What good am I?

I came across a reference to these lyrics in Bob Dylan's biographical Chronicles which I am reading at present. They are from his 1989 Oh Mercy Album and address some of the issues I was grappling with in my earlier "My Tribe" post. The inspiration for this song was him seeing a homeless man being harassed by policemen.

What good am I if I'm like all the rest,
If I just turned away, when I see how you're dressed,
If I shut myself off so I can't hear you cry,
What good am I?

What good am I if I know and don't do,
If I see and don't say, if I look right through you,
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin' sky,
What good am I?

What good am I while you softly weep
And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep,
And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don't try,
What good am I?

What good am I then to others and me
If I've had every chance and yet still fail to see
Bridge: If my hands tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been

What good am I if I say foolish things
And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings
And I just turn my back while you silently die,
What good am I?

Congratulations

I wish to confirm that you have won 4 tickets to Day 3 of the SA vs NZ test match being hosted at Sahara Park, Newlands.

Received a call from SAB yesterday about this. I'm in Cape Town for work most of the long weekend. Can I fit this in?

Salient info: Includes tickets, clothes, food & 10 Castle Lagers for each of 4 guests.

But had to love this comment at the end of the info sheet, and I quote: "Once your vouchers are done, you are welcome to purchase any additional beer from the beer garden alongside."
That would be for the 11th,12th & 13th etc beer , and assuming that all 4 guests reach their quota before me?

My Tribe

I have had this post swirling in my mind since about 2 minutes after 9pm on Monday night, 17 April and I fear that I will not be able to articulate this properly. But here goes.

Most of the Jozi bloggers out there have had a thing or two to say about the Pretoria leg of Robbie Williams’ tour, and I’ve yet to see a negative comment (beyond the usual culprits of traffic, catering and toilets). So this comment is not really about the show. Robbie is an arrogant prat, but I can’t but love the guy and it was a fantastic enthralling show, better than any other act I’ve seen. I had a great time and would gladly do it again & again.

As an aside: This discussion of the word prat if quite interesting.

Q. “In some British magazines I have noticed the word prat, which seems in context to mean a fool or stupid person. Is this related to pratfall?”
A. It is, yes. Prat in this sense means “backside; buttocks”, first recorded in the sixteenth century but of unknown origin. A pratfall is a comedy fall on to the buttocks. The British slang sense dates from the 1960s and means an incompetent, foolish or stupid person. It became popular in the 1980s. It isn’t obscene, but it’s a sharp expression of criticism or abuse.

But back to business. By 9.02 pm we had grappled with parking attendants and queued for toilets and cokes, chilled out to the Wired Daisies & Freshly Ground. (Yes we were there pretty early). And in between this there was plenty of time for people-watching.
Wasted lasses trying to sober up by being paraded up and down the aisle by concerned mates. Very drunk & loud short men who had clearly been warming up for this since breakfast.
Annoyed corporate types wielding their weight in trying to ensure that the seats that their marketing department paid for actually had a view. They never did succeed in getting people not to stand on the barrier railings in front of their seats despite a war of words (very nearly fists, this was Pretoria remember), and attempting to enlist the help of out-of-depth security Guards and most of the Pretoria police force.

Interesting to note that Robbie referred to “Pretoria” without a hint of “Tshwane”. Wonder if it was under deliberate advice or a fortunate unawareness.

But back to reality & 9.02 pm again. All 61,000 of us waving our video cellphones* over our heads, had just spent (………wait for it & do the sums) at least R30 million on this gig. That’s about R500 each (tickets, parking, fuel, pre-gig drinks etc). A thought flashed through my mind and it was : "Oh my God - This is my tribe."
*For a moment I thought that I had lost out on some free promo of light sabre type torches until I realized what these lights were.

So when I see a lamppost headline shrieking “Tutu angry with whites” from this weekend’s Sunday Times and without reading the article I suspect that it has a similar vein to the sense that I am feeling. What are we, as a tribe, really doing to help this country? Are we sacrificing anything for the good of the nation? Or is the benefit we provide just a byproduct of our existence? Can we excuse our apathy?

