Keep smiling, keep shining; Knowing you can always count on me, for sure That's what friends are for; For good times and bad times; I'll be on your side forever more – Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Stevie Wonder (I think)

WOW!! That’s the word that came to the fore of my mind earlier today when I was in my own little space for the day. Why WOW, well I guess I couldn’t really find a word that could best describe how damn blessed I am to know the people that I know and that includes all of you guys!! What the bleep is he on about? Well indulge me for a moment shall you…

Before I proceed, a few welcomes, some unsolicited, but alas…Sophie, Sean, Adrian, Candace, Tebo and Pranushka, welcome to this our weekly community. Any comments on how to make this a better place, or if you don’t want to be on it any longer, please go to www.mondaymail.blogspot.com or mail me.

Random sms’, phone calls, emails, instant message, a message on Facebook (I’d add visits but I’d be lying J and I try and not lie) just to say ‘hi’. I got one of the sweetest ones a month or so ago saying thanks for helping out, where I didn’t actually think I was doing anything out of the ordinary, a call from a friend in despair just wanting to chat looking for advice, an email from a friend telling me that she wants to hook me up with a friend, an invitation to your wedding, telling me you are so chuffed just cos u saw me, guys more than willing to help out if my shoulder or knee is killing me[speaking of which if any of you guys are looking for a darn good Chiropractor or a Homeopath in Cape town, get hold of Dr De Coning and Dr Snyman respectively at a practice called Just Health on 021 7123594) they are damn good at what they do because they sort you out and then some!]….What else can I say other than WOW!! Some people ask me so where do I find the time to write these emails? Its 22h42 on a Monday nite, I have just got home from a rather long day, but all I can think of is writing this email, because firstly I have sh*t to say and secondly, even that one email I get back that says thanks, that was what I needed today is well worth it for me. We put a price on many things in our lives, but there are so many things in this life that are so easy to do yet priceless and can make a huge difference to the lives of many. In this day and age where we are so caught up in our little worlds, we tend to forget about the little things that truly make a difference.

Thanks!! Why am I writing all this well just to remind all of us hardcore people out there that it doesn’t take a hell of a lot to make a difference in someone’s life and let’s do our best to remember the little things. A simple ‘hi’ to a random stranger in the street, a smile even if you are having the cr*pest day (so what if they don’t respond, that’s not your problem), please…thank you…, no matter what you think, you really aren’t all that, you aren’t better than the petrol attendant, maybe more fortunate, but you aren’t any better…simple things which we tend to forget…those are the things that make societies a pleasant place. Let’s bring them back. It’s not all about you, and if it is I don’t think it should be!! I remember growing up, sorry was the hardest word I ever had to say, it really was I am not too sure why, but I used to get upset when I was told to apologise for my wrongs I am not sure if it was because I didn’t think I could ever be wrong or if I upset someone else, from where I sit now, I think it was definitely the former. Nowadays every other word is sorry, the meaning is gone and that’s utter boll*cks!

Anyway…I profess to be an open book. I bear my life for all to read etc. But during the course of the previous week I realized that this isn’t entirely true. I don’t really let you guys in on some deep matters of the heart. So here goes.

On Thursday evening that man they call Karabo D, came through for us, he organised some tickets to an Elle/Nokia launch party. So off went the boys, Tumi, Karabo, Lebo, Al, my brother Nana and myself. Just hanging with those guys regardless of where you are, you are bound to have a ripper. The night started off in good fashion, we got shuttled to the party, great company, booze and food…what more can a person ask for? Like all good things, this event too came to an end and the boys were pretty fired up so we decided to visit a local Thursday night spot.

We got there and it was a ripper, my A game was in very close proximity, it hardly strayed the whole night J (that’s my story and I am sticking to it), well we’ll call it the B-game cos the A-game has results J… I felt like an interior designer, I was working the room. The force within was strong (note all from my point of view). Invincible, Super confident…an absolute ripper and then just randomly it felt like the had just walked into the room, for those that don’t know about the Haitian, lets try the feeling when superman is exposed to Kryptonite, Rocky looking for Adrian after Apollo Creed socked it to him…a man was weak. Enter the ex. Exit focus…game. That wasn’t the worst of it. I soon saw that she was there with another dude…EISH, but wait there’s more, so I am standing in close proximity and they start tucking into each other, HMMM. EISH! It stung. It was pretty nasty, I cannot tell a lie. But I didn’t leave, I didn’t cry, cos I was scared Gareth Cliff would find out and laugh at me on radio, instead I moved myself to the other side of the room and tried to pick up where I left off before she came, but no hope, my game made like Nelly Furtado’s song, ‘I’m like a bird’ and flew far away. No ones fault, all my doing!

Oh well…I stayed on though and just carried on chatting to the boys. I look up and guess what I see? The ‘Ex and him show’ had ‘followed me’ to the other side of the room. Now whether she did it intentionally is totally irrelevant. It happened! Deal with it.

