I am Carl Momberg, the publisher of CapeInfo, and this blog has nothing to do with Spaniards.

It takes it names from a 1965 book of short stories, poetry and drawings by the late John Lennon, the former Beatle who visited Cape Town shortly before he was murdered in New York. He stayed, incognito, at Cape Town’s grand old lady, the Mount Nelson Hotel.

On second thoughts, maybe one legendary Spaniard points to what this blog is all about, because “tilting at windmills” will be characteristic of many of the posts.

Tilting is jousting. “Tilting at windmills” comes from Cervantes’ Don Quixote – first published in 1604 under the title The Ingenious Knight of La Mancha. The novel recounts the exploits of would-be knight ‘Don Quixote’ and his loyal servant Sancho Panza who propose to fight injustice through chivalry. It is considered one of the major literary masterpieces and remains a best seller. In the book, which also gives us the adjective quixotic (striving for visionary ideals), the eponymous hero imagines himself to be fighting giants when he attacks windmills.

“Tilting at windmills” also means fighting otherwise-unwinable battles. South Africa has much more good than bad, and no shortage of examples of both. e-Tv’s Debora Patta once spoke about SA being a news editor’s dream because there is so much to report and comment on. She went on to say that a moose crossing the road is sometimes the best a Canadian news reporter can come up with…

The challenge in SA is to trumpet the good and expose the bad. Yes, there are scoundrels and crooks, but other media deal with them. Stupid, visionless decision-making in bureaucracies probably robs SA of far more than anything else. They steal our opportunities.

This blog documents and highlights far more than CapeInfo has done in the past. Some of it will find its way into CapeInfo News for those who prefer news & views in the email inbox.

I do appreciate your feedback, so please comment on the individual posts.