Yes, I am a pampered spoilt little brat. I also pay for the privilege of my water and power, so when they stop I get a little miffed. I am a simple creature. I have simple pleasures, like a hot bath after a long, cold day. I know there are millions of people who live happily without this privilege, for whom a bucket of water comes at the end of a 2-mile hike, I am not one of them. I realise I take it for granted, but then I take switching the light on and having power for granted to – and 24 hour pizza delivery.
This morning I woke to find that I had water gushing happily from the taps once more. What I did not have was the necessary power to heat it up. Apparently Eskom does not like to be outdone in the poor service delivery stakes and decided to cut power to the entire neighbourhood again.
There is a knock-on effect to the nation’s GDP as a result, not to mention the poor people I have to deal with today. A smelly, grumpy, pissed off, sleepy person means pain and suffering for all she comes into connect with. This then leads to poor work performance and general bad attitude, which leads to a lack of income and a high staff turnover. Magnify this by the whole neighbourhood. This translates into a city wide go slow and higher incidents of road rage and office workers going postal. It can cause more damage to the economy then the ongoing fuel shortage.
This strike has some amusing qualities for me, most of which disappear in the reality of having no petrol, but they are there nonetheless. The industry are asking for people not to stockpile or be so selfish as to fill up their whole tanks and only to try and get more petrol when the red light has been on for a day. The thing is if you wait that long you will be going nowhere and if you happen to find a garage with full tanks – by the way Shell seems quite flush – you fill up because only God knows when you will be so lucky again.
Strike season comes at the same time every year and as the birds start their strange mating dances, so do the unions and the Government. The thing is everyone knows what the outcome will be, but they have to go through the ritual of it. Everyone loves a good strike, a good march and a place to go where you can practice your ululation. The unions come in with a totally bizarre demand like 20% increases, the Government offers 7% and then like an Mumbai bazaar they even out to the amount they both know going in they will accept, which is about 10%. They can’t just agree on this at the start and not strike at all, because then everyone would question why they belong to a union anyway if they don’t get to march and stuff.
Unions are a great way to make cash. You get some members who all pay you say 5% of their salary and all you have to do is arrange a strike sometime in the year. Like a party planner. Advertising is not really supported by any unions, we don’t earn enough and there are not enough of us to make it worthwhile. We’re lucky if we get a 5% raise at all each year, also our bosses would just laugh hysterically at us and then give us a pink slip. We’re also used to being in fierce competition with each other and couldn’t all work together if our lives depended on it.
In other news, that idiot Shrien Dewani is too depressed to stand trial. Dumbass. He’s scared of going to jail in the Western Cape. Oops. Maybe he should have thought about that before he hired someone to kill his wife there? Besides as daily reports of his extra-curricular activities filter in, he could be very happy in a jail cell with two large gay men from the Cape Flats. If he’s worried about HIV he needn’t be – prisoners get free condoms. It’s more than Anni got.
If the situations were reversed and a South African was arrested for offing his wife in London, he’d be on the next flight from OR Tambo to Heathrow end of story, bugger his depression. Instead this bastard gets to sit in a 5 star rehab facility, apparently the Prioiry wasn’t good enough for him so he’s gone to another one, and is treated like a Ming bloody vase. My advice is that he should rethink the mental incapacity thing. If he ends up back here with an insane plea and is sent to a State mental facility like Sterkfontein, he is in a for way worse than anything he can imagine in a State jail.
In another bizarre legal case, a dog in Ireland is standing trial for murder after he indulged in apparently consensual sex with a human woman and she died after an acute allergic reaction to the sex. The dog, an Alsatian, has been remanded in custody since 2006. Its owner will stand trial on its behalf. He, the owner, met the dead woman on a bestiality website and arranged the little rendezvous. In my opinion the dog is the victim here. How can raping a dog be termed consensual? My legal wise spouse informs me that this is some strange Roman law thing. Will the dog get the death sentence? Is he covered by basic human rights? It’s all very murky to me. Apparently you can rape a sheep, but not a dog.
Tell that to the Cape Flats guy, Shrien will sharing a cell with, who was arrested yesterday for doing the dirty with a Jack Russell named Stompie.
No comments:
Post a Comment