OUT TO LUNCH

I’ve fully familiarised myself with the Stage 8 load shedding schedule for my area knowing that it is only a matter of time before it will be our new reality. That will involve three four power outages every day leaving most households with no electricity at all for twelve hours, eight of which fall within the normal working day. So forget about popping a Woollies pie in the oven to heat for the kid’s supper when they get home from school because the 16h00 to 20h30 slot seems a favourite with the load shedder.

I now get up at 05h30 (domestic god that I am) to put the washing machine on before they hit the off switch at 08h00. Fortunately the vast investment in solar panels, an inverter and lithium batteries a few years ago allows us to lead an almost normal daily routine although tumble-dryers and air-conditioners are a no-no.

At the moment, with the long sunny summer days, the battery reserve normally reaches 100% capacity by about midday and stays above 80% until sunset when it depletes quite rapidly. The problem with regular four hour power cuts though is that the batteries barely have enough time to recharge before they are called upon for duty again. But that’s nothing that another R60 000 on extra batteries can’t sort out, preferably ahead of winter.

Like me you may well have thought this whole Eskom fiasco is all due to the complete incompetence of the ANC plus some massive fraud, corruption and gangster activity within Eskom itself but you’d be wrong. When Gwede (Tiger) Mantashe ranted on about Eskom being a cover for the third force which is dedicated to bringing down the democratically elected liberation party I dismissed it as nonsense. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Uncle Gwede is, shall we say, not the sharpest tool in the shed and has made an ass of himself in public on many occasions, often without realising it even when it was pointed out to him. But when no less a respected struggle heavyweight than Naledi Pandor echoed this sentiment last week I sat up and took notice. Suddenly everything made sense.

Here we all were believing the right wing, anti-government, white supremacist propaganda accusing the ANC of ballsing up electricity supply and harking back to the halcyon days of apartheid when Eskom even provided enough electricity for export when all along the answer was right under our noses.

Eskom is nothing more than an imperialist controlled economic saboteur staffed by foreign agents who want to derail Pres Frogboiler’s SONA dreams of smart cities and bullet trains criss-crossing the country at breakneck speed.

Along with the theories that the world is controlled by very rich white people who turn into giant lizards at night the Nandor/Mantashe take on Eskom will go down very well with those who have romped through matric with a 30% pass mark and find it difficult to tell fact from fiction.

The same people (many of them dressed in red onesies) who are celebrating the news that someone slipped some cyanide into the boss’s morning coffee. To these perceptive and forward looking folk, only when the grid has completely collapsed (around early Feb at a guess) and South Africa has no electricity will it be possible for the people’s revolution to rebuild an electricity supply system from scratch which will benefit everyone, not just the filthy rich exploiters of the working class.

Meanwhile the capitalist run exploitation machine that is Eskom has been allowed to up prices by 18%. This is being treated as ‘bad news’ by faux libertarians such as Alan Winde and John Steenhuisen but I would argue that it’s actually a price reduction per household in real terms when you take into account the 50%+ reduction in availability.

All of which leads to the chattering classes’ favourite topic du jour which is….what do you think will happen at the 2024 elections?

I’m afraid I have been spooking quite a number of people lately with my attempts to be Nostradamus. The general view is that the ANC will get less than 50% of the vote next year and will be forced to enter into coalitions and then we will all live happily ever after.

Poppycock and let me tell you why but you may need to pour yourself a stiff drink after. First and foremost it is important to remember that the ANC is a well organised criminal enterprise posing as a political party.

Like all well organised criminal enterprises they have, over time, got the people who matter on their side so they control the enforcement agencies, the courts, the spooks and anything and anyone else who might advance their cause.

The corporate world is famously spineless when it comes to standing up to government idiocy and for a very good reason. If they don’t please the people in charge they may well find that it becomes a bit difficult to continue running a successful business in SA. The mining industry is an obvious example but there are plenty of other corporate chiefs who understand that to shut up and toe the line is good for business and personal safety.

To suggest that a low vote in next year’s election (which I will presume to be unrigged for the moment) will change anything in this country is to be wildly delusional.

Have you ever tried to take a full food bowl away from a hungry Rottweiller? And have you observed any enormous improvements in those municipalities that have already been forced into coalition politics?

As any devotee of the Godfather movies knows, gangsters don’t like to be told what to do by those they regard as less important gangsters so any ANC coalition following the 2024 election is likely to be a very violent affair indeed with no tangible benefits for the South African little people who get to vote every five years.

Precious little emerged from the recent elective conference to give us any hope for the future. So I would suggest that the next 16 months will be dedicated to business as usual which means stripping out whatever assets have yet to be stolen, clogging the courts with cases deliberately designed to avoid the ‘guilty’ ever appearing in trial courts plus the further deliberate crippling of government controlled entities so rescue plans can be launched courtesy of the usual suspects with the necessary up front incentive payment obviously (anyone want to bet against Turkish Karpowerships by mid-year?).

Expect white monopoly capital to be blamed for most things and the legacy of apartheid (the gift that keeps on giving) to make regular appearances as anti-white/coloured/Indian rhetoric is ramped up ahead of 2024. Buckle up…. things are about to get very ugly indeed.

****

According to many news sources Prince Harry’s ghost-written whinge fest ‘SPARE’ has beaten all records by becoming the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time. Which, for a work of fiction, is quite an achievement.

It is, of course, the oldest trick in the book (no pun intended) to ‘accidentally’ release a book on its pre-embargo date and the publisher’s very cleverly chose the Spanish language version of this lamentable tome for this ruse.

Since nobody to my knowledge has ever been taken to court or fined an enormous amount for releasing a book pre embargo the act itself is riskless. All that was required was for the British press to find a Spanish speaking staff member and…hey presto…the translated inner thoughts of Harry were there for all to read.

Which is why it’s genuinely surprising that anybody would buy this book since all the best bits have already been aired in both the tabloid and broadsheet newspapers and online worldwide. There can’t be many people left in the world who haven’t heard about Harry’s frostbitten todger or his fight with big brother Willy where he fell into the dog bowl and broke his necklace after being bitchslapped by the heir to the throne.

But the revelation that really amused me (and why I suspect that ‘SPARE’ is a work of fiction) is Harry’s account of losing his virginity in a field behind a crowded pub with an older ‘horsey’ woman who slapped his bottom after he had gone at her like a stallion. I’m sure both Archie and Lilibet will enjoy reading Daddy’s book when they are a little older.

I know enough about the tabloid media in the UK to understand that any editor worth his salt would have wanted the headline “I WAS HARRY’S FIRST SHAG” screaming elegantly from the front page of his particular redtop. News hounds and photographers would have been dispatched to the pub in question and would have asked around the village or town for the likely identity of a horsey woman who might have been around during Harry’s younger days.

It’s possible that the horsey woman herself may have been tempted to pay off her mortgage and buy a new horse box by selling her story to the Daily Mirror. But we’ve heard nothing which makes me wonder whether the not very bright Harry may have dreamed the whole episode after a heavy night on magic mushrooms. After all, if he can see talking pedal bins in Courteney Cox’s bathroom then anything is possible.

I did watch the first three Netflix programmes on H & M just to give me something to hate more than the ANC over the Christmas holidays. They were truly awful so I won’t be bothering with the other three.

Besides, there’s nothing I feel I don’t know already about the intensely private and publicity shy couple. But at least it’s taken the Pom’s minds off the dreadful weather, illegal immigrants, inflation and falling property prices so it hasn’t all been in vain.