IT will no doubt upset some adults and delight others but, thanks to the Constitutional Court, it is now no longer a crime for children aged 12 to 15 to engage in consensual sexual activities.

The ruling comes just as spring tightens its balmy grip and the fevered lambs are seized by hormonally-charged urges to gambol about in loose clothing. Concerned parents are advised to stand by with the nettles and buckets of cold water.

In its unanimous judgment on Thursday, the court did not however rule on the criminal liability of 16 and 17-year-olds who had sex or merely even kissed and fondled those aged between 12 and 15.

This is a grey area in the legislation that struck us, here at the Mahogany Ridge, as potentially problematic. Consider a pair 15-year-olds who have not been saving themselves for the honeymoon, as it were. Does the farmyard behaviour become illegal the moment one partner turns 16?

I have mixed feelings about the ruling. True, it brings back cherished memories of Alison and our liaisons behind the swimming pool shed on those torrid Highveld afternoons in the early 1970s. After the al fresco clawing and groping, we'd lie back with our non-filtered cigarettes, inject absinthe straight into our veins and imagine the faces of our heroes in the clouds as they scudded overhead. Camus, Sartre, Kerouac, David Bowie . . . typical pop idols of the average 13-year-old. More importantly, we'd convince ourselves that it was society's crime, not ours, and then we'd copy one another's homework.

But all that has now been stripped of its illicit edge, the very thing that made it all so alluring and special. Forbidden fruit that is no longer forbidden? How wrong is that? Growing up will now always have been more fun for us and a greater adventure than it will ever be for our kids and that's a big pity.

Of course, they'll never believe you when you tell the little buggers this, but then they really do know better.

Moving on, then, as we must, to the more mundane business of President Jacob's alleged reading habits. It seems political analyst Richard Calland has sparked something of a controversy with his recent Cape Town Press Club address.

"It's not that [Zuma] can't read," Calland reportedly said, "it's that he doesn't read and he doesn't read the proper stuff; he doesn't read Cabinet briefs, he doesn't read stuff that is the meat and drink of modern, sophisticated government. It is not easy for one to have such disrespect for our president. The truth is we have a leader who encourages that . . . and who is, in many ways, the embodiment of anti-intellectualism."

While I would argue that it is, alas, all too easy to disrespect the president, a number of commentators have suggested that perhaps we should restrict our criticism to the man's leadership skills and not his reading habits.

Eusebius McKaiser, the famous public intellectual property, is one such person. He recently wrote an opinion piece suggesting our views of Zuma's reading habits were "probably based on his speaking skills, his accent, his command of English and an assessment of his debating prowess, and not archival records of life underground during the apartheid era, or on interviews with Zuma about his reading matter, or conversations with his closest aides who spend time with him". Our bad. Racist us.

He also took a swipe at Calland for his "embodiment of anti-intellectualism" remark. He was, he wrote, suspicious of such terms. "It is laden with insecurity about your IQ. Just get on with demonstrating brilliance in your work as writer, academic, researcher, journalist or office-bearer. Labels are for the nouveau-riche."

And just to make sure he had all bases covered, McKaiser quietly dropped in the following: "Here's my obsession: Does Zuma have the ability to assemble, and manage, a political team that can deliver material outcomes that see most of us live flourishing lives? If he can't read, and engage, the National Development Plan, then of course he won't be a good manager in that sense."

Which is, more or less, what Calland was saying in the first place.

But that's all by the by. These days it's no great thing if you don't read. Most of us are aliterate and couldn't be arsed about it anyway. Besides, the callow youth will tell you, print's dead and books just don't have a place anymore in this buzzy digital age.

Back in the day, though, with no television, cellphones and internet, it's all Alison and I ever had. And it was more than enough.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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