Cyberspace the South African way

Life is tough without Internet. Rather, life is tough without fast Internet. Since my arrival back in South Africa for a prolonged stay in my beloved hometown of Stellenbosch, things were moving along at a quiet pace. They call not for nothing the Cape Town area Sleep City. We do not like to make haste down here. Or so they claim in Johannesburg, in the north of the country. I must admit at times there has been some measure of truth in that josteling.

For example, joining cyberspace the proper way - with fast Internet - took 9 days. But I guess that would be true across the country and could be worse in denser regions such as around Johannesburg. I suppose setting up an Internet service with Comcast in Waltham from a clean start would also take about 10 days, since the technician would have to come out on site. Here in Stellenbosch, it was a case of self service - the modem came via a courier and everything just worked after plug-in. Being the neighbourly country we are, my neighbour was so kind as to take impromptu delivery on my behalf when the courier had forgotten to phone first. And the courier had the common sense to knock at the neighbour's when my door was not answered.

So tonight, life is good again. Here I am, blasting through cyberspace at a blistering 384kbps over ADSL. Yes, after three weeks of clonking along at 115kbps via my mobile phone, 384kbps is going at F1 speeds indeed. And mind you, most Internet content is throttled upstream so as to download no faster than about 384 kbps. I can attest to that claim from many hours on the Internet drumming my fingers while superfast Comcast was trundling along at a choking 300-400 kbps.

But what joy to click on Yahoo Mail and have that familiar mail interface pop up - at the same effective rate as with my old Comcast service in Waltham. What bliss to be rid of the past three weeks of frustration and dispair at the modem speeds served by Vodacom and my Nokia 3110, which could only muster EGPRS. The little workhorse did not support 3G, even though Vodacom provided it.

And speed is everything. Speed is as important as timing these days. But cyberspace the South African way is not 5Mbps peak download speed as in the USA. It is 384 kbps for most of us - the affordable rate. And the service is capped in terms of total transferred content. Forget about downloading HD movies in droves. One barely does the usual MS and virus definition updates. One thinks twice before massaging too many pictures online. This is a generous country, but not one of abundance.

But I am back in cyberspace the South African way.

A3

Back home in Stellenbosch, I have made a discovery: There is a secret weapon in the German automotive arsenal. It is called the 2.0 TDI engine. One can find a variety of Audi and VW cars armed with this weapon. In this case, the secret hides beneath the shapely bonnet of my newest automotive acquisition, a second-hand 2007 Audi A3 2.0 TDI Sportback – with six gears, manually shifted of course. And what a jewel of engineering...

Oh pity all of you who's automotive lives are deprived by bad Diesel and silly regulations of the 2.0 TDI. Never before has only 1500 rpm of power band generated so much for so little. With a box of mechanical and electronic trickery this machine torques the living daylights out of its crankshaft: 320 Nm (236lb-ft) from a 2.0 liter engine, which holds level between 2000 rpm and 3500 rpm. Being a Diesel engine, the contraption runs out of puff and range at 4500 rpm. Practically, one shifts gear at 3500 maximum. Driving the A3 TDI takes some adjustment after running petrol engine cars with engines that wake up at 3000 rpm and spin to 6000 and above.

Such pulling power over such a narrow speed range means one goes quickly through the gears. But what a lovely gearbox to stir – maybe the A4 has a better shift, but the A3 looses no face here. “Quickly” is not quite the word. At 2000 it wakes up and does so with a vengeance. At that engine speed in any gear below fourth the A3 surges forward with such a ferocity that it can surprise the driver and spin the front wheels. One does not expect such pickup at such low revs from such a small engine. And then it is all over at 3500. So one shifts quickly. It is a bit like a racer with a narrow power band. It really needs those six speeds to be quick and useful. But the package comes together just brilliantly.

However, the best part of it all is the fuel consumption. So far the A3 sits around 6.5 l/100 km average (36 mpg US). Yet, today it revealed another surprise. When I left for lunch with my mother at the fancy Victoria & Albert Waterfront in Cape Town, the cruise computer told me I could do 680 km on the remaining fuel. By the time I arrived back in Stellenbosch, that computer reported 700 km left on the remaining fuel – after a brisk 90km round trip. This car makes Diesel as it goes. It is brilliant.

The open-road consumption is as low as 5 l/100km. At legal freeway speed – 120 km/h (75mph) the car uses about 6.0 l/100km (39 mpg US). And it stuffs 60 g less CO2 per kilometer into the atmosphere than the Audi 2.0 FSI petrol engine and even better than that against non-FSI petrol engines in the 2.0liter category. Toyota, eat your Prius with complements from Audi.

I chose amongst a 2007 A4 2.0 TDI Avant (a station wagon in all other languages), a 2005 BMW 320d and the 2007 A3 2.0 TDI Sportback. New cars have silly price tags in South Africa. So buying a young second-hand car makes a lot of financial sense. The A4 was not Quattro and I did not like it that much in front-wheel drive. Shockingly, the BMW had creaks and groans in the bodywork, sat on an overtly stiff sport suspension with bling sporty wheels and begged to be hijacked at every second traffic light in Cape Town. The A3 was not perfect, but just right.

My A3 has a buzz in the dashboard though- on the left side. There's a bit of deja vu with my A4 in Waltham. That one had a buzz in the dashboard on the left side too. What is it with Audi and the left side of their dashboards? The A4 beats the A3 for composure over rough stuff of which we have a bit along the back roads. But that is about it in terms of complaints.

I wag my wiener at OPEC with this A3. As long as there is Diesel I'll be amongst the last for fill the tank and amongst the first to arrive. Now that is a secret weapon. But the cat is out of the bag. It is not a secret anymore. Just tell old MA state house to get off their pillows and let you in on it.