Until someone emailed me earlier today, I had no idea there were South African Radio Awards. Google’s never heard of them either. I can’t find anything online except the BizCommunity article, and BizCommunity is a site so incestuous and insecure that I’ve always tried to avoid it. (The way that articles get published on BizCommunity, for what it’s worth, is that they’re copy-pasted from radio stations’ press releases. So, when an article quotes Alan Khan, it’s because Alan Khan has written down what he’d like to have quoted and emailed it through. We did it too.)

Problematically, because there’s nothing online and no news coverage at all, I’ve no idea how many awards they’ve handed out or who the winners were. I don’t even know who they are. Here’s what 94.2 thought worth mentioning:

Flagship Just Plain Breakfast Show presenter Darren Scott was named as Radio DJ of the Year at the South African Radio Awards, while his Just Plain Breakfast Show powered by (Jesus, I can’t believe radio stations are selling their souls for seven-figure sums), was named as The Most Innovative Radio Show at the South African Radio Awards…

Darren Scott deserves his dues. He’s worked in radio forever, and obviously has a sharp mind for the business of broadcasting. By all accounts, he’s made a killing through Supersport.

But, if the signal we’re sending is that the pinnacle of radio innovation is reuniting a duo from the mid-90s, it’s no wonder the industry doesn’t break any new talent. If you’ve more success in tracking these awards down, send them a dictionary?

I honestly have absolutely no idea what to make of Jacob Zuma.

There are days where he laughs at the opposition’s reasonable, justifiable request for a series of public debates, and I wonder, deeply, about his commitment to democracy. There are days where I’m impressed at his cool, collected logic, where he addresses a critical crowd at NYU and his answers are smart, calm, charismatic.

And then there are days, like today, where I’m nothing short of speechless.

Enforce prayers at school, says Zuma.

Stopping society’s “erosion of morality” could be done by introducing the same measures that were used “in the past”, says ANC President Jacob Zuma.

Let’s finish up the corruption trial first, shall we?

I’ve agreed to go cycling tomorrow. At 9am. At -5°C. As one does. At least I’ll be able to thaw out when it hits 3°C.

From IOL, via Sapa-AP:

Former President Bill Clinton has offered several concessions to help his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, become secretary of state, people familiar with the presidential transition process said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a source close to the process involving President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of his team said Obama has “informally” offered the post to Washington lawyer Eric Holder, who has accepted, pending completion of the vetting process.

Holder, 57, would be the country’s first black attorney general.

Forget the missing capital letters and misplaced scare quotes. There’s an issue that needs clarification: the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are two entirely different people (much to the relief of both Condoleezza Rice and Michael Mukasey, I bet).

The Secretary of State is in charge of America’s international interactions, like South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. She heads up the Department of State, which was once called the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Attorney General is the head of the Justice Department and the government’s chief attorney.

Senator Clinton and Eric Holder aren’t competing for the same job, and all speculation is that they’ll both be on Barack Obama’s cabinet. Once they’ve been vetted.

Which, by the way, is even tougher than it sounds. Question 13 asks:

If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an e-mail, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe.

You could do worse than to spend your coffee break reading Justin Peters’s confessions at Slate.

It’s tough enough imagining life before email and cell phones. So let’s push it a bit. Imagine boarding a ship in the 1600s and leaving everyone and everything in your wake, knowing full well that you had no real idea where you were going, or how many — if any — of your team were going to survive the trip.

And imagine arriving, after endless weeks of dangerous storms and identical seas, after countless moments of doubting your mission and your sanity. Imagine seeing, for the very first time, the iconic view that has come to represent one of the world’s chosen cities.

It’s just the most beautiful sight in the world. I can’t, for the life of me, work out why Dias kept going!

Incredible picture. Others here.

There are many things I adore about well-crafted television programs: perfect dialogue that’s beyond real life, characters you know as though they were your friends, and, sometimes, introduction to ideas or things I wouldn’t otherwise have encountered.

I’ve just watched an episode of House close out with Brett Dennen’s Ain’t No Reason.

Rolling Stone has written Dennen up as an artist to watch:

The twenty-eight-year-old turns out relaxed roots-rock jams about walking through the trees and watching desert sunsets. He’s also got some serious guitar-playing chops — his finger-picked, jazz-influenced chord structures could be mistaken for Dave Matthews or early John Mayer tunes.

It’s a great tune.

There ain’t no reason things are this way
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay
I can’t explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.

(Let’s start with a caveat. I realize this is entirely off-topic in the southern hemisphere. If we’re still doing this in six months, I’ll link back to it for you.)

There are a handful of guaranteed-to-win call-in topics. How you were ripped off by a builder. How doing something good for someone made you feel like a better person. How to entertain your kids in the school holidays.

And flu vaccinations.

Every year, my bosses brought in an overly-talkative nurse with free injections, and every year, no-one was sure what to do. I think we’re wired not to trust handouts. Or injections. Or things that are obviously good for our employers.

Here’s a news flash. They’re doling out a killed virus. You can’t get sick from it.

Of course, it might not work. They’re just guessing which viruses are coming, and they only vaccinate you against a handful of possible options. And you shouldn’t proceed entirely without caution. You could get a sore arm. I didn’t. If you’re allergic to eggs, a vaccination grown in chicken eggs is probably a dangerous game. You’re politely advised to seek medical care if you have difficulty breathing. That’s good advice even if you haven’t had the shot, I bet. And it takes two weeks to build up immunity, which unexpectedly spoiled my plans to spend the weekend with the cool kids in the infirmary.

The gist is: it doesn’t hurt, it’s often free, you can’t get flu from the vaccination — and it may well save you ten days of hell mid-winter.

Makes you think we were just milking the debate for interaction.

The A400M is a four-engine turboprop military transporter. Airbus began designing it in 1982, and construction started a couple of years ago (talk about instant gratification). Its first flight was scheduled for summer this year, but technical complications have pushed that date back, perhaps even into 2009.

And South Africa has ordered 8 of them. Obviously. At a cost of €837 million.

Umm. Why?

Zapiro and Miriam Makeba.

From today’s M&G.

We’re losing our minds.

A British woman is divorcing her husband after discovering his online alter-ego was having an affair with a virtual woman in the fantasy world of Second Life, media reported on Friday.

Amy Taylor, 28, said her three-year marriage to David Pollard, 40, came to an end when she twice walked in on him watching his online character, Dave Barmy, having sex with other virtual women.

Second Life enables players to create online lives in which their virtual alter ego, or avatar, can socialise, develop relationships, buy property and set up businesses in an imagined world using the game’s virtual currency.

The couple met in an internet chat room in 2003 and married in real life and in a fantasy tropical setting in Second Life.

You met him in a chat room. And he wanted a fantasy wedding in an imaginary world. These weren’t signs? Of course, she knew something was wrong:

However, Taylor always had suspicions about Pollard’s online loyalty. At one point she hired a virtual detective to test whether his avatar was cheating on her, after finding him at the computer watching his character having sex with a prostitute.

Get a grip. For the sake of the virtual kids.

More here.