Anyway 4 am came by and work was on the next day, the time had come to stroll on home a tad later, well because it was getting late J so I go to my car only to find some dumb prick taking a wee on my car, his excuse he thought it was his car, I just let it be afterall it was dirty and needed a wash the next day, but my word did I want to unleash!! So I drove home like a raging lunatic…very stoopid, but I was checking to see if they did a good job with the car ;-).

Truth be told, as shaite as that experience was, trust you me it was just what the doctor ordered! (and that ‘s not me trying to be hardcore, cos you all know me…) She did absolutely nothing wrong, we have been off for about 7 months now. What do I expect that she is hanging around waiting for me? That’s just dof. She is more than entitled to show affection to anyone at anytime and I must just deal. Not something you want to see, but definitely something you want to see, and the fact that he was pretty random also put a bit of a smile on my dial! Tsk tsk…Even though I don’t know y tho? It was indeed moment of truth I tell you. Sucker punch was thrown lost my bearings for a bit, but the canvass was far away. It was the final chapter that needed to be written. IT IS DONE!!

Anyway to this weeks email. I am a pretty HUUUGE supporter of the current government, but some things really concern me and I will highlight some of these to you. Thank goodness for opposition! As much as I sympathise with the striking workers in this country, I feel that they and their leadership have lost the plot. I was listening to the news and I heard that the ‘leader’ of COSATU threatening that the protest will turn violent. What kind of bulls**t leadership is that. Who are you going to be violent against? Random people who want to go to work and earn a living? I can never profess to know the difficulty a lot of these striking workers face from day to day, but to turn to threaten to turn to violence or to prevent those that actually want to go to work, that I can never understand. Especially if you hear that there are rumours of parliament moving for a 57% increase in the president’s salary. I did a quick calculation. A 12% increase on a salary of say R50k a year works out to R6k. If I am not mistaken the policy of the strike is no work no pay. They have been striking for 12 days now and as a result they have lost say R1.7k. If they do infact receive their 12% increase it will effectively work out to 8% odd which I think isn’t far off the last offer tabled. In my opinion, this strike isn’t about the people, its all about Mr Vavi flexing some muscle and trying to show that he can bring the country to its knees. Now please tell me how that mentality is constructive in any way? They are very closely aligned with presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma…the future looks great…NOT!

Then there is my personal bugbear. Those 2010 stadiums! Now I am just a plain joe off the street, but if I and many more that I speak to can see that these stadiums are the biggest waste of resources ever, why cant the decision makers see the same? Fair enough there has been a lot of job creation, but I am sure that these amounts could have gone a long way in creating sustainable jobs. What happens after 2010? Well let me tell you what happens. These people are out of jobs. A couple of billion have been spent on stadiums that will hardly ever be reused. These self same people that were employed will still not have much of a home, running water, anti-retrovirals, sanitation, electricity, you see where I am going with this. If you want to build new stadiums, fair enough but build multipurpose venues, that will cater for all the sporting codes. In Cape Town, Newlands is in such a shaite location, yes there is a lot of history etc. blah blah, things change, that’s life! Build the new stadium in Greenpoint, sell off Newlands and develop some styling apartments, recoup some of your costs of development. I was in Durban the other day and I say the venue for the new stadium, its but a stones throw away from the current ABSA stadium, would it not have been a hell of a lot cheaper to have expanded the existing stadium? Lets not even mention the other stadiums in the outskirts. I went to the Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenburg last year, beautiful stadium, but it was not even half full for a full test match! now you tell me whats the use of sinking so much cash into these items, wait I’ll tell you…TENDERS! But that’s so f**ked up! The same old people win these tenders, instead of actually focusing on community development projects, we are helping the top dogs of this world but houses at Arabella and helicopters whilst for the poorest of the poor the status quo remains…and then we ask what about the crime?

Then there is that damn eNatis system. How the hell do the powers that be allow the system to go live if it wasn’t correctly tested. R480mil for what? It’s a great concept, very long overdue, but what about correct implementation. Any self respecting project manager would know all about testing, running the systems in parallel, I mean really? Once again TENDERS!!

Let me not even get into the inquest around the chief of police Jackie Selebi!

Jake White the national rugby coach has asked for an audience with the state president, the state president has duly accepted. Next thing, SARFU wants to write a letter to Jake to prohibit him from seeing the president. I am baffled. The reasons are because he is stepping over their heads! Power it can be a very messy thing if it’s in the wrong hands!

I am concerned!

Anyway I gotsta roll, just some more random thoughts I thought I’d share with you. Hope you all have a blissful week.

Birthdays
11th That man with the big smile the call Meaty
12th Carl, Mark E and Samantha
13th Fifi, Liyanda

That’s me for another week, maximum respect. The week is but a fetus, have an absolute ripper my dear friends! Please do visit www.thelonelyroad.org, there are only 15 more days before Tbang faces his lonely road.

Y
“que sera sera”