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Creative Cape Town is a social, economic and spatial strategy to promote an active, vibrant and diverse Central City by using culture to accelerate urban regeneration.

It aims to support the more than 700 creative and cultural practitioners based in the city centre. These include individuals and companies involved in architecture, advertising and communication, media, jewellery, fashion, crafts, visual arts and photography, the heritage, music, performance and film sectors.

Join the Creative Clusters Network

I never knew this quarry even existed until reading about it on Do Stuff in Cape Town, which is funny because I live a short distance away and it's also pretty close to one of the mountain trails that I've been running lately.

The Vredehoek Quarry is a largely unknown site on lower Devils Peak above the suburb of Vredehoek. The fairly large and disused quarry can be accessed by an old tunnel and has developed a small and still lake at its center.

The quarry is popular as a site for rock climbers, and a good stop on the mountain biking and running tracks which surround it.

Quite inspiring, I especially love the floodlights and nighttime illumination. But from an aerial perspective I still think it looks like a giant toilet bowl, as I mentioned before (last paragraph). I suspect it will grow on me though since I drive past it almost weekly.

The stadium at Green Point and supporting infrastructure for 2010 is the single biggest capital project Cape Town has ever undertaken.

More reading: Green Point Stadium on Wikipedia

If you haven't already heard of the Monopoly fever taking Cape Town and South Africa by storm, then let me do my duty of keeping you in the know.

Just a week ago, visitors to monopolyworldvote.com began voting for 22 cities that will be included in the first-ever worldwide edition of the game - MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition:

Voters are invited to cast their ballots for ten great cities each day of the vote, which will be open until 28 February 2008. The city that receives the most votes will be placed on the highest rent property.

The twenty cities that receive the most votes will be part of MONOPOLY history as the first cities selected to be on the World edition game board. However, two spaces on the board will be reserved for cities that are nominated through a wild card vote. Any city in the world can be nominated for these property spaces.

Only two African cities constitute the list of 68 that were nominated for the top 20 position: Cape Town and Cairo. When I first registered after reading eishman's blog post, Cape Town was placed outside of the top 20. But by the power of social media - the FB group 'Vote for Cape Town on the World Monopoly Board' and some blog posts, the Mother City is now sitting fine at 9th position, and climbing steadily. How awesome is that?

As a wildcard entry, Johannesburg is sitting at 13th position. Voting for the top 20 of the wildcard cities will commence on 29th February, when voting for the nominated cities comes to an end.

If you've got a minute to spare in your daily routine, I urge you to register at monopolyworldvote.com and join in the fun of getting Cape Town and Jozi to the top. I've also been voting for our African brother Cairo, which has dropped down to 23rd, so share some of that ubuntu lovin' while you're at it.

Aanndd... go!

Oh.. as it happens, myself and a group have been talking about organizing a pub crawl around Cape Town soon: 10 pubs/bars in 10 hours. By blogging it here, I'm putting the word out and committing to it, so stay tuned if you think that's something you'd fancy having a go at. Maybe when it's time to celebrate that Cape Town has reached number 1 position, which will be sometime in early March if the voting trend continues...!

UPDATE [04/02]: One week later and now we're 4th! Keep up the voting! Jozi is now 9th on the wildcard list and needs that extra push.

The logo depicts the city's defining icon, Table Mountain, under the African sun and with the waters of Table Bay beneath.

It will be used in conjunction with the official emblem, to form a composite logo. [...] the main aim was to create a unique identity that captures the design essence of the official emblem. It had to have a harmonious design relationship with the official logo in order to generate maximum brand impact.

Nice, as simple as that! Well, I was hoping for a penguin playing one bounce, but I suppose the mountain will do. ;) Any guesses for the other host city logos?

More here: City unveils 2010 host city logo

Photos are © City of Cape Town (Source)

Operation Hunger is a South African registered not-for-profit organization. It is concerned with the problems of chronic malnutrition and poverty.

The 130-room hotel in Cape Town's city centre boasts stunning views of Table Mountain and features a five-storey climbing wall on the exterior of the hotel.

The hotel's swimming pool has been designed to look like an aquarium: The swimming pool is adjacent to the 30mm thick glass windows of the hotel's restaurant, giving diners an underwater view of swimmers.

The men's urinals appear to be suspended on scaffolding at the edge of the building while the inside of the hotel's elevator simulates being inside a shark cage (thanks to life-size floor-to-ceiling photography).

Rooms will cost a standard R615 (£45) a night and include free broadband internet access.

I love the sound of that!

Via Cape Town magazine.
More at HotelChatter: Shark Attack in Your Extreme Hotel Bathroom.

Faced with legal action and the risk of losing the 2010 World Cup semifinal event because of a possible delayed start in construction of the stadium, the City of Cape Town yesterday agreed to a negotiated settlement with leaseholders of the Green Point Common that will safeguard the area from future commercial or residential development.

The city released its urban design proposal for the stadium site that will reconfigure the Green Point Common into a "high quality recreational precinct" and retain the Metropolitan Golf Course as a nine-hole course.

Popular crime website hacked by competition, Crime website linked to shady gay 'activist' (both via The Citizen), and Crime expo website disappears from the Net (via IOL):

Independent Democrats Cape Town leader Simon Grindrod will be at the Caledon Square Police Station on Thursday to ask police to conduct a criminal investigation into the founder of the crime expo website.

"Only three days after The Citizen exposed the site as a scam, it has been shut down. A message at the site indicates that it has closed down - its malicious architect has run with the money," says Mr Grindrod.

"It is alleged that founder Neil Watson was a fictitious character created by Juan Uys of Gay and Lesbian Alliance infamy. If true, this is the same cruel man who threatened to contaminate blood donations with HIV if homosexuals continued to be required to fill in a questionnaire before giving blood."

More links on this bizarre story:

• Crime website mystery man going into politics? (The Citizen)
• Truth surrounding Crime Expo SA (My Broadband)
• crime "scam" expo SA (Homecoming Revolution)
• www.crimexposouthafrica.co.za
• www.truecrimexpo.co.za
• crimexposouthafrica.wordpress.com

Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.

- George Eastman