Friday seems like a good day to put the serious stuff to one side for a few minutes.

So here are a few things that caught my attention this week. Some are useful. Some are interesting. And some are simply here because I thought they were funny.

A little business

South Africa’s mining industry had a less-than-sparkling week. Stats SA released its June mining production figures yesterday, with the sector under pressure despite some stronger commodity prices.

Meanwhile, Eskom has found itself in the rather unusual position of having electricity to spare. After years of load-shedding, it is now looking at data centres as potential big customers for all that spare capacity. South Africa already has around 70% of Africa’s data-centre capacity, and the market is expected to grow rapidly.

It is a remarkable turnaround. Eskom once couldn’t supply enough electricity to keep the lights on. Now it is trying to persuade the people running the computers to use more of it.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world…

The Strait of Hormuz continues to cause headaches. Shipping traffic through the strategic waterway has fallen sharply as tensions between the United States and Iran continue. Two UAE-linked tankers were also attacked this week, according to the UAE.

And oil remains caught between geopolitics and economics. Despite all the tension around the Gulf, oil prices actually fell this week as concerns about weaker global demand and rising US inventories took hold.

So the oil market, like the rest of us, appears to be having difficulty deciding what to worry about first.

Rock ’n’ roll birthdays

Today would have been David Crosby’s 85th birthday. The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash and a substantial contribution to the California sound of the 1960s and 1970s.

Also born on August 14 was Dash Crofts of Seals & Crofts, best remembered for “Summer Breeze”.

Kevin Cadogan, guitarist and songwriter with Third Eye Blind, is 56 today. He co-wrote several of the band’s best-known songs.

And a couple of writers

Two writers also have birthdays worth mentioning.

Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, was born on this day in 1907.

And Ernest Thayer, the American writer best known for the wonderfully titled baseball poem Casey at the Bat, was born on August 14, 1863.

I think I’ll leave it there before this starts looking like a literary encyclopaedia.

A couple of things you probably didn’t know

Frogs can use their eyeballs to help push food down their throats.

I don’t know what frog research tells us about the economy, business or artificial intelligence. But I do know that I will never look at a frog quite the same way again.

And here’s another one: giant swallowtail caterpillars can disguise themselves as bird droppings to avoid predators.

Nature, it seems, invented both camouflage and comedy.

Friday’s little quiz

Apparently, 7% of people would rather give up something for a year than give up the internet.

What is it?

You’ll find the answer at the end of this article.

Deep thought

The trouble with common sense is that it isn’t nearly as common as its name suggests.

And finally…

Three things I learnt this week:

I don’t understand what is happening in the Middle East.

I don’t understand why anyone would want to eat kale.

And I am beginning to suspect that the internet may be less essential than we think.

Have a good weekend.

And remember: if you think you have everything under control, you probably haven’t looked at your inbox yet.

Quiz answer: Showering.

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