Building a white elephant

[G-Man]

Cape Town is building a 68,000 seater stadium with a retractable roof for the 2010 world cup. Plans to accommodate the Western Province/Stormers rugby sides at the stadium seem to be on hold. Santos and Plastic Ajax can't even fill the tiny Athlone stadium, never mind such a huge ground. And rock concerts in Cape Town are relatively rare.

A couple of pictures I took of the stadium under construction last week and a few artists' impressions of the finished product (plus a few more pics of Cape Town I've taken) HERE

[Gangster Octopus]

Building a white elephant

This is just viral advertising on behalf of the Cape Tourist Board, isn't it...

[hobbes]

Building a white elephant

[G-Man]

Building a white elephant

Heh, no, GO. I am still planning to post a picture of rubbish at our local beach (the one with the greatest view of Table Mountain; it should be treated as a treasure, not a dump and dogshit minefield), the ugly skyscapers and the toilet rolls in front of Table Mountain.

Otherwise, well, I'm not a great photographer, so what I snap is what's there.

[San Bernardhinault]

Building a white elephant

I quickly forget how great Cape Town is. There's an advertising campaign on in the UK cinemas at the moment for visiting South Africa, and in a spectacularly wrong-headed approach the only city they show is Joburg, with not a hint of Cape Town. Kruger and the Drakensburg are fair enough, but Jo'burg? Really? I quite like being there (unlike most South Africans I know), and even I think it's not a place to go as a tourist.

Anyway, not the right forum or anything, but 2010 is going to be utterly brilliant for all kinds of reasons. Particularly that it's a world cup held in winter, so there'll be much less patient catennaccio stuff. And the fact that some matches will be mile high, high altitude stuff, and teams based in Durban and Cape Town will get knackered really quickly. And I expect there'll be sufficient chaos in the organisation to make it entertaining, but not enough chaos to make it disastrous.

[G-Man]

Building a white elephant

Yeah, there'll be hilarious misorganisation but no chaos.

Jo'burg is a dump. Literally. A huge mine dump. Does the ad campaign show Durban?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Building a white elephant

Has Cape Town not got a Gothic cathedral to eat up money?

[G-Man]

Building a white elephant

I wouldn't know the difference between gothic and grunge architecture if it bit me in the arse.

[Reed John]

Building a white elephant

And rock concerts in Cape Town are relatively rare.

More importantly, there aren't many acts that could sell out a place like that, I don't think.

At least that's how it is in the USA. I've read about this. The bigger basketball arenas on US college campuses (8-20,000) aren't booking as many musical performances as they once did because, apparently, our popular culture has become more "niche," and therefore there aren't many acts that has sufficiently broad appeal to a place that big. Also, I suspect that people are simply sick of paying big money to see a band in such a large impersonal venue.

A football stadium? Maybe U2, the Stones possibly, or some kind of massive Live Aid type deal.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Building a white elephant

We needn't worry too much about schools of architecture, G-Man. Anything with hundreds of statues, fresoes, fancy vaulting will do.

[Sam]

Building a white elephant

Nice photos, G-Man, but really photosharing is for Flickr. We've got an OTF group and everything.

I do like the street guitarist. He looks very much like Ibrahim Ferrer.

[San Bernardhinault]

Building a white elephant

G.Man wants a jihad wrote:

Yeah, there'll be hilarious misorganisation but no chaos.

Jo'burg is a dump. Literally. A huge mine dump. Does the ad campaign show Durban?

I'm pretty sure the only city they show is Jo'burg. Although the closest I've ever been to Durban is driving round the outside on the highway, so I wouldn't recognise it.

Anyway, I like Jo'burg. Not a patch on Cape Town, but it has it's own feel, and is actually quite nice to be in - although you hear all sorts of horror stories which tell you to be seriously careful when travelling around. Lots of decent bars and OK restaurants and it's just not very uptight or serious about itself.