Nkosinathi Biko, whose father, Steve Biko, was murdered by apartheid security forces recently stated that: "As individuals they (whites) have made no contribution to the process of reconciliation." Can I really dispute this?

I have a sense of helplessness about helping everyone. I cannot donate something to every street beggar, and to protect myself against having to make an agonizing decision at each instance have mentally installed a blanket policy not to give to anyone. I arrived at this policy, not lightly, but by accepting a philosophical argument supplied by Michael Palin, who had faced a similar quandary while traveling through India. It’s a kind of Utilitarian argument, despite a clearly selfish impact, but based on a view that my cost, which because I cannot give to everyone includes an agonizing weighing up of worthiness and then some further sacrifice (usually some cash), may be greater than the benefit I provide (on aggregate) to those that I do decide to give to.

It may make life easier not having to evaluate the relative need, the quality of begging sign “Halp me, no job, no food”, the age of the baby strapped to the mother’s back. But it does not absolve my guilt or indicate that I don’t feel guilt at this situation. I wouldn’t sit at every robot as feeling like I’m at an auction and that one wrong scratch of nose, one bit of eye contact, or one wrong signal could leave me seriously out of pocket.

I know crowds like the Starfish Foundation do great work on the premise that every little bit helps, but why then do I feel so helpless in the wake of huge differences in wealth and abject poverty that exists all?

Can I absolve my guilt? Is it not OK that I pay my taxes and do a regular and honest day’s work (All right..most days).

Is it really OK to blow R30 million in this country, at this stage of history, to wave our cellphones in the air at the antics of one seriously entertaining Stoke-on-Trent-born arrogant prat?

Plenty of questions and I don’t have the answer but somehow I don’t think we do enough to deserve this sort of luxury. I fear that there is much more to be said…I love this country but I'm not sure that I'm proud enough of my contribution or that of my tribe.

BMW Drivers

I still love this picture that did the rounds a few years back, and can only imagine the the grin on the person's face when he/she first sat bored and frustrated behind this BMW 530d and mentally flipped the model number over.
Generalisations aside, incidents like that reported by Thirdworldant are not uncommon and not restricted to BMW's and taxis. But strangely enough I've found Gauteng drivers mostly accommodating in the traffic and certainly more skilled than those in Cape Town. Maybe in Jozi we're just resigned to the traffic. It's also a great excuse to stop off at the pub on the way home to wait for the traffic to ease up.

There are some serious roadworks taking place on my daily commute and I must confess to taking perverse pleasure, on the occasions that I am behind a low-clearance BMW easing its way slowly over the gravel, in driving my tired but faithful Isuzu right up its butt. It's a bit puerile but as it is pretty much what happens to me every time I venture into the fast lane I can surely be afforded this small pleasure.

A busy week

A crazy week (and another 4 weeks after that) of training at work, convening and presenting not just sitting at the back and pulling faces. It has to be one of the most energy sapping of activities that I can think of. That said, expect little comment from me in the week to come. I'm focussing on getting to Friday, the long weekend, and the Sharks nailing the Cats at Ellis Park this weekend. If only the SA teams wouldn't kick so much ball away. I was most interested to read that the current Sharks flyhalf import and onetime All Black regards his scrumhalf partner, one Ruan Pienaar, as being better than Joost van der Westhuizen. Not too shabby, but that's quite a pedestal to be put on.

a commodius vicus of recirculation

"I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved along the...................riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."

That being the "final & first" (the book starts with riverrunand ends with the) passage of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Any wonder that I've not yet gone past page 8.

Open Plan Offices - A Simple Test

Two things in corporate life indicate that you've made it, or just where you stand in the pecking order.
The first is parking.
1. Just how close to the front door is your reserved bay?
2. Do you have a reserved bay?
3. Do you have to park in the muddy field across the road?

The second is getting your own office and ultimately the corner office. Or at least this used to be the case until things got all democratic and the open plan office arrived. Now it's how close to the window you get, if you actually get a permanent desk or if you have to flit around "hot desking". Arriving late to office, you stand out like Bakkies Botha at a dwarf festival. Trying to surreptitiously find a desk at 9.15 with an attempted look of perkiness, and convincing slapping down of notebook as if you have just arrived from an important out-of-office meeting doesn't really fool anyone.

