OUT TO LUNCH

I occasionally look down the back of the sofa for any spare change that may have tumbled out of my pocket as I have sat slumped watching the ‘Lincoln Lawyer’ on Netflix. The largest harvest I have had thus far is around R9 made up of one R5 coin and a couple of R2 coins.

Not too impressive. However, if press reports over the weekend are to be believed a rummage behind the sofa cushions at Pres Frogboiler’s Phala Phala game farm would have yielded far more and not in a dead currency like the Rand either.

If I thought that about $4 million dollars was hidden around the house in various bits of furniture I too would be turning the place upside down just as, we are led to believe, a Namibian national apparently did. As with most ventures in life it’s all about risk versus reward and the prospect of finding $4 million lying around and possibly getting away with it is well worth measuring against the unlikely downside of getting caught.

However, as juicy as this story may be one must remember that it has suddenly been conjured up by former spy boss Arthur Fraser who doesn’t exactly have an unblemished reputation for honesty and integrity. He’s also a huge fan of Jacob Zuma and a sworn enemy of Cyril Ramaphosa who he resents for demoting him back in 2018. 

However, it has given the media and opposition politicians the opportunity to speculate as to whether our President is in the money laundering business, whether he is aware of the maximum permitted amount of foreign currency you are allowed to possess in terms of SARB regulations and whether the SARS ought to be taking an interest.

Apparently, game deals are frequently settled in cash which does seem rather odd since such large sums are involved but who am I to sneer at tradition? Maybe the credit card machine wasn’t working due to power outages?

An amusing diversion this may be but it does rather eclipse the real news from Pres Frogboiler last week that he has announced the formation of yet another group of highly paid ‘experts’ to form the Broad-Based, Black Economic Advisory Council whose job it will be to make sure that those best qualified for a job don’t get it if they don’t satisfy certain racial and gender specific imperatives. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

One might have hoped that hard lessons had been learned over the past twenty eight years but it seems not so we can look forward to more cadre deployment, more non-functioning state enterprises and a brain drain of the best and brightest of all races.

Educated white South Africans will go because they know they have no prospects under the ANC and educated black South Africans will go because they want to be judged on merit and don’t want to be regarded as affirmative action appointees by their peers. What could be more insulting after you’ve studied hard and passed exams?

Last Monday the Pres’s newsletter had a good rant against all the evil whites still hogging the best bits of the economy for themselves and predictably blamed apartheid for the lack of progress over the past twenty-eight years. He also made this comment: 

Like all good ex-pat Brit born monarchists I spent last Thursday morning watching the Trooping of the Colour on TV as part of the four-day celebrations to give thanks for the seventy year reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

When I was born in December of 1952 Queen Elizabeth was already on the throne awaiting her coronation in June of 1953. She is the only monarch I have ever known and I must admit to a lump in my throat and rather damp eyes as I watched the splendid military display on Horse Guards parade with the Irish Guards trooping their colour and the regimental mascot, Seamus the wolfhound, leading the regiment. It’s often said that the Brits really know their stuff when it comes to pomp and ceremony and this year’s jubilee celebrations certainly didn’t disappoint.

Yes, I know the North Koreans and the Chinese can all goose step in perfect time and perform perfectly choreographed moves on the parade ground, but it always looks so robotic. Besides, what greater sight is there than a line of guardsmen in bright red tunics and bearskin hats or the spectacle of the mounted Household Cavalry with their gleaming breastplates, plumed helmets and immaculately turned-out horses? Then there is the band of the Coldstream Guards, first formed in 1785, which proves that it is possible for a human to perform complicated marching manoeuvres while playing a musical instrument. Take note SANDF.

The fly-past over Buckingham Palace was glorious and it occurred to me that spelling out the number 70 in perfect formation with 15 Typhoon fighter jets would be completely beyond the South African military. Perhaps it’s just as well we have nothing to celebrate these days in South Africa. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Apart from being a very fine excuse for a lavish four day national shindig with street parties across the whole of the UK and the lighting of beacons across the four countries on Thursday night what the Jubilee celebrations have shown beyond all doubt is that the monarchy in the UK is, contrary to what the lefties at The Guardian may say, alive and definitely kicking.

When the military parade was over on Thursday the crowds that had been lining the route spilled onto The Mall and into Trafalgar Square. Clearly social distancing is but a bitter memory (although one Sky correspondent was still wearing a mask when she interviewed Queen’s Brian May) and there was not a mask in sight among the throng who were walking, shoulder to shoulder, towards the Victoria monument in front of Buck House to cheer their 96-year-old monarch and wave thousands of tiny Union flags.

For those who didn’t make it to central London much the same was happening across the UK. Tens of thousands of grateful citizens just giving thanks for the steady hand the constitutional monarch has had on the affairs of state for the past seventy years. Bearing in mind that the King or Queen traditionally remain above politics this is something of an oddity for non-Brits.

The days of ‘off with his/her head’ are long gone in the UK and yet the apolitical monarch still commands far more respect from her subjects than a politician could ever hope to. The whining lefties who attempted to spoil the party by throwing themselves in front of marching guardsmen last Thursday would no doubt argue that the monarchy is an anachronism and the money spent on them could be spent on better things like protecting badgers.

I did like the sign one of them was carrying which read along the lines of ‘Give back the Royal Land’. A sure sign that the global reach of local buffoon Julius Malema is something to be reckoned with.

My hope is that the heavily polished toecap of one of the marching bandsmen made contact with the skull of at least one of the protesters. Of course, In China or North Korea the protesters would have been shot on the spot as terrorists and nobody would have batted an eyelid. But in the UK the perpetrators will appear in court, their pronouns will be respected, and they will probably get off with a fine. That, in essence, is the difference between a constitutional monarchy and a totalitarian state.

Back in 1984 a new TV show called Spitting Image appeared on British TV screens. Rubber caricatures of politicians, celebrities and members of the royal family were used to lampoon them with some very talented impersonators providing voice overs.

Even the Queen was subjected to mockery but oddly enough the nation didn’t crumble, and the ravens never deserted the Tower of London. If you insult the Thai king (not one of the world’s best-known monarchs) you face 15 years in prison as a woman found out back in 2016. Even our thin-skinned politicians get uppity when they are justifiably mocked and demand that their exalted office should command automatic respect. Suck on that one Fikile.

The essential difference between the UK and the rest of the world though is that the UK has a sense of the ridiculous and is largely immune to mockery. This is why a Labour MP called Stella Creasy can, with a straight face, announce that women can indeed be born with penises despite not being able to offer a single example of that happening.

Nobody can take anything she says seriously ever again and although she may be mocked she will be tolerated….at least until the next general election when her constituency may wonder about the wisdom of electing a Cambridge graduate with a PhD from the London School of Economics who seems a bit confused when it comes to matters of human biology.

I was in London for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations back in 2012 and while there was plenty of pomp and ceremony, including a huge parade of boats on the River Thames, it was a cold and wet affair and one also felt that London was keeping back its best for the Summer Olympics a month later. No such accusation could be levelled against the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. They were magnificently over the top and a fitting tribute to a much-loved monarch. God Save the Queen.