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Yes folks, today is the day of the annual Argus Pick-n-Pay Cycle Tour in Cape Town. This exciting event involves lots of very fit people whizzing around the Cape dressed in lycra outfits and showing of their shiny clean bicycles.

One of the main roads they follow is the coastal road which runs past Llandudno which happens to be where I reside when I am in the Southern Hemisphere (like today). This means that the coastal road is closed all day for non-lycra clad folk, especially if they are on four or more wheels. It also means that for one day in the year those of us left in Llandudno (and its sister beach of Sandy Bay and Sunset Rocks, the outcrop of rocks between,) have the place all to ourselves.

For one day in the year Sandy Bay beach is deserted by its gay, nudist, body building brethren (presumably they have either donned their lycra or are waving their flags as the bikes go by) and the lady selling choc ices next to the ‘No nudity on the path’ sign simply doesn’t turn up. The car parks are empty and the place almost looks like it used to look before man arrived.

So as usual this morning I jumped out of bed at the crack of dawn (about 6:30), donned my shorts and scrambled over from Sunset Rocks to Llandudno beach for my excuse for a bit of daily exercise. As I climbed the hill leaving Sunset Rocks, expecting solitude I was rather surprised to see a swarm of teenagers whooshing down the hill on their skate boards. Clearly I was not the only one looking forward to a day without mechanised vehicles on the road. During my one hour round trip to the beach I counted over a hundred skate-boarders all sensibly dressed in protective gear (which was needed since they were clearly going at speeds far in excess of their mechanised counterparts).

Anyway, I managed to get safely to Llandudno beach to meet up with another early riser, the local Eskimo. You might think it strange that an Eskimo should be walking along Llandudno beach in South Africa. I am pretty certain that he is an Eskimo because he was accompanied by a pack of huskies (although I have to admit I did not see a sledge in the car park). The huskies seem to quite like me – I think they can probably smell RISKKO’s saliva on my legs. After the beach RISKKO had to rush back home because he had a Skype call with Pink Lips in Bavaria. The two lovers are missing each other and are looking forward to being reunited before the end of the Month in Germany.

During the last few days I have written a few articles which you might find interesting. One is about (yet) another European food scandal – the German authorities appear to have found carcinogens in Cows milk. You can read more about it here. On the subject of food scandals South Africa is trying to avoid being left behind as Europe strives to be more inclusive in its beef products by including other animals like horse, sheep and pig. The university of Stellenbosch has taken samples from South African mince, sausages, burger patties, dried meats and deli meats and tested them for any animals not featured in the labelling. In most of the 139 meat products tested they have now identified donkey, goat and water buffalo. At a dinner party I attended a couple of days ago a lady informed me that Giraffe meat has also been identified! Clearly when we contaminate here in Africa we do it in style – horses are so ‘yesterday’!

The second article I prepared was on the subject of bees who have a natural desire to get a caffeine fix (which certain clever plants have used to their advantage by plonking caffeine into their nectar). More info can be found on this here.

The third and final article for this week is related to the new Killer Corona Virus which has already cost eight people their lives and is starting to look very worrying. I have included some of the latest scientific findings about the pathogen and also revisited the SARS story to illustrate how quickly things can turn nasty. You will find this article here.

So the sun has just gone down here on the cape and presumably tomorrow the vehicles will be returning to my refreshingly remote outpost.

If you have any comments on the blog or any of the articles please do not hesitate to use the comments boxes. It’s time to brush my teeth and clean out the giraffe and donkey meat to make room for tomorrows delicacies.

Have fun but don’t trust the labelling,

Chris Duggleby