Is it just me ??

Or does the new Moses Mabhida stadium look like a Tupperware cake taker. See the pictures below this one.

I was out and and about on 21 December 2008 and took this picture. The ends of the arch over the stadium seem about to join in the middle.


And another view.

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The coastal cloaca

Last Sunday, which was December 21, 2008, I had a bit of a sad experience. With a a couple of passengers, I had occasion to drive from the Morningside, Burman Bush area, over to the Botanic Gardens, and from there to Essenwood Road, and then down through town to the Point area and back to Morningside. The town has a dilapidated air with pavements which were unswept, and had not been for many moons, judging by the size of the weeds. Street furniture was badly in need of painting, potholes were proliferating in the roads and it was not only the busy downtown areas that are affected in this way, but even the leafy streets in the suburbs were looking down at heel and badly in need of attention.

To say that Point Road, around the the intersections of West and Smith Street is looking squalid, is to be guilty of a gross understatement. The beachfront is our crown jewel, which tourists should be paying big bucks to visit, and yet it is being ruined, and I don't know the cause. Is it greedy building owners, a huge influx of poor people to the area, crime? What? Whatever factors are at work, they must be identified and sorted or we are going to end up as some sort of coastal cloaca. Ever fewer people are going to want come here.

Having travelled a fair way through town on Sunday, it was inevitable and that we would come across another problem which is plaguing Durban at the moment. The matter is, of course, the fact that there are so many malfunctioning traffic lights and, although I can't accurately remember exactly how many were not working, it was more than a double-handful.

By a strange, well perhaps not so strange, coincidence, the Sunday Tribune of the same day, December 21, carried a story headlined "Berea Road's killer corners". In the story, it was reported that faulty traffic lights have been causing havoc at a number of locations in Berea Road. These are the bridges at Essenwood Road and Musgrave Road and the robots have apparently not been working for three weeks. At least 30 accidents were reported from those locations in the last three weeks. In spite of this ongoing problem, City Police pointsmen had not been deployed in the area, which is one of the most busiest in the city. There is a picture heading the story which shows absolute chaos with cars going every which way trying to get through the intersection. An onlooker reported city policemen on a bridge over Berea Road operating a speed trap, but totally unconcerned with traffic chaos at occurring not a couple of yards from where they sat.

In the Natal Mercury of December 22, 2008, there is a reader's letter which notes that city management, because they live here, must pass these intersections and others like them every day, and yet they do nothing. The reader is is quite right to raise this point and you can't begin to understand how these people can neglect their own home in such a fashion.

The Sunday Tribune article of the 21st, said that a contractor was responsible for repairing the traffic lights and the questions should be asked why the city's own staff is not being used for this task, and why, failing that, the contractors are not being supervised adequately.

The Durban streets that we travel in every day are not yet looking quite like the streets of Zimbabwe or the other third-world troublespots that we see so so regularly in the news. But they are deteriorating and will start to look that way before too much longer.
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The arms deal again

In the Mercury of December 2, 2008, the Mercury's Idler columnist reports having been to the Cobb Inn on the wild coast for a couple of days holiday. He notes that he saw what he believes to be an illegal trawler operating just off the coast at night, without any navigation lights. He reports that the locals say that this is a regular occurrence.

I have mentioned in these pages before, the controversy involving the Navy's desire to order new vessels for coastal patrol, which comes in spite of their recent acquisition of four frigates, which are apparently not suitable for the purpose. The Mercury of December 3, 2008, reports that, in a speech by the chief of the Navy on the previous day, it was announced that the Navy intends to buy six additional patrol vessels valued at nearly R2 billion, and also a strategic sealift and sustainment vessel. The acquisition of these items will apparently put the South African Navy on track to becoming the continent's most formidable naval force.

I've asked the question before, and no doubt will again, exactly what enemy it is that the Navy was expecting to fight. In my opinion, the new patrol vessels are probably exactly what was needed in the first place and that there was absolutely no need to buy the very expensive and highly sophisticated frigates which, according to some reports, the Navy can't afford to run anyway. Those who ordered the frigates must have received some benefit and/or been so determined to strike a pose that they were quite prepared to waste R6 billion of our money.

There may be one good item of news in all this and that is that the local ship building industry may receive a benefit from the order for the new vessels.

The paper also reported that, once again, a tall vehicle has come to grief when trying to go under the low bridge which carries Greville Racecourse over the roadway. There is a wonderful picture of a military vehicle which had apparently been towing a refrigerated trailer which had beent totally destroyed, when it tried to drive under the low bridge. The picture shows Samil 50 vehicle, which had apparently just fitted under the bridge, and the wrecked trailer lying behind.
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Buses and renaming

According to the Mercury of November 26, 2008, it seems that Durban's bus service is again in trouble.

Municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe was reported as telling a committee meeting that the Durban transport operator will not be receiving a subsidy from central government for the period January 2009 to March 2009. The amount of money that was due to be paid to the bus operator is by central government was R46 million and, according to a company spokesman, the company won't be able to operate without it.

Both central and provincial governments have said that they don't have the funds to cover that amount and it's beginning to look awfully as if the city is going to have to cough up the money in addition to the 40 million that it will already have to pay the bus company Remant Alton.

According to the Mercury of December 1, 2008, it seems that things are hotting up in the court case which has been brought by the opposition parties in the Durban Council to the street renaming which took place recently. The leader of the Democratic Alliance John Steenhuisen, and city manager Mike Sutcliffe have apparently been trading insults in the court papers.

Steenhuisen called Sutcliffe "nothing more than an ANC lackey".

The opposition are bringing the case in an effort to get the renaming reversed and, of course, the city and its ANC leadership, in the form of her Michael Sutcliffe, are vigorously opposing the move. One of the most controversial of the street renamings was when Kingsway in Amanzimtoti was renamed after Andrew Zondo, who had set a bomb at a shopping centre in the town, killing a number of innocent civilians.

On that particular issue Sutcliffe said "Naturally there are strong feelings each way about Andrew Zondo. Such is our history."
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