I couldnt help but laugh out loud when I read this. It seemed incredible archaic and could have only been written by a man or a woman brain washed by a man.
I wonder if there are any women out there who still believe or follow any of these rules. please stand up and be counted.
Lord above! for the very first time ever, since the 1994, I find that I am totally ashamed to call myself a South African. Not only am I afraid I also find that I have this continuous chilling feeling that a runaway, destructive and completely uncontrollable genie has been let out the box and no one has a clue how to put it back. I am talking about the Xenophobia induced frenzy of violence that has been unleashed these past weeks. Nothing, not our stupid and lamentable stance on HIV and AIDS, not our pathetic stance on Zimbabwe not even the rampant violent crime, has ever made me feel this way.
When the violance started in Gauteng I was angry at the idiots that were stupidly tearing away the legacy we have built for our children for a nano second of instant gratification. I railed at the monstrous stupidity of it all. Why were they so blind? Couldn’t they see what they were destroying?
When these spread to the Western Cape I discovered a need to hear all sides of the story. I needed to have a deeper understanding of what’s going on.The hatred coming from communitees is so strong and so deeply felt that it is hard to dismiss. The penny dropped when a relative related a very simple story to me as an example. She tells me that every time when she comes from work she has to go and fetch water for cooking from a tap located at about a 100 meters from her house. 8 months ago it would take her about 10 minutes. These days it’s almost a two hour wait mostly due to immigrants who have moved in. All the shops around her are owned by immigrants. They are organised and extremely supportive of each other. She tells me she finds herself resenting them more and more. The harder it became to make ends meet the more her resentment grew. Throw in their lack of communication due to language issues and understanding of each other’s culture and background. Add the economic downturn, loss of hope, electricity black outs, Polokwane etc and you have a nice cinder box waiting for the tiniest ignition to come ablaze scorching everything in sight.
It is clear that a root cause of the grievances of South Africa’s poorest is government’s failure to manage inward migration. Every country in the world struggles with this but it seems that our own country never even bothered to try to stay on top on the issues. They adopted the ostrich philosophy of burying their heads in the sand. If the estimate that, a population tantamount to the size of a medium sized country has been added to our country, is true then this should have been anticipated. Why it is that government were so unprepared for the ignition of violence? Anyone with half a brain should have anticipated that the fight for scarce resources at the bottom of the economic pile will have dire consequences. The cake is getting smaller and smaller with no end of its shrinking in sight.
We are now at a cross roads. We need wise practical and empathetic leadership to come out of this one with some dignity as a country. We need two strong messages: 1. To the immigrants who are already residing in this country assuring them of their safety and welcome. 2. The other to the poor South Africans assuring them that the inward migration will stop. Both messages must be followed by a strong action reinforcing the messages.
Who will be our light in shining armour? Mbeki? Not on your Nelly. Zuma then with his machine gun peharps?
Lord have mercy!!!!!
It could be that economic climate is on the downturn or that I have woken up to the need to count my pennies, whatever ok folks; BUT it has just occurred to me , a few minutes ago to be exact, that movies are a flipping rip off. What a scam!! I tell you somebody is perched nicely on a mound of my hard earned dosh for which I have recieved very little benefit from. It’s a scam I tell you!
Nothing screams great entertainment to kidlets like a night out to the movies. To be honest nothings screams 2 hours of relaxation with very little pestering from said kidlets to me than the movies too. So for these very good reasons movies have always been the preferred choice of entertainment on a Friday night in my house. I always thought this was a very cost effective form entertainment, what with discount cards and what not, until I started adding up the pennies.
If you only think tickets and you have the discount cards for a family of four, movies are indeed quite cost effective. That is if you are willing to seat dry mouthed and empty handed amongst a whole theatre of pop corn crunching, smarties popping and slush puppy slurping individuals.
Trust me no kid wants to do that, even if as adults we could. See they have been wired to believe that no movie is enjoyable without these ancillary items. What’s more diner after the movie is a foregone conclusion as well as of course they will need to be fed.
So a night that should by right cost a family of four approximately 60 buck for four discounted movie tickets ends up costing a whopping 500 bucks. I dont even like popcorn and am never ever able to finish a whole box of it in one seating.
For an example: Cost for family of 4
Movie Tickets R60 bucks with discount card or 132 without
4 Popcorns R52
4 Cold Drinks R60
4 Packets of smarties R48
Parking R8
Total R300 + Take away Dinner R200 = R500
What really gets to me are the inflated prices of these items. For cripe’s sake popcorn unpopped costs a flipping R12-50 AND you can get quite a few of those large movie boxes from 1 packet. Cold drinks are prices so high and yet the drinks are so watered down with ice that you have to wonder just how much it’s costing them to churn out the stuff. I would be very surprised if it costs more than 5 rand per super large glass.
The sweets are just ridiculous.
When I mooted the idea of sneaking in our own sweets and drinks to the kids the were horrified. My daughter told me she would rather die than be seen opening her own cheapo jiffy bagged packet at the movies. My son said home pop corn just does not taste the same. When I argued that it’s because it’s healthier. His answer was “all healthy stuff sucks mom. You should know this”.
