Tonight - last night to those reading this - I watched the impossible happen: the greatest football team in the world, FC Barcelona, lost to Chelsea in the second leg of their Champions League semifinal at Nou Camp in Spain.

In that moment in the second half when FC Barcelona had a penalty inside the Chelsea box and Lionel Messi stepped up to take it, it looked - notwithstanding Barcelona's defeat last week and notwithstanding losing on Saturday night to Real Madrid - notwithstanding all that, it looked as though the world had righted itself.

But Messi, of all people, hit the cross bar - and the ball bounced away. Perhaps the most surprised person in the world was Peter Cech, the Chelsea goal keeper.

What happened? Was Messi nervous? How could Messi, a professional athlete who's played in every "big game" possible, be nervous?

... I don't know; maybe someone else can tell me what happened. It just seems that Messi and his compañeros simply lost their mojo.

There were also a few other unexpected disappointments yesterday, alas, ones closer to home.

Many people thought that by close of business yesterday at the North Gauteng high court, there would be good news for those who don't want to pay tolls. It somehow felt that in the case between the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) and the National Treasury, on the one hand, versus the People of Gauteng, on the other, over the matter of e-tolling, the People might coming emerge grinning.

And that still might be the case. But the first part of the application was about whether the People should be allowed an amendment to their original applications. David "Pookie" Unterhalter SC came out swinging for SANRAL and Jeremy Gauntlett SC did the same for the National Treasury, which had also joined the fray - and the judge wouldn't let the People change their amendments.

Unterhalter and Gauntlett on the side of the baddies? That's the trouble with being an advocate, you know; they're a bit like hookers; they have to take the first client that comes along, no matter how they might feel about the matter or the client.

It felt as though the People had hit the cross bar when they ought to have gouged a hole in the back of the net.

Then, everyone's darling, the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, said during a briefing at parliament that she would hold fire on investigating allegations that the crime intelligence boss, General Richard Mdluli, had abused state funds. The matter was still with theinspector general of intelligence, Faith Radebe, and she had to be given air, said Madonsela.

"I gave the matter to my counterpart in intelligence, because she is already involved," said Madonsela. "She is looking at it and we will see how it pans out."

According to Diane Kohler Barnard, the DA shadow minister of police, there are 15 good reasons why the general ought to be checked out.

One of them was that "two journalists were allegedly paid, one R100 000, to write a positive story about the police and the other R50 000 not to publish a story about a senior cop."

Sounds a trifle far-fetched, I have to say.

Maybe Tokyo Sexwale's former spin doctor, Chris Vick - who has apparently been holding seminars and writing columns on how clever he was at bamboozling the fourth estate and what a bunch of bozos they are anyway - maybe he was offered fat bribes in his time.

The most I've ever been offered as a bribe was a six-pack or two by South African Breweries at Christmas. And I wasn't writing about SAB at the time anyway.

What are those great lines by Humbert Wolfe?

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,

thank God! the British journalist.

But, seeing what the man will do

unbribed, there's no occasion to.

That sounds about our speed and style, don't you think?

Anyway, I might have just been unlucky - in other words, I might have hung out where the big bucks weren't; I might have been in my youth an unspeakable, strait-laced prig, wearing my morals like an energetic Jesuit and scaring off the baddies - but I still don't believe that some journo was paid 100k merely to write a positive story about the cops ...

Surely Mdluli and/or Nathi Mthethwa are too smart to waste the slush fund on that kind of stuff when there are all those luxury German vehicles out there.

The late Deon du Plessis of The Daily Sun used to say, as I might have mentioned before, that the true currency of South Africa is chicken or, rather, chee-ken. This, you understand, is not merely the feathered fowl that - judiciously broiled - everyone loves to eat in Seffrica. It was Deon's term for the larger gravy train.

But I say that the true currency of the gravy train is a BMW or SUV. Consider Jacob Zuma's nephew Khulubuse "Khula" Zuma, a jovial fellow whom I would meet from time to time on the Zuma trail. Three of his "luxury" cars were auctioned as a way of raising the 10-million owing to Protea Coin Security. They went - as they say - under the hammer in Durban on Monday. But what most people don't know is that Khula has a number of other cars stashed elsewhere in Durban, ones that the sheriff of Verulam missed out.

Anyway, it felt as though the Public Protector hit the cross bar when she ought to have been gouging a hole in the back General Mdluli's net.

Well, apparently even Messi has his off days.

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