Sunday, 29 September 2024

Durban: Place of Great Burning

Like many of you, I reluctantly left  the warm embrace of Durban's humidity some years ago. I returned recently to find the city much changed. Looking for West Street, I walked up and down Dr Pixley ka Seme street for hours. Then I remembered that we have discarded such relics of colonialism as the English names for the four compass points. And of course we are currently freeing ourselves from the equally cloying embrace of the  neo-colonialist West. Our new comrades may not offer as much trade as the old, but they do offer good vodka, warm comradeship and other important intangibles, vital for life, liberty and the pursuit of elusive happiness.


I wandered into Point Road (now Mahatma Gandhi Road). Once known as a hub for entertainment and cultural exchanges with foreign sailors, Point Road has apparently cleaned up its act. I was, therefore,  shocked to see a sign brazenly advertising Butt Traders. ""Yoh!", I said to myself, which is South African for "Golly!". It turned out that Butt is a surname. I was hugely disapp....,I mean, relieved. My virtue, which I prize as highly as some prize tenders for road name changes, was safe.

Right outside Durban's department of public works building, the paving stones had rebelled against whatever held them down.  They stuck out at interesting, sharp angles, allowing only one person at a time to use the walkway - at own risk. A decaying building next door seemed held together only by the danger tape around it. I wondered how long it had been so.  Probably only a year or two, going on the sterling record of our guardians of the city. Within the public works building, many voices were raised in loud, joyous song. Probably celebrating successes in the battle against raised paving stones and decaying buildings. They sang with the same gusto and bravura that surely must be applied to repairing our ravaged infrastructure. The song seemed to be made up of the same few words sung over and over. All of this was was so quintessentially South Africa today. My heart swelled with patriotic and provincial pride. I couldn't make out the words of the song, but the malady lingers on.

There is an upside to Durban's sad, neglected appearance. Tourists love historical ruins. Durban has got the ruins part right.

Durban people need to stop complaining about elected officials. It's hard to balance looting and other duties. Looting requires far more effort and inventiveness than the dull, soul destroying business of running a metro efficiently. One can understand how the artistic souls of our best are engaged, transfix̌ed, captured.  Was ever a muse so fair as money? Water, electricity, services - these things are ephemeral but the monuments to looting, like all great art, live on forever. Well, at least a hell of a long time.

To celebrate the national sport of looting, here's borrowing from well-known literature:

Fragments from the Misiderata (apologies to Max Ehrmann):

Go stealthily amid the noise and the haste, and remember what joy there may be in looting . As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all victims......

Avoid honest and ethical persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare your loot with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser looters than yourself.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the kleptoverse no less than the thieves and the tsotsis; you have a right to be here...

Fragments from If - The Looters' Version (apologies to the Kipling bloke):

If you can keep your loot when all about you   
 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust the Cause when all men doubt it,....

If you can talk with crowds and know your slogans,   
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the sticky touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
Simply because you know too much....

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of looting done,   
Yours is this land and everything that’s in it,   
And—which is more—you’ll be a party Man, my son!

I encourage you to visit the great coastal city of Durban. Some useful information:


Relief from heat and cloying humidity comes from cool ocean breezes scented with the  exotic perfume of Durban's finest zol (marijuana). It was this heady mix that had NDZ exclaim in poetic rapture on the mysteries of zol and saliva.

The people of Durban and KZN are renowned for their political astuteness, farsightedness and loyalty to the chess loving Mr Bojangles of KZN politics (Lord, that man could dance!). They are also very fair-minded and tend to give discredited politicians many opportunities to discredit themselves further. During the last municipal elections, a mayor, who had not covered himself in glory during the looting and other jolly stuff that took place in 2021, was speedily re-elected.  Ms Gumede, of solid waste tender fame, who some said had covered herself in….. something else, also took her rightful place. “KZN is f&*^%d”, wrote an angry, disgusted resident. Durban people can be so melodramatic. That’s going too far. Buggered, yes. 

