardised, interoperability - which is often long winded, compromised and even more often, ineffective, would be rather better served by stadradisation and consistency within the manufaturer?