The embarrassing moments are common place and arise when your mate sends you some innocuous looking file that springs open on your screen with a set of 48DDD breasts and a full volume soundtrack accompaniment to the tune of "Hey everybody I'm watching porno over here". At least some people do provide some "Open with care" warnings.

Most of all I just find the environment damn unproductive, no matter how many policies and procedures are in place.
I have come to a simple test and conclusion then, that unless you work in an industry where it is acceptable to have the radio on loud in the background you should not have an open plan office.

Weird Origins

I guess quite a few people use the random "NEXT BLOG"
search function at the top of the blogger page as a
reasonable portion of visitors arrive from odd destinations
that are clearly unconnected through logic. (Not even
degrees of Kevin Bacon). Many sites are foreign and
completely greek to me. However, someone visited my site
from a rather exotic source site last night.
I hope it was a random browsing connection! Go have a look. Sadly
Phoenix, Arizona is a bit far to travel to go and get any
of it.

...And still we get this on the Hansa site.

I read this a publicity blurb about 3 months ago. In line with its new image, launched last year, Hansa Pilsener has launched its own dynamic website, and invites consumers to “Explore the Soul of a Pilsener”.

Perhaps the idea is that I “keep refreshing” myself on my favourite brew until the cows come home and increase sales that way. But it just seems slack or at least some seriously premature PR. I was looking forward to whatever angle the Ogilvy guys could come up with. Anything improves on the 'grey accountant' angle that they used in the nineties (especially if you were a Hansa drinking bean counter, like myself).I wonder if they could get the Bishop, the real king of soul, to endorse the stuff. Now that would be a coup.

Another thought : There are only two kinds of beer. Good beer, and better beer!

UPDATE/APOLOGY: I dropped a note to the Hansa Brand Manager & received some very prompt & polite responses from them & Ogilvy. It seems that the site is up & running after some initial teething problems and has been for some time. For some reason it's still flashing the "under refreshment" bit for me, though. Can anyone else get the site to reveal itself? If it's something on my side you all have my apologies.

TWA didn't believe me... so here goes.

Amount of urban road space in that is GPS mapped in South Africa=17,400 KM ( A)
Average Car Length (including JHB following distance of 75 cm)= 5metres(B )
Therefore number of Cars on a hundred percent full road per lane, =A/B x 1000 = 3,480,000 (C)
Double lane highways (say 10% of this) so add 10% (=C x 110%)= 3,828,000 (D)
Percentage of urban roads not being used at any on time (ie no traffic in the "other direction") = 30%. 70% of D= 2,679,600 (E,)
No of Audis per every car (1 in 31), 86,439 , , F , =E/31
Add: Audis in garages getting fixed after crashing into taxis, 1,355 , , G,
Add: No of Audis countrywide belonging to farmers (ie those that don't drive on GPS mapped urban roads -(I don’t know that any don't drive Isuzu, Hilux or Merc) but there must be a few) say = 5 (H)
Add: No of Audis that are driving in between the taxis in the emergency lane (mostly Metro Police Cars)= 30 (I)
Total number of Audis in SA ==F+G+H+I = 88,000 , , J, Cars older than 8 years (say 1 in 5 = 20% = 17,566 , 20.0% (K)
Lifespan of the rest of the Audis (better than alfa's!)= 8 years
Number of Audis bought in last 8 years=J-K= 70,434
Average growth rate of car purchases over the last 8 years therefore present value at end of year 1 of 70434 with an average of 10% growth rate over 8 years
Year 1, 6,159 , 1998
Year 2, 6,775 , 1999
Year 3, 7,452 , 2000
Year 4, 8,198 , 2001
Year 5, 9,017 , 2002
Year 6, 9,919 , 2003
Year 7, 10,911 , 2004
Year 8, 12,002 , 2005
Sum of all years =70,434 (check) therefore the number of Audis sold in 2005 is 12002.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen (or are they just resting?)

