THANKS to the social networks, it is quite possible to sit here in the Mahogany Ridge, nurse a beaker of the amber stuff and calmly wallow in a sea of failed new year's resolutions. From across the length and breadth of the land they come, via Facebook and Twitter, the horrible confessions of abject failure and misery.
Exercise regimes have tumbled, households have been turned upside-down in search of cigarettes, and the January sales have put the credit card cut-up on hold. As for the really simple goals, like getting organised or being a better person, well, life just came along and royally screwed them up, didn't it?
Occasionally signs of grim determination burst forth from the narcissistic ooze.
"Up early," comes a Tweet, "sticking to resolution. Off for run. Will be more of a walk because I'm still coughing." "Find out here," comes another, "how to enjoy your first month as a vegetarian." And this really touching, if creepy admission: "The guy in the bathroom mirror doesn't scare me even tho he's always there, looking at me."
A fellow columnist posted his resolution on Facebook: "To look beyond the antics of our politicians and see the people, the nation -- and to tap into the massive goodwill that still exists on all levels."
Well, yes. That was on December 31, when the recklessness, along with the firewater, was raging in his veins. How did he feel the next day, with the remorse and maudlin sap dripping on the throbbing head like the ancient Chinese water torture? Where was the massive goodwill then?
For my own part, I will continue to be handsome and brilliant and kind to the less fortunate and just do my thing as usual. Ideally, I would also want to ignore the politicians but I believe that, as in previous years, they will not ignore me and, instead, take active measures to find and annoy me. They really can't help it, that's just how they are.
Consider, for example, Marius Fransman, the provincial ANC leader, and his attempted "intervention" in the city's humanitarian relief efforts for those who were displaced in the runaway fire that killed three people and left more than 4 000 shack dwellers homeless in Khayelitsha on New Year's Day.
By all accounts, Cape Town's Disaster Response teams -- who do this sort of thing for a living -- responded to the situation in a swift and professional manner, providing victims with food parcels, blankets, baby packs, clothing, building material and even trauma counselling.
In addition, the city has distributed reconstruction housing starter kits and staff have remained on site to help residents clear the area and rebuild their homes. Temporary accommodation at community facilities has also been provided.
But this was not good enough for Fransman. Meeting with certain un-named church and community leaders to "devise a plan of action", a dreaded "committee" -- a self-important collective that takes minutes but wastes hours -- was, in keeping with the modern collective impulse, duly established.
Said committee had then to be sold to the masses, and so, at a meeting at a local hall, Fransman cynically accused the city of not being "proactive enough" in managing the disaster and being blind to the "plight of the people". There were "white bosses" in the council who were oblivious to the suffering.
All this, of course, could be miraculously remedied if the committee was now placed at the centre of the humanitarian relief effort, where it would focus -- as the Cape Times put it -- on "co-ordinating food and donations", setting up a database of displaced persons and, according to Fransman, "getting the city to be more active".
What he means, though, is this: instead of handing out food and blankets to those who need it, the city should rather cede this operation to the ANC who would presumably then decide, possibly through party membership cards and the wearing of political T-shirts, exactly who is in need of relief and who can do without.
Further afield, the ANC has resolved to beef up its strategies to counter negative perceptions about President Jacob Zuma as it prepares for the 2014 general elections. Zuma will, according to reports, lead the party to the polls.
What is required, then, is a plan to get rid of the negative baggage -- that fraud and corruption stuff, the spy tape drama, the perception that he is an indecisive leader, the constant dread that he will open his mouth and say something off the top of his head -- and keep the man wrapped in cotton wool, out of sight and out of mind, for the next 16 or 17 months.
Suddenly the bunker at Nkandla begins to make sense.
This article first appeared in The Weekend Argus.
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