Spirituality is also important to the people of KZN. Not all that long ago, our pious ANC comrades proposed a ceremony to cleanse KZN of bad spirits from the Anglo-Boer war, who are supposedly behind the violence and murders in the province. During KZN's many wars, scuffles and tussles, people of all hues stabbed, shot and generally donnered one another. But it just had to be the white spirits still stirring it up, didn't it? Can't take these white folks anywhere. One of my many uncouth friends suggested that a quite different sort of white spirit led to this proposal. 

In 2021 Durban literally became The Place of Great Burning, during the troubles. This was when His Former Excellency was offered state accommodation in Estcourt, no passing ‘Begin’, no collecting R200. 

Imagine this, thirty years later:

A grandfather regales his grandchildren with tales of that struggle. Driven by hunger and revolutionary fervour, he acquired a large screen TV set (which still takes pride of place in the lounge) and was able to assuage his hunger with large helpings of MasterChef Australia. The grandchildren are enchanted by the tales of derring do. 

"Yes, my children." With a grand sweep of his arm, Grandpa takes in the scenery outside. Burnt trucks litter the verges of the roads, blackened skeletons of buildings dot the green countryside.

"And one day, all this will be yours."



Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  
1378565477
O Tichmann 
+27 833970723


Service With a Sneer

Capitec has not the faintest idea of the meaning of that mysterious word, 'service'.


I have had several interesting experiences with Capitec.  This may well count as the most fascinating. I bought a voucher on their banking app that turned out to be invalid.  I called the Capitic customer care line, and that was when the fun began, proving that those two 'c' words are not in the organization's lexicon. 

 I should have known, from the very first response, that this was going to be a dizzy merry-go-round ride.
"The voucher vendor is not Capitec, sir. They are a separate business."
A quick Pontious Pilate like washing of the hands. 

It got better. Capitec's answering service Is like a maze with no beginning and no end. I had a wonderful array of meaningless  choices. One of them ('Press 4 for questions about an existing enquiry')  always resulted in the call terminating rather abruptly. 

I went from the useless answering service to an even more useless (if such is  possible)  Whatsapp service.

It didn't matter what choice I made.I always landed up with someone who would tell me that I was at the wrong department and then transfer me. This resulted in my telling the same dreary story about fifty times.

Promises to call back were never kept. It was like dealing with the ANC. It took about three weeks to resolve a problem that any business worthy of the name would have been keen to resolve immediately, as it lay at their door, regardless of who the voucher vendor was.  In South Africa, the buck never stops. Urgency or a sense of responsibility are clearly beyond most of our businesses. As in our political milieu.

Had Capitec brought together their best minds in order to devise ways to completely frustrate the customer,  they could not have done better. And this is our number one bank?

The SABC, of course, never misses a promising opportunity to disappoint or stuff up royally. They confidently announced that the Currie Cup final would be shown at four p m.  What was actually on at the promised time was the worst movie I have ever had the misfortune to see. I pressed the 'information' button on the remote. The result told me that I was insane and yes, it was indeed the Currie Cup final that I was mistaking for an exquisitely bad movie.

So nobody monitors? Just flick the switch and go on to more interesting things than the job? This was not the first time. One of the few series I could stomach  on SABC was JAG. One day, no warning given, JAG was not on  at the allotted time.  The series was back the  next week but a previous episode  repeated. It seems to me that nobody at the SABC monitors what is actually happening? That would also explain the many misspelt and grammatically incorrect captions that often lie unmolested at the bottom of the screen.

There is a home for senior citizens in the city, with a wonderful set of value statements  right at the entrance. Here's what I have observed. The staff are, like many of our politicians, pretty much invisible most of the time. They can barely greet and seem to be at pains to avoid the people they serve. At a meeting that I missed, one of them had a physical altercation with a resident and received a resounding klap for his troubles.  The resident was evicted. Another resident told me that a few days later, the klapped one called him an Instigator  and commented that he would be the next to be evicted. Why instigator  I asked. Because he had asked  a question not to the gentleman's liking. What? Is this communist China? Guys this is not Game of Thrones and you are not  untouchable royalty. Thus far, I have seen little evidence of those wonderful values actually being lived out. Perhaps I'm being overly cynical and critical but this looks much more to me like a Home Affairs type setup. 
"Don't disturb me. Let me do my paperwork, have my tea and collect my pay."

