I'm feeling distinctly bamboozled but alas not, as Frank Zappa once suggested, by love. I thought the good old silly season had ended about three weeks ago. It seems that it hasn't - and not only is it silly but the silliness has some nasty aspects as well.
Where shall we begin?
I presume you know by now about the proposed amendment to the Weather Service Bill in terms of which anyone found guilty of issuing an incorrect severe weather warning could be fined R5-million or go to chookie for five years.
Our jails of course are so very empty that they really need an influx of weather people. And repeat offenders could be slapped with precisely double that penalty - 10 million and 10 years.
Well, look, we don't want panic or economic damage to be caused by false predictions of gale force winds, flash flooding or drought.
On the other hand, I don't know about you - and of course I hate to sound like John "don't call me Robbie" Robbie - but I think there's a lot more economic damage, irrigation and anger being caused at the moment in the leading city on the African continent by the Johannesburg Road Agency's complete inability to fix the traffic lights, rather than by improper weather predictions.
There was a gorgeous interview this morning on Robbie's show with the JRA's token honky (or could there be more like him?), a fellow called Booyens, who was unfortunately something of a stranger to the English language, but more importantly seemed to have no idea whatsoever what the problem was.
He kept repeating, in a somewhat risible manner, that from a technological and systems point-of-view, Joey's traffic lights was clearly on a par with the major conurbations of the western world. What?
This fellow clearly lives in the building that houses the JRA, wherever and whatever that is, and never drives anywhere at all. Maybe the mayor has locked him in?
But to return to the weather. I noticed in a foreign newspaper report (on the subject) - and you can imagine, if you will, all those Brits and Amerikanskis guffawing into their morning coffees - that (and I quote): "South Africa experiences huge variations in temperature and weather. The coastal areas are often buffeted by extremely high winds that can be dangerous for seafarers."
You don't know the half of it, china: you want to know about high winds? Check out the national assembly and the national council of paw-paws in Cape Town - and then there's the occasional ANC centenary.
By the way, Isham Abader, deputy director general of the department of environmental affairs apparently told the Mail and Grauniad that: "The Bill merely seeks to prevent the transmission of unreliable information. Incorrect weather warnings could lead to the evacuation of an entire town at great expense to the tax payer."
I know of some towns and cities that are incredibly improved by the mass evacuation of their populations - and at no cost to the tax payer (that's you - and me, well sometimes). Check out Joey's during the so-called silly season.
Problem now though, as I might have mentioned, is that you can't flee Johannesburg because all the exits have been choked shut as the result of non-working traffic lights.
More seriously, though: I am an avid watcher of weather on TV. It's a sort of a family thing. You know, some parents go out and earn a living; some send their children to boarding schools; others torture their children and then off themselves; and so on. These are common Seffrican pursuits.
But, rather than any of those pursuits, my parents and siblings used to chat about the weather and listen to it on the wireless, as it was then - and now we (the descendants) watch on TV.
For example, I have developed an algorithm that charts the lag between the daily temperatures offered by e.tv as compared to SABC TV.
The thing is - to be quite frank about this, as I know you want me to be - we in the media should always be frank, barry and transparent - I have developed something of a crush on someone called Christina Fatti. And she is so jumpy and unsure as it is that she is going to be made into a complete nervous wreck by the threatened fine and imprisonment.
Great googly moogly! As a rule I try to steer clear of the hoi polloi and therefore of the so-called social media. But I have just noted that people are carrying out a campaign against poor Christina on You Tube. She is being called the "world's worst weather girl" and suchlike.
You guys out there, I'd like to see you trying to get to the SABC on time, playing dodgem cars as you wend your way through intersections without traffic lights in the leafy suburb of Auckland Park.
See what I mean about nastiness? And I wasn't even thinking, when I began this piece, about Christina. I was cogitating on some other sillinesses. But they're going to have to wait for another day.
*Jeremy Gordin was formerly associate editor of The Sunday Independent. He has written or co-authored three books, including the bestselling biography of Jacob Zuma. He is director of the Wits Justice Project.
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