Sunny Side Up, South Africa

 Positive things about South Africa:

We have a very healthy democracy, with many political parties to choose from. Most of them are crap but it's a nice, wide variety of crap.

Wildlife. Parties galore, crime and high jinks on the  streets, fisticuffs and water jug weaponry among our lawmakers. We have it in abundance.

Low electricity bills. That's because there is no electricity to pay for but let's not split hairs.

There's a reassuring predictably about our politics. One party will  steal and stuff up as if on steroids. Another will make the kind of  vile  noises that would get you, Mr John Citizen, locked up. There'll be jolly marches with potential for getting moered.

Many years ago, a couple of us were half -dragging, half-carrying a very stoned fellow student to his room. He would intermittently jerk upright and yell out some mainly unintelligible phrases. Then he would return to his slumped contemplation of the mysteries of the universe.  This best describes the modus operandi of most other opposition parties.

 

We have a great free press. The 

national broadcaster shields us from grim news by shovelling soccer news, lingering coverage of any available funerals and the minutiae of the ANC's mainly pointless posturing and gambolling.

We will use any excuse to party. A politician in gaol, an overturned beer truck, a robbed cash van, an overturned garbage truck - name it. The Yanks thought the Capitol party was big. You ain't seen nothing yet. There is something  about looting that soothes the South African soul.  Of course, some parties are more equal than others.  There have been delicious tales of a people's party with condoms piled to the rafters, expensive booze flowing like the Nile in full flood and other heartwarming stuff.

We are the true kings and queens of political comedy. Some Immortal phrases:

We all have smallanyana skeletons

I had a shower 

I personally don't find it to be a very bad thing (for politicians  to  lie)

It's van Riebeeck 

It's apartheid 

The people of the Northwest love me

The people of the Free State love me

Eleven thousand billion, five hundred and sixty million thousand....

Innovation. We will never look at the humble couch and the shower in the same way. As Yeats put it:

All changed, changed utterly 

A terrible beauty is born 

And, the cherry on top: there's more, much more to come. 

Bet you feel better already,

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723