Of course, let's not forget that our government has led the way in living out culture and values. It's noteworthy how many organizations are faithful in emulating them. Some lessons that many South African organizations have learned from government are:

1. Appoint the most ill-suited  people you can find. If they have no stomach or aptitude for the responsibilities, so much the better. it's about paycheck, not  contribution 

2. Have no supervision or leadership worthy of the name

3. Make sure that there are no consequences for poor or non-performance (except salary, of course).

4. Show total disrespect for the people you are supposed to serve. Give them the great South African service finger.

South Africa is now indeed a wanker's paradise.

And genuine service that requires a soul? Come now, you're not really asking that, are you?



Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  
1378565477
O Tichmann 
+27 833970723

Thursday, 12 September 2024

So What’s Gnu?

It's been a month for congratulations and condolences. 


An ANC person, somewhat plaintively, commented that the DA ministers in the GNU have been showing up their ANC comrades... no, counterparts; we're not at the comrade stage yet. Not a terribly difficult thing to do.  Anybody can outrun a lame duck. (That's just a local proverb. I would never say that the ANC are lame ducks. That would be insulting  - to ducks).

Like many of my comrades in red, green and other flamboyant hues, I want to alert my fellow South Africans to the mortal danger that the DA poses to our democracy. They haven't come up with anything to rival 'umShini Wam' or 'Kill the Boer'.  Their dancing is embarrassing. Nothing jaw-dropping has ever come from the DA. Who was it came up with smallanyana skeletons, the discovery of hazenile (a Wakanda-like mineral), carrying medicine by head? Not the DA. They are deadly dull. How could they possibly dream that they can govern South Africa, land of Generations, Durban Gen, umKhonto...Given the opportunity, they will turn us into a colourless, humourless nation like the Swedes or the Germans.


Dear Floyd, congratulations on your  move to MK. MK's loss, EFF's gain  ... sorry, should that be the other way? From Malema to Zuma is surely a step up. Ok, it's a step. You cannot be forever in the shadow of the CIC, great, wise statesman though he is. At least now you will be in the shadow of the Honourable Daughter. And Daddy. I am sure that you will fit right in.  What that bunch of colourful former judges, politicians and repo rate experts needs is a dose of superior logic and banking expertise.  

You said that your departure is not a sign of distrust in the EFF but a revolutionary gesture that will unite progressive forces behind an agenda to work for progressive and revolutionary change. I used a similar argument after being fired from my last company. And yes, it doesn't get more progressive and revolutionary than the motley crew led by the chess grandmaster.

'I am sure that Floyd Shivambu will add great value to the MK party - he is ideologically profound - so too is Julius Malema,' gushed a loyal MK / EFF supporter.
Yes, regurgitating  chunks of  doggerel (of African origin, surely) does tax the brain cells. And look what a difference that has made to the poor and to the huddled masses yearning to be free.

Condolences to Mr Malema. A tragic loss. I can empathize. We recently lost the treasurer of our social club. An almost insupportable loss,  as he left with the club funds (allegedly spotted shopping at Louis Vuitton). Mr Malema, I am willing to fill the gap. I have a good line in insults. While I draw the line at throttling journalists, I'm happy to wag the odd forefinger and toss out inventive threats. I am flexible almost to the point of flip-flopping. A great fit, yes? A quick study, I have already boned up on creative border crossing and dialectical materialism. I just won't do ice. 

You reportedly said that it was as difficult as losing a mother. A friend once called Floyd a 'mother' (meant as a compliment, I think).

Congratulations to Al Jama - ah for going the extra mile or two to the church of air-walking spiritual jedi, Bushiri, for a prophecy on poll performance. Asked why he would visit a fugitive from South African justice, party leader, Ganief Hendricks, told a TV interviewer that he had never been to Malawi before. He took the  opportunity to visit. Sounds reasonable to me. As a responsible, ethical politician, carrying the hopes of hundreds of voters, I'd also take the opportunity to go, say, to Dubai, for a prophecy from the Guptas. Still, those leaders needn't have gone all the way to Malawi for a prophecy on poll performance. I could have told them that it wouldn't be lekker.



Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  
1378565477
O Tichmann 
+27 833970723