I think there is a conspiracy...

OK well there's something in the men in my family that they are OBSESSED with the news. As a kid spending time with my grandparents, we used to watch my grandfather's evening ritual of reading the paper, watching the news at 6pm, 8pm AND 10pm! I elarned later that he had a tendency to fall asleep and so three news bulletins gave him a pretty solid picture of what was one one of them... Speaking to my Dad while the headlines were on was discouraged and when he was late home from work we had to record them (on our trusty Betamax machine, followed by a real VHS a few years later).

I hate to admit it, but I'm not great about keeping up with the news. I read the paper on weekends and Iw atch teh news if i'm home, but there's something exciting about hearing about the big things later. I don't ahve a TV (or any desire for one) when I'm in the field, so I tend to get the news in snippets. Like "Who is that guy and where's Thabo? - when we randomly got a new president last year and I was away. Or "Pirates in Somalia? Is that a new movie?" It's a different way of hearing it, and I like to think if there's anything important enough to affect me on a farm in the middle of nowhere, I'm pretty sure someone would let me know, or we'd all be obliterated, while woefully misinformed.

Anyway you can imagine our excitement (well not necessarily mine but anyway...) at the creation of the ETV 24 hour news channel. CNN and Sky had been kind of substituting before that but they're a bit US/Eurocentric and when we have people being shot in the streets it's nice to hear about it from someone with the appropriate accent and lack of basic grammar and syntax.

They tend to play the same report over and over and over with someone different reading the headlines, which means we can nitpick the grammar and pronounciation more than ever! IT's awesome!

Until you get to the weather and I have to leave the room. They have this "American" weatherman. So besides his complete inability to pronounce ANYTHING (and when you're listening out for the weather in Nelsproooooeeet" as for Phalaborwa...) and the completely annoying energetic excitement about fire warnings (true story) we have to handle him having an Americanised Afrikaans name (van Dam, should be vuhn duhm, not Van Dahm). Now I have nothing against Americans in principle, really! Promise!

What annoys me about this guy is that his accent isn't consistent. As my mom is away and I have to be home to cook I've had to sit through a lot of forecasts (and I can't find the weather in Mafikeng all that riveting) and his accent is slightly different every night. Plus he always starts off a bit shaky. Last night I could have SWORN there was a word or two in a lovely flat s'effricen accent. AS he progresses it gets more and more american.

So my thoughts are: Is he really american? Or is he a nice boy from Poffader (I've been there!) faking it for a publicity stunt?

And does anyone have a clip I can upload?