Against most major currencies our poor maligned rand is at or near the high point for the year. Demand for our currency is still there even if it is allegedly stashed in supermarket packets and then slipped inside diplomatic pouches. The puzzling part of that idea is just what happens when the man saunters into the bank in Dubai and shoves the packets across the counter to the teller. With the sums involved that’s a great many plastic bags. No one has yet addressed the physical difficulties around the alleged R6.5bn amount being bandied about in the Zupta debacle. R6.5bn represents 5% of our country’s cash currency supply. Converted into USD 100 notes it would weigh almost 5000kg. No wonder the big banks quietly closed all accounts associated with these guys and went off for a self-congratulatory beer at having escaped a firestorm.
Any South African with even the mildest curiosity about what is happening in domestic and global politics is currently drowning in a sea of overlapping, similar and confusing storm surges. It’s hard to keep a clear picture of who are the good guys (not very many actually), what the bad guys are doing (a great deal) and if there is any chance that anyone will get what they so desperately deserve. That would be a clean, honest, small government for the citizens and lengthy, unpleasant jail terms for the merchants of sleaze.
The ubiquity of disinformation and lies caused by instant and brain-free communication tends to overstate the issues but nevertheless even at 50% dilution it’s all a great deal of sewage.
The sole faintly amusing aspect is that almost everyone up to no good completely fails to grasp the extent and reach of the new technology which knows everything and forgets nothing. Files and emails are nearly impossible to erase and your phone knows where you have been and who you spoke to. Someone is almost always filming you. Perplexingly though, these days there seems to be no revelation so damaging that the perpetrator slinks off ashamed and abashed (see the rand story above). Those of us who are hoping that JZ, Trump and Hillary (to name the three big names of our moment) will bail out of their respective missions are going to be disappointed.
There was an incident recently, however, when the Eskom boss man was brought to tears because he couldn’t understand why everyone is being so mean to him when all he is doing is being kind to the friends and family of the president.
Mr Molefe is just one of very many people who this week were, as the saying goes, “thrown under a bus” by their colleagues. This graphic metaphor of rejection and disassociation does raise the more mundane question of whether we have enough ambulances and crews to rescue all these victims. In the meantime, someone sensible has vetoed the plan to upgrade dear old Inkwazi, the presidential jet, and our leader will just have to make do with the first aid kit under the co-pilot’s seat.
The joke about the fellow who fits turn-indicators on BMW cars having a meaningless job is matched by the poor chap who every year at fireworks season insists that the Durban Corporation has a working and enforced policy about where and when they can be let off. Many of us asserts that we have a right to celebrate an annual event with ever increasingly large bangs (and it must be said, astonishing fiery flowers) launched from our garden. In reality, though, we ought all to recognise that personal firework displays are anti-social, archaic and very disturbing to those not taking part. In particular; our pets. That Durban chap has a good point and ought to be obeyed. The BMW man? Well who knows?
For many years, I thought that Baa-Baas was an endearing name for a team of gentlemen inclined to a nice game of rugger. Not so much it turns out. There’s considerable debate at the bar about whether it would have been better for the ‘bokke to meet The Barbarians (their actual name) at the end instead of the start of their N hemisphere jaunt. But in passing its worth recording that it’s a funny game, cricket. Ask any Aussie.
James Greener
Friday 4th November 2016