So I feel really hard done by the movie people. They have brainwashed my kids and have spoiled what should have been really cheap entertainment.
What the heck happened to drive ins?. Now that was the life. You just packed up a picnic or the supper for that night and bob was your uncle. I so do yearn for those days.
Conversation taking place in my bed this Sunday Morning after, dear daughter had tripped in at dawn(rudely early for a Sunday morning) carrying a tray of bedraggled flowers, luke warm coffee, no breakfast and handmade mother’s day cards:
Hubby: Happy mother’s day hon.
Me (getting quite perky in anticipation of a wrapped parcel) : oh thanks sweety.
…Then dead silence and no movements indicating reaching for much anticipated wrapped parcel.
Me: is there anything else honey
Him: ehem not really .. what’s for breakfast?
Me now having lost my perkiness completely: What? What do you mean there is nothing else?
Him sheepishly: Actually I did go to Cavedish square to get you a bottle of Jean Paul Gaultier (my absolute fave) refill . But I just could not remember what size your current bottle was. So I decided not to take one in case its not the right size.
Me (now miffed beyond belief): so why did you not take both
Him (looking at me in a horrified and mystified way ) : What do you mean?
Well to make a long story short I got chocolates and flowers for mother’s day instead of this:
Men generally hate buying presents. There some that are really good at it of course but in my world I have yet to meet one. My husband does not mind buying presents as such, but he does serious mind making the decision about what to buy.
A colleague at work told me that she makes it very easy for her hubby. She goes around looking for what she wants , then she cuts pics of it from magazines, finds out which shop stocks it, visits the shop and finds out which counter or aisle the thing is in, the price and the size. She then passes this info to hubby who sommer pitches up and buys it.
I doubt if I would be very happy with this scenario as it takes the element of surprise out of the whole presie receiving process. For me that is the romance. But my collegue tells me she has never ever not received a present and she has never received something she does not want.
I may have to consider this as I have received quite astoundingly odd pressies in the past from my nearest and dearest. Top of the list are the various verimak products I have received in the past resulting in a blanket ban of these products by me from my house. Whilst they sound very good when being advertised and also seem to be good value for money every time the advertiser says “ and that’s not all” they are actually crap. I hate them with a vengeance. Slim coffee my foot !!!
Anyway my birthday is coming up on the 4th of June. I may have to start cutting pics of stuff.
Hope you had a lovely mothers day
Have you heard of the vernon koekermoer phenomenon ? I think he is hilarious. Whoever came out with this guy is a genius. Just have a look at him:
Dont you just love him ?
Gosh it’s Monday and I am back at work. CAN YOU FLIPPING BELIEVE IT???
This is the down side of mid year holidays, especially week long ones; they just make Mondays suck more than ever. It’s kind of funny how an unexpected week long holiday has managed to whizz by so quickly. I had such high hopes for it.
It all started with a bit of a bumpy flight on Saturday (26th April) from Cape Town to Durban and meeting up with sisters, brother in law, niece and nephew at the airport. We then drove to San Lameer Resort in great excitement. How were we to know that the big cahuna in the sky was planning to pepper the South Coast with torrential rain for the rest of the week? Ironically Cape Town had little or no Rain the whole week
We had only two days of blue skies the rest just carried on pissing with rain. So what do you do when you have bored kiddies, a soccer mad brother in law who is obsessing about Man united and their chances of winning some match to stay contenders in some competition and rainy skies? You get out all the lap tops and download games from the internet and you dedicate one TV to the brother in law and his soccer obsession. This way you buy yourself much needed hours of peace.
This is how I got to watch idols (east and southern Africa auditions). I am not really a fan of idols but I had nothing better to do. It occurred to me that being an Idols judge must be the most exhausting and emotionally draining job in the world. Gosh they don’t get paid enough whatever they earn those judges. I never saw such a bunch of idols wanna-bee’s who had no clue in my life. The biggest shock was Malawi. I can only deduce that all the talented people had somewhere to be that day and the ones that turned up were those who had nothing better to do than seat for a whole day waiting for 3 minutes of total humiliation on national television.
Malawi had a staggering number of hopeless wonders. Ranging from a 24 year old man, wearing a cowboy hat who sang a song about being kind to animals. The tune was stolen from the nursery rhyme “I hear thunder”. He delivered the song off key in a dismal screeching soprano. He was soon followed by a bootilicious sister who started off by welcoming the judges to Malawi in a very loud voice. She then proceeded to sing her own compilation. The voice was not good at all and was most definitely off key, the chorus was long and confusing made worse by her pronunciation of please as preace. When told that she had not made it through she was extremely shocked and demanded to know why. It was utterly bizarre.
The judges had completely lost their sense of humour by now and were looking limp with tortured expressions of the prosecuted on their faces. I switched off after the next contestant. He was a male in his mid twenties. He proudly announced that he would be singing “ oomps I done it again by Bring a Spear” When the judge said you mean Brittany Spears ? His answer was yes Bringa Spear. It was at this point that the shoulders of all three judged went into a collective slump…..
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