Pump up the volume

Our national football ladies are 56th on the new FIFA world ranking. That’s kind of half way as there are a total of 105 ladies' teams ranked.

Banyana Banyana is higher up than Bafana Bafana. The boys are 81st on the latest FIFA list. But, to be fair, the lads compete against a total male FIFA list of 203 national teams.

The highest ranked African female team comes from Nigeria on 27th spot. USA leads the ladies pack, ahead of Germany, Brazil and Sweden. The ladies are getting ready for their own world cup, next year in Germany.

Meanwhile, back to the lads’ worldcup starting very soon in a stadium near you. And with Africa’s first world cup host comes of course fine tunes and party time. FIFA just announced some of the big names for the opening festivities on June 10 in Soweto’s Orlando Stadium. The so called Kick-Off Celebration Concert will bring Alicia Keys (and I guess her piano too), Angélique Kidjo (Africa’s superstar), Shakira (the Colombian-Lebanese singer with the swinging hips) and Black Eyed Peas (the party shakers of note), amongst others, to our shores (and inland). Also on stage will be SA’s own local-is-lekker acts BLK JKS (kicking ass in the US too!), The Parlotones (those chaps from the KFC commercial), and Vusi Mahlasela (and guaranteed his trumpet too). The gig starts at 8PM and will be shown live across the globe. And now you know it!

Nice.

Blk Jks

The talk of the town, to some degree, is about BLK JKS. And that is not a new crime syndicate nor a new radio program on Y-FM. It’s a new local band. Short for Black Jacks apparently.

The four members of BLK JKS have different musical backgrounds, from jazz to rock, what makes their mix fresh, reasonably original and worth the talk of Jozi. In attempt to describe their sound I’ve seen a cocktail of indie, dub, psychedelic and rock terminologies being used.

The 4 Jacks, Lindani Buthelezi, Mpumi Mcata, Molefi Makananise and Tshepang Ramoba are taking on the fever step by step. “Every gig, everything’s at stake” their site says is their philosophy.

BLK JKS is currently touring in the US of A to promote their freshly grounded, debut, full length album “After Robots”.

Check them out:
www.myspace.com/blkjks
www.blkjks.com



Also. The world’s football organisation/federation FIFA has released the new ranking for women’s football/soccer. To probably many fans’ surprise, the US ladies are in pole position, ahead of more traditionally football crazy nations like Germany and Brazil. South Africa’s Banyana Banyana is on 55th place. That’s ahead of Ivory Coast and Cameroon, but behind the likes of Pap New Guinea (yes indeed) and the ladies from Ghana.

You can find the whole FIFA list here: http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/lastranking/gender=f/fullranking.html



Finally. The other day I had to find a guest house in Joburg’s Melville district that I had not heard of before. The 7th Street Guesthouse at number 22 on, yes indeed, 7th Street. But to make things a bit complex and also annoying is that 7th Street in Melville has two number 22s. The one I firstly discovered is on the main stretch of the street, which goes from the bit with all the restaurants down to Auckland Park. But that number 22 is just an ordinary house. No sleeping guests welcome here. At least not on a daily basis I guess. After a u-turn I end up at the upper part of 7th Street, where you are facing a T-junction with 5th Avenue. After a brief cell phone call, I discovered that 7th Street continues around the block. So if you are looking for the above mentioned guest house start with 7th Avenue till you turn into 7th Street. That’s the hidden part of 7th Street. Mystery solved. End of confusion.

www.sleeping-out.co.za/member_details-MemberID-12511.html