Poor Graeme Smith. On the back of a hard-fought (and bar the disastrous pitch debacle at Newlands, pretty decent) cricket test series against Australia where Australia showed once and for all that, despite our reputation as scrappers and the close last 2 tests, they are simply better than us. He is now has an injured tip to his ring finger and has had Peter Roebuck pontificating what a great captain Jacques Kallis has been (would make?).

To top this, his ex-beau, the bokkie from beyond Cape Town's famous boerewors curtain, a certain Slinky Minky is rumoured to be dating the famous captain of another 11 man team and part-owner of Stoke-on-Trent's Port Vale football club. One Mr R. Williams.

Off-the-field trivialities aside, I am desperately keen to give Smith another chance to come good. So please Graeme, DO NOT rise to any bait that Stephen Fleming may cast at you. You have tried that strategy and failed dismally. But where Roebuck takes solace from Kallis's unruffled (in fact almost non-commmmital) response to some poor umpiring decisions and marginal sportsmanship from the Australians, I am glad that Smith has the candour to show his disappointment at such instances. If the "not out" LBW decision against him at Centurion was a potential turning point at the nadir of Smith's career, then I am really hoping that the series against the Kiwis will allow him to come-of-age and channel his talent, leadership and personality (only moderately reigned) into being the great player captain that we want him to be. I hope that he can prove his naysayers wrong as he rises from his resting place.

Breakdown of trust?

There has been much talk of breakdown of trust of late. Chief spy, Billy Masethla, was recently sacked because of a purported breakdown of trust with the Thabo Mbeki. And I have l felt a serious breakdown of trust in my own relationship with state officials. I will find it very difficult to assume sincerity in their future pronouncements of policy.  It is clear now by his later actions and court testimony (well maybe not that clear - it could just be the desperate rambling of man backed into a corner) that when Jacob Zuma advocated an approach to HIV/AIDS that he did not believe this approach himself. He was following the party line. Should I trust a man who merely reads out pre-prepared policy speeches and doesn't in his heart agree with them? (OK, welcome to politics, but when it is made so blatantly evident it does destroy my faith).

I am beginning to wonder however, whether there is something more sinister behind all this talk of a conspiracy and infighting in the ANC surrounding leadership succession. Succession planning is an integral dimension of party politics and allows the still ambitious and power hungry incumbent leader to, in effect, extend his reign and influence beyond his statutory limited full term.

I am struck with the parallels with Russian politics. As Yeltsin neared the end of his term in the late 1990's there was a flurry of political motivated sacking. The BBC editorialised at the time that: He (Yeltsin) is terrified by the thought that someone who does not share his vision of the "New Russia" might come to power and undo all that he has done in the last eight years.

There is also currently much back corridor discussion about succession in the Tony Blair's Labour Party. While John Prescott's comment that "Every British Prime Minister goes eventually" is clearly tongue-in-cheek they do emphasise that succession battles could be seen as normal part of the democratic process. My concern is that in South Africa the serious debate is not happening in back corridors and the speculative mainstream media. In South Africa the details of the debate have emerged out of the judicial process, such as the Zuma trial and Saki Macozoma's legal restraint on the NIA, and commissions of enquiry, such as the arms deal enquiries. That there is a legally suspect angle to these goings on suggests that the battle has been both more sinister and clandestine than one would expect in a normal democratic process.

To conclude:
1. We are not a normal democracy,
2. Despite this, our democratic and legal checks and balances are far more robust than Russia's were, and
3. We ain't seen nothing yet!

Follow up : Darren has a some interesting thoughts on the spy scandal.

ad(non)sense

I can't say how much I've earned because it contravenes the terms and conditions, but amazingly the Google Adsense advertising block above has actually earned me something. Drinks on me in about 25 years when I get the first $50 cheque.

Autumn Lament

Today,
seems like
it would be a day ripe
for autumn lyrics.

Tales of gleeful children tossing fallen leaves back up toward the sky.

If only I could:
evade the glare of LCD screens,
escape the shrill of personal ringtones, and
empty my cluttered,
ever-filling,